A "B" is Pretty Good

I was six years old and in my very first year of school. The first grade, with Mrs. Branson, at Grapevine Elementary School in Madisonville, Kentucky. In that part of the world, at that time, Kindergarten was an elective. My parents had elected to keep me out of it, so First Grade was indeed the first grade.

It was all new to me. From endless hours of play in my own back yard and the simple rules of come when you're called, clean your plate, and be nice to your sisters and brothers, I found myself in the closed classroom of paper and paste and fat pencils and Dick and Jane and Spot—See Spot run.—and new rules and measures of my worth. My only advantage in this new world of teachers and time-outs (read stand with your nose in the corner), and grades marked by letters I was only just learning was that I had an older sister and brother who had gone before and who seemed no worse for the experience. I could be hopeful that the same would be true for me. And as the first few weeks went by, my hope seemed to be justified. This was easier than I’d thought it would be, and it had its rewards.

When I received my first report card, I experienced for the first time that I can remember the focused, attentive praise of my parents. When you’re the third in line (out of what would be eight), you tend to feel a bit lost in the shuffle, expected to follow the example of your older siblings with less need for parental correction and praise as motivation. Consequently, the praise for my straight-As on my very first report card made an impression on me. It felt good to know that I had pleased my parents, and it felt good to have them tell me so. With growing confidence I returned to school for more reading and writing and ’rithmatic. And when the time came for the second report card, my six-year-old heart was full with the expectation of my parents’ pride-filled approval. That is, until I opened the report card.

There were Bs on it.
    In the first few months of first grade I don’t know that I understood the levels of quality associated with particular letter grades. I only knew that “A” was good, “A” was praise-worthy, “A” would make my parents proud of me. I could only assume that “not-A” was “not good”. And this worried me. I didn't want to disappoint my parents. I didn't want them to be upset. So, I decided to fix it. With all the concentrated ineptitude of a six-year-old boy afraid of being in trouble, I took a pencil eraser to the inked-in grades (they were hand-written by the teacher back then), and rubbed and rubbed until I wore the paper away and the worrisome Bs disappeared. Then I flipped the pencil, put point to worn report-card paper, and in the neatest first-grade penmanship I could manage I replaced the little Bs with little As. With trembling hands and my anxiety building, I slid the report card back into its official manila envelope covering and awaited the moment of … well, you know.
    It didn’t work, of course. Later that evening, when my father got home, I came when called and gathered in the living room with my sister and brother for an audience with my expectant parents. My older sister went first. All As. She always made all As. Well done my good and faithful servant. My older brother was next. All As. (But his days were numbered). And my parents rewarded him too with the praise I coveted. Then it was my turn, and with my heart pounding in my chest, and wearing the most convincing smile I could conjure, I handed over the treacherous document, hoping.

My pitiful handiwork was evident immediately, but remarkably, my parents didn't really scold me for what I'd done. I heard words about honesty and words about trust and words about doing my best, but most of all I heard words of reassurance. They seemed to understand, and they wanted me to understand  that a “B” was not so bad. A “B” was pretty good, in fact.

So, a “B” is pretty good.

The words were comforting despite my embarrassment. But I sometimes wonder now if I might have learned the lesson too well. That first straight-As report card of my first grade year would be the last straight-As report card I would earn until my sophomore year in college. “Doing my best,” it seemed, never delivered the best that I could do, but it became the phrase to appease my parents, whether they were saying it or I was saying it. I was a “B” student, or worse, on all the report cards that came thereafter. Yet I always wanted there to be something better in me.

Don't get me wrong. I still appreciate the wise sensitivity my parents showed me that day. But as much as I needed their reassurance, I might have needed their confidence in me even more. Many years later I would change my grades again, but this time I would do so through a determination to learn what I could really do as a student, something it took me a long time to understand. And then, nothing less would satisfy.

I'll admit, in later years I may have become a little obsessed about the grades. And even now, when my last report card is fading into history, I sometimes find it hard to take it easy. Still, looking back on all the years I failed to see my own potential, I think I'd take the obsession over the settling.

A “B” is pretty good, in fact. But I'd still rather have the A.

Imagery and Absence

I reach for the cool handle and press it down with my left hand as I push the door open.  It creaks and pops and separates from the doorframe to allow me access to the room. This room has been closed for some days, its usual occupant gone to college, leaving it much as I expected.  I’m struck simultaneously by the nearly overwhelming mess of it all and the distinctive, unmistakable smell of maleness—the scent of sweat and breath and too much cologne, burnt matches and spent candles. The ceiling fan whirs softly over head, left running, its chain tink tinking against the light globe, spinning a perpetual breeze trapped in the 10 x 10 space.  

I pick my way through clutter on the floor and lower myself to the chair where he sits, the place where he reads and writes and watches movies and laughs.  The worn purple brocade cushions of the chair give way to size and weight that must feel familiar, for he and I are nearly the same in both respects.   I survey the room:  Where to start?  The bed is a pile of pillows and blankets.  The floor is a pile of clothing, some inside out, some half folded, so that I decide it’s safer just to assume that everything needs to be washed.  The bookshelf is stuffed with books read, half-read, and unread, and folded notes, and guitar picks, and coins, and memorabilia with symbolic meaning for him, secrets I will never be asked to understand.  

Around my feet are strewn the remains of meals in the middle of the night.  Empty chip bags.  Candy wrappers.  The peanut butter jar I couldn't find this morning, with a table knife balanced on the top.  To the right, on the makeshift side table that is really a small, black, metal computer desk, stands an array of cups and glasses, their service done, and milk dried to the bottom that I'll have to scrub out with my usual inward and empty threats to leave the work to him.  And among the cups and glasses are empty Coke cans, some standing and some lying on their sides, all gape-mouthed, another sign of his odd, nocturnal nutrition.

I reason it out.  The milk goes with the peanut butter.  The Cokes go with the chips.  I could be angry at the mess he promised repeatedly to clean before he left.  But I decide, in the end, that perhaps it’s just a problem of definition.  After all, I have no idea what it looked like while he was there.  Perhaps it was much worse.  Perhaps this is what clean is to him.  I take it all in.  I breathe it in.  And I decide it’s too much work to begin at this hour.  But really, I’m simply reluctant to remove the evidence of his palpable presence there.  I’ll clean it before he comes home again.  For now, I can still feel him.