My Point...And I Do Have One

I right?
    Let’s move on. Do you have any memories of me from when I was in grade school?
    I recall you coming home all upset because there was a cloakroom in your class and you didn’t own a cloak. In fact, none of the little boys or girls had a cloak. I don’t think any of them even knew what a cloak was. For some reason this scared you.
    Do you remember my being good at anything?
    You would nap better than anybody else, and your parents would brag on you being good at recess. You were quite a good tetherball player, probably because you were so aggressive.
    I remember tetherball. A ball would be attached to a pole by a rope and you’d try to whack the ball hard enough to wrap the rope around the pole. It was violent. You’d either hurt your hand on the metal thingee holding the rope and ball together or you’d be on defense, standing in front of the ball, and get hit in the face. Somebody would always end up crying
.
    Well, crying’s good. It prepares you for life. The more often I see children crying, the more often I think, “That’s gonna be a healthy adult.” That’s what life is all about. There’s a lot of crying involved. So you’d better cry now and get used to it.
    Well, it’s nice to know that I was good at something
. Oh my, yes! You were so good at tetherball that I bet someone $100 cash that you would become a professional tetherball player.
    I guess you had to pay up?
    Why? You ain’t dead yet. There’s still time. Everybody’s always trying to get Miss Selma Clanque to give them$100, just like it grew on trees. Look at me, I ain’t Rockefeller, am I?
    No, you’re not. Thanks for the time. I’ve got to go
.
    I moved to Atlanta, Texas, in my second year of high school. When Columbus came to the New World, he thought he was in India so he referred to the people he met as Indians. When the first settlers came to Texas, they thought they were in Georgia, so they called the place Atlanta. It was a culture shock moving from New Orleans (The French Quarter, jazz, great restaurants) to such a small town as Atlanta (Dairy Queen). So, I learned a different way of life.
    My high school guidance counselor in Atlanta was Mr. Bowden Lamar, a man rumored to have a wonderfully infectious laugh; rumored, because no one living had actually ever heard him laugh. We spoke in his office at Atlanta High where, though he appeared to be somewhere in his early hundreds, he still doles out advice as a guidance counselor.
    Mr. Lamar, was I a good student here?
    Well, the teachers here remember you very fondly. They all say you were very bright.
    Why, thank you. I guess that’s …
    But they’re just saying that because you’re famous now. I know because I’ve seen your records.
    What do those records say?
    That the only reason you passed any class was because your teachers gave you very broad clues. For instance, if the answer to a question was Thomas Jefferson, your teacher would say, “The answer to that rhymes withBhomas Hefferson.” If you still couldn’t guess, she’d start singing, “ ‘Movin’ on up, to the East Side. We finally got a piece of the pie.’ ”
    The theme from “The Jeffersons”?
    Exactly. Sooner or later—usually later—you’d end up getting the answer.
    Was I good at anything?
    Athletics, I suppose. You were on the tennis team. And you started the girls golf team. You were the only one on the team, playing every day by yourself. You would whack the ball very aggressively then acknowledge the applause of a crowd that only existed in your mind. Very strange and more than slightly disturbing.
    Do you remember what I looked like?
    Well, you were a little hefty. Yup, you were a little hefty girl who’d drive to school each day in a canary yellow Vega. But then again, everybody here is a little hefty. That’s because the only kind of food you can get around here is chicken-fried. Chicken-fried steak, chicken-fried broccoli, chicken-fried sushi, chicken-fried whatever.
    What sort of career do your records say I was best suited for?
    Let me see. Oh here it is. “Ellen DeGeneres might be good at making caramel candies of some kind, either chewy or hard. Not the wrapping, just the candy.”
    Just one last question. How come this school didn’t have a drama department?
    Oh, we had a drama department. We all just thought it was best for everybody involved that you never knew about it. Whenever we wanted to put on a play, we’d justsend you golfing somewhere. Ha, ha,