Remembering Mrs. Hanrahan

Remember the great cult horror film “Creature from the Black Lagoon?” The film was in black and white, but I always visualized the creature in color: The Creature had muddy green-gray skin with maybe a few splotches of purple. The whites of its eyes were really pale yellow and its teeth were mottled brown.

OK, now picture that same Creature in a flowered print dress, maybe greenish leaves with big violet flowers. Got it? OK, you have the image I carry of my 4th grade teacher Mrs. H. Actually, her name was Mrs. Hamrahan, but just so we don’t embarrass her grand children, let’s calls her Mrs. H. And she probably wasn’t near 7’ high either, but she did seem pretty big. Remember we are talking 4th grade here.

Mrs. H talked to herself. She would often give the class an assignment that would keep us quietly busy, like writing a composition on “My Favorite Sandwich” or some such inane topic. That gave her an excuse – as if she needed one - to spend hours sitting behind her desk rambling on. Fortunately I have forgotten most of what she talked about, but I do remember that most of it made little sense. It was disjointed. Today we might call it free associating. We could also say that Mrs. H had a really bad drinking problem, but that was back in a time when teachers were god-like, so nobody would have dared suggested that Mrs. H came to class bombed. Now we can say she was probably a drunk. Or crazy. Or a fine mix of both.

Anyway, regardless of whatever else we were supposed to be doing, our 4th grade class spent a most of every school day listening to Mrs. H’s ramblings, soused and otherwise. We were the quintessential captive audience. Getting permission to go to the bathroom was our only escape.

A favorite topic of Mrs. H was her family, particularly her daughter Mary (I think her real name was Helen, but we gotta protect the innocent here).

Mary, according to Mrs. H was a terrible daughter. Mary had no respect for her Mother. Mary behaved badly. And so on. We were regaled with stories of Mary-The-Evil for hours at time. Then one day, Mrs. H announced that Mary would be visiting the class. We had no idea why, but then when you are 10 years old, you don’t have a whole lot of ideas about a whole lot of stuff. If Mrs. H was going to bring her demon daughter to class, it was just another one of those inexplicable things grown ups did and kids had to accept.

For the next few weeks, Mrs. H flapped around the room and her rambling assumed a particularly frightening intensity. She was fixated on Mary’s impending visit. Day after day we heard stories about her past visits to other classes. One way or another, they were always a disaster of the highest magnitude. Mary always did something to embarrass Mrs. H.

For these visits, Mrs. H assured us that Mary always wore her oldest clothes and was on her worst behavior. “Right now,” Mrs. H warned, “ she was probably at home planning something terrible.” So, why did she keep bringing her to class? We didn’t dare ask.

An important part of the preparations for Mary's visit was deciding where she was going to sit in the class room. Sseveral days were spent discussing this.These weren’t really “discussions” since Mrs. H was the only one talking, but there definitely seemed to be several people involved in those “conversations.”

There’s no great ending to this story. Mary arrived. She was older than us. I was 10; everybody over 16 was a grown up. And as promised, Mary was dressed in a frumpy outfit. She looked like a smaller version of Mrs. H. I don’t remember her saying anything. She just sat in one of the classroom seats. Then she was gone. And Mrs. H rambled on.

This is my 4th grade memory. I am sure other stuff happened, but that is all I can recall of my year in Class 4-6. Or was it Class 4-5?

...........................MRS. HANRAHAN: THE TEACHER FROM THE BLACK LAGOON.