It was my final year at Enders Road Elementary and being in fourth grade had its privileges. Amy Cook and I got to leave class early each day to announce the bus arrivals over the PA system. Our selection for this task was based on the fact that we walked home, but it was still a very big deal. Mrs. Pelly was our teacher and she was amazing. Every day after lunch she would sit on her velvet camelback “reading sofa” and read aloud to us from Danny, Champion of the World or James and the Giant Peach. My grades were good and I enjoyed the status of being picked in the mid-rounds of kickball at lunch. Short of missing out on the lead role in the Christopher Columbus play, it was a tremendous school year. Life was good.
We also ate at Friendly’s–a lot. Friendly’s is an east coast restaurant chain that feels like a diner with no personality; imagine a slightly hipper Denny’s. On Friday nights, my mom, sisters, and I would hit the Fayetteville location for burgers, fries, and hot fudge sundaes. My dad was often out of town on business and I’m not sure why that corresponded with going out to eat at Friendly’s, but it did. My dad was gone so much, my mom was worried the Friendly’s patrons might think she was a single mother.
My dad was an electrical engineer and working on a Cold War project called “Over The Horizon” radar. His business trips were to Maine, home of an Air Force base housing this long range radar system. I guess if the Russians ever attacked from the east, protecting Stephen King, lobsters, and LL Bean was our top priority. So while I made bus announcements and enjoyed crinkle cut fries, my dad was protecting us from World War III in the Pine Tree State. But as his trips got longer and more frequent, my mom decided something had to be done.
“Welcome to Shawhsank.”
–Warden Samuel Norton
So it came to pass that the Matsumotos temporarily relocated to Maine to shorten my dad’s commute to his war games. Early one spring morning, woeful yet curious, my sisters and I climbed aboard our blue station wagon and we drove to what seemed like a world away to Addison, Maine. With a population of just over 1,000 “Down Easters,” Addison is a pretty small town, if you can call it a town. Let’s just say there’s very few places you can drop the little yellow GoogleMaps man in Addison and get a street view. Driving down State Route 187, you’d see a few houses connected by telephone poles. After what seemed like an eternity in the car, we finally arrived at what would be called home. When my dad stopped the car, we could hear the ocean crash upon the rocks and sand of our back yard. The three kids from landlocked Central New York ran down to the beach and ceremoniously dipped our feet in the Atlantic Ocean. After that initial excitement, the honeymoon ended real fast.
Our house with its views of the Atlantic from our living room was lovely, but as a kid from the suburbs–I was miserable. Our driveway was a mile long, meaning there were no immediate neighbors for playing Nerf football or walking to Lipe’s Dairy for Twinkies and Gobstoppers. (Come to think of it–Lipe’s Dairy was 600 miles away in my hometown, so no one was probably walking there.) The closest McDonalds was thirty miles away, the movie theatre was an hour away, we got limited reception on our TV, and I’m pretty sure the house we were renting was haunted. The fact that my dad had to fend off a bat that got into the house certainly didn’t help.
School was bizarre; I couldn’t understand some of my classmates’ accents, nor their stories about their dads being lobster fishermen. The curriculum was super easy and the amount of recess took me by surprise; seemingly four or five times a day we were shooed outside to chase each other around on the playground. I was like one the kids in School of Rock when the fake Ned Schneebly took over as teacher–aren’t we supposed to be learning something? The images from my Maine education are fuzzy — girls talking about the Saturday Fever Soundtrack, milk breaks in the afternoon, a blue metal spiral slide, and a very low-budget theatrical production of Huckleberry Finn.
“Things went on like that for a while. Prison life consists of routine, and then more routine.
Ellis “Red” Redding
Soon enough, the school year ended and I was stuck at home with my family. I filled my days pestering my sisters and rereading my book about the Lake Placid Olympics. The book was actually a preview of the 1980 Winter Games and as this was now the summer of 1980, a bit outdated. It was like studying a horse racing form after the race had already been run. I swam in the ocean once or twice, but for a kid raised in chlorinated, heated pools, the Atlantic of our backyard was grossly disappointing. Even in July, the water temperature in Maine is bone-shockingly cold–so cold that when you go underwater your soul is filled with the saddest truths of your broken life. I imagine it’s like being around a Dementor. So, I mostly stayed on the land and took out my frustration hitting rocks with a stick. Part of our “yard” was a giant sedimentary mass that sprayed off grey fragments in a pleasing fashion when whacked properly. My excavating wasn’t covered by a Rita Hayworth poster and it would have been nice if my therapeutic rock smashing was allowing me to tunnel to freedom.
Then some scary news came through our grainy TV. As a response to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter revitalized the Selective Service System. All males aged 18 to 26 would need to register for “the draft.” Having recently turned ten, this was not something I should have spent a lot of time thinking about, but I did. I was filled with thoughts of “going off to war” and being separated from my family. Of course President Carter was not looking for fifth graders to fill the front lines, but my mind wasn’t wrapping my head around that reality.
So there I was, stuck in a house by the ocean, not a seafood eater in a place where lobster was ungodly cheap, terrified Jimmy Carter was about to send me off to a godforsaken desert to defeat the Communists. When I complained to my mother, she told me my fears were unfounded. I told her surely I was off to die in eight years. She told me a lot could change in eight years, perhaps we would have a new president. It didn’t matter to me. In my mind, the peanut farmer from Georgia had signed my death sentence.
Finally, I took some action. I sat down at our kitchen table and wrote a letter to the highest authority I knew–not my Congressman, Senator, or even President Jimmy Carter himself, but my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Pelly. Though I despised wiring, I put all my fears and emotions into that letter. I told her how unfair the situation was. I’m not sure why this was the best course of action, but it made sense to me. I addressed the letter back to my school in Manlius, NY and took the mile walk down the driveway to our mailbox. After sending the letter I kind forgot about the draft for awhile. And then something amazing happened.
She wrote back.
Madeline Pelly was a dedicated educator and probably not too far from retirement when I was in her class. She was equal parts matron, mentor, and cheerleader and what I remember most about that class is an overall collective good vibe of the room. She taught us amazing things and inspired us to be good citizens. But most importantly, she decided to pick up her grading pen and write to her troubled former student and for that I’m incredibly thankful. I regret not ever taking the time to thank her for that kind gesture.
I will be hoping that this letter finds you and finds you well.
Andy Dufresne
When I opened Mrs. Pelly’s letter, I immediately recognized her confident, sizable cursive. I imagined her writing it with one of those two-sided blue and red teacher pens. Her response was short, but effective. She told me it was going to be all right, that I was not going to be dragged off to war anytime soon. Her tone had a hint of admonishment to it and made me realize how foolish I was being. Always a great teacher, Mrs. Pelly challenged my thinking and made me realize my mistake. She probably said everything my mom had said, but you know how it goes when parents try to help with homework. Parents don’t know what they’re talking about; when your teacher says something, it’s gospel.
Madeline Pelly didn’t send me to find a glassy rock in a hayfield, but her letter was a ray of sunlight in an otherwise dark summer. I had to attend about a month of fifth grade in Maine before returning home, but by that time I had the steely resolve of knowing I was getting out of the joint soon. When we crossed the state line from Massachusetts to New York, my mom claims my jubilant cheer almost caused my dad to get into an accident on I-90. When we finally returned to our house on Westfield Drive it had regained some of that “new house smell” it had when we moved in four years earlier. It was comforting to return to my room and flop down on my bed without fear of bats or ghosts.
Hope is a good thing maybe even the best of things and good things never die.
Andy Dufresne
There’s a reason my sojourn in Maine came up for me at this time–there’s lessons that can be applied to our current situation. On some level, Maine was “lost time” for me, a stretch of life outside the norm. Just like now, we’re experiencing an absence of normality–the routines and rituals that would typically go with spring 2020. Within that lost time, my learning definitely took a hit as I experienced a much less academic setting than I was used to. I’d like to think I recovered nicely, so I’m not worried too much about the “brain drain” that teachers will have to face when we return to school. Additionally, the Jimmy Carter draft response was a lesson in fear and how long we’re wiling to perseverate on the negative until we choose to do something to improve our situation. Writing your fourth grade teacher may not be able to increase the nation’s testing capacity or create a vaccine, but it’s a start. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you and I’m guessing you’ve probably got the time.
