Normally, I sleep rather well. But when insomnia comes calling, I have to deal with it. Right?A relative once bragged, I sleep like a baby. I guess it s my clear conscience, whereupon his wife retorted, Honey, it s not your clear conscience. It s your short memory. When insomnia strikes, I begin silently singing lines from my favorite hymn, How Great Thou Art. I see the stars; I hear the mighty thunder. Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Next come two lines from a once popular song: It s crying time again, you re gonna leave me. I can see that faraway look in your eyes.When I go to sleep, I never count sheep. I do count backwards from 100 by twos. Counting backwards by threes over-stimulates the brain and drives Morpheus even farther away.One of my readers mentioned that he secures slumber by recalling the teachers in his life, the good and the bad.I tried that. Although it kept me awake, I figured it was time well-spent, even in post-midnight moments.First-grade teacher Louella Highshaw turned me into a first-grade dropout.Miss Highshaw, because of her weight, seldom left her desk. She kept by her side an extremely long fishing pole with which she whacked any kid who misbehaved.One day, someone threw a spitball that landed near me. When I left my desk to pick it up, I was whacked. While I suffered no physical pain, my tender young psyche was deeply wounded.My mother was enraged and, not thinking highly of the school anyway, held me out for the remainder of the year, putting me a year behind in my schooling.I have to thank Joe Cox, my only male teacher from first grade to graduation, for my knowledge of grammar. Under the threat of physical punishment, we were expected to learn every grammar rule in a familiar workbook with Shakespeare s photo on the cover.Mr. Cox never caned us, as was the custom in British prep schools of Charles Dickens lore. But he wasn t above applying his heavy hand to our posteriors, girls and boys. Diminutive Beatrice Holbrook, who taught Latin, gave me my only C on conduct.In class, we sat around tables. Between my best friend and me sat a pretty girl who one morning whispered to us that she was so passionate she had to p-- in the creek to keep from setting the woods on fire. My friend and I were so consumed by paroxysms of uncontrollable giggling that we were temporarily expelled to the hall. Upon our readmission, the girl winked at us, setting us off again and leading to our second exile.Explaining that C on my report card to my mother required considerable creativity.Miss Susie Martin, my 10th-grade drama and English teacher, was in her first year of teaching. Attractive and exuberant but obviously unsure of herself, she introduced us to great literature, including the dramatization of Rudyard Kipling s Boots, which we recited in unison, sometimes while marching around the room: Boots boots boots boots movin up an down again; Men men men men men go mad with watchin em, And there s no discharge in the war.Miss Susie had a quick temper. Once, when one of the girls sassed her, Miss Susie slapped her so hard the girl almost fell out of her chair, a firing offense these days.I ve always revered teachers and their awesome responsibility. I ve never understood our culture s adulation of celebrities, especially athletes.Some earn millions for chasing a little white ball into a small round hole on the golf green or for consistently spinning a basketball through a hoop from half court.Compare those feats with a teacher s contribution to humanity. Teachers crack the door of the soul, illuminating young minds and lives with the miracle of learning.Yet North Carolina grudgingly pays many of these miracle workers as little as $30,000 a year. That travesty should keep every adult Tar Heel awake half the night.
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