A Splendora Tale
I spent my high school years in a small Texas town named Splendora. Splendora, Texas. You have to say it that way when you refer to a small town in Texas. The whole thing, town and state. Humble, Texas. Conroe, Texas. I don’t know why, you just have to.
Moving to Texas from New York City was a traumatic thing for me. For a myriad of reasons, I never fit in. No need to go into that now. I’m sure you can imagine.
Here is one tale that encapsulates the quality of my daily life in Splendora.
I didn’t cut classes that often. Mostly because there wasn’t much to do in the neighborhood, I didn’t have a car, and even if I did, the closest civilization was half an hour’s drive. On occasion I would wrangle a good friend into going somewhere and great adventures were to be had, typically in Houston, doing things no one in Splendora High School would ever understand.
One time, two friends and I went into Houston to the Museum of Fine Arts and then to eat Chinese food in the tiny Houston Chinatown. I am not sure anyone I went to high school with ever had Chinese food. We were mature, cultured, worldly, and better than everyone else. And, of course, we got caught. Perhaps we were bragging and someone overheard. I’m not quite clear on what happened. Our government teacher summoned us to her desk and chided us for skipping. I think she was mildly amused. Her comment was, “You three are the only ones here who would skip school to do something aesthetic.”
The next stop was the vice-principal’s office. Now here was an interesting man, a quintessential Splendora, Texas man. His name was “Doc,” or at least that’s what everyone called him. He was a rangy man who wore polyester western leisure suits in all sorts of disco days colors, particularly pale blue, weird unnamable green, or burgundy, or..ew..plaid. With these suits, he wore yoked western shirts with pearl snap buttons. The outfit was accessorized with two-toned pointed-toe boots and a western belt with his name imprinted on the back and a large metal belt buckle. As expected, a thick wad of keys dangled at his side and a skoal can ring worn into the back pocket. Oh, and let’s not forget the immaculately groomed broom of a mustache.
This man made his living as the “ag teacher” of our school. He spent his days teaching young future farmers of America how to castrate pigs. The squealing sounds of those lessons made health class somewhat difficult.
So Doc had all three of us in those hard, unyielding chairs in his office where, as his job required, he scolded us. This scolding is the very point of my tale. Confronting three good students with good grades who never caused any trouble, Doc attempted to shame us for our misbehavior. With a grave look, he tried to impress upon us the seriousness of the situation, shaking his head and intoning deeply, “I just can’t believe y’all cut school to go off and do something aesthetic.” He even stumbled a little over the word. Yes, his disappointment in our aesthetic proclivities was palpable. It was all we could do to keep from bustin’ out laughin’. I’m fairly confident that the government teacher didn’t explain what the word meant when she told him what we had done.
I’m not sure how we got away without suffering any consequences, but we did. The next day, I ate my Chinese food leftovers for lunch content in believing I would leave Splendora at the first possible opportunity.
