I realized the other day that my art is all about my childhood, and my childhood had a lot more art in it than I had realized. Mostly, doodling. Al Hirschfeld said something like: "artists are just children who refuse to put away their crayons."

The Mrs. Fremlingher Solution

Mrs. Fremlingher (not her real name, of course) was my third grade teacher who had it in for me. I was not completely innocent. One of my character flaws is that I get bored very easily and when I get bored I get fidgety. When I get fidgety, I usually do one of two things: a) talk too much, or b) draw doodles. As a kid I had the secret ambition of being the next cartoonist for “Brenda Starr,” or even having my own comic strip one day.

Mrs. Fremlingher might have done better in another occupation rather than trying to tame third-graders. I loved my second and fourth grade teachers, but Mrs. Fremlingher looked mean. She had black hair in a bouffant style with a white streak (like Cruella Deville but without the dalmatians). She rarely smiled. She expected us to keep still and behave ourselves. Looking back, grade 3 was mostly a repeat of grade 2. This helps some of the kids catch up, but it not really fair to the kids who read fluently, know their times table, and didn’t get into the gifted program. It can be REALLY boring.

I used to get mostly good grades, except sometimes in what used to be called “citizenship.” Some of the nice teachers had kind ways of letting parents know that their children needed improvement in this area. I flunked citizenship in Mrs. Fremingher’s class. Mom had to go to school for a parent-teacher conference. Uh-Oh!!! Dum-de-dom-dom-DUM! Mom put on her best tweed social worker suit. She left the house with pocketbook on elbow. I was imagining that I would get some kind of punishment – like no allowance for a week until I shaped up. Or worse, the “talk.”

Mom came home from school. It was a short walk and a sunny day. She was smiling. What? Mom took me aside and said in a straight voice, “Mrs. Fremlingher gets migraines, terrible headaches, especially when the kids are talking all at once.” As Mom explained, the classroom faced Santa Monica Boulevard which had lots of traffic and street noise. There was no air conditioning (not sure it had even been invented yet) so Mrs. Fremlingher could either open the window and hear all the noise, or she could keep it shut and the room would be really stuffy.

Now, she said, do you think you could be a mensch and not give poor Mrs. Fremlingher headaches? Oh, I said. Yes, I think I could do that. Mostly, Mrs. Fremlingher got fewer headaches the rest of the school year. My citizenship grades improved. These days, when I have a problem communicating with some one, I wonder if I am unintentionally giving them a headache? Maybe they have some other health issue? I think back to Mrs. Fremlingher.