In fourth grade, I had a teacher named Mrs. Hulsey. She was always a great teacher, but I have a couple of memories of her that really stand out.
The first really memorable experience occurred in her class during a spelling test. I was the winner of the previous day's spelling bee, so I earned the right to call out the spelling words to the rest of the class during the test.
Everything was going swimmingly until I got to the word "tidy." Despite my dad's best efforts to persuade me otherwise, I was convinced that this word carried a soft "i."
Confidently, I announced to the class: "The next word is . . . tiddy."
EVERYONE started to laugh, and one of the boys said, "Mrs. Hulsey, she said TITTY!"
At that moment, I realized my terrible, terrible mistake. I turned to look at my teacher, always the picture of poise and propriety, and I saw that she was laughing so hard she was shaking, with tears running down her face. I wanted the floor to swallow me up.
After I graduated from fourth grade, I generally avoided Mrs. Hulsey - embarrassed because I was sure that she had either forgotten me or remembered me only as the titty girl.
My junior year of high school, I won my school's pageant. I had about zero self-confidence at the time, so it was a really big deal to me. However, perhaps even more memorable than winning the pageant was what happened the next day.
I came traipsing down the stairs and my mom informed me that I had flowers. I looked at the card and saw that they were from none other than Mrs. Hulsey, congratulating me in the nicest kind of way. It turns out that she had neither forgotten me nor defined me by my one terrible (and now funny) goof up.
It was one of those gestures, completely undeserved, that made me see myself in an entirely different light.
