There are probably hundreds of “mature” ex-college students in Maine who were students of Miss Fickett. I had her for freshman English back in 1965. Having completed a three-year stint in the Army, I was taking a couple of night classes on the GI Bill at Gorham State Teachers College.

I had always had a tough time with English, having flunked it some three years earlier along with four other courses. Of course, that meant I flunked out of that college. That is when I sought out an escape route, which was the nearest Army recruiter. Anyway, at that first class she greeted us, “Good evening, boys and girls.” I cringed. Obviously, Miss Fickett had been brought out of retirement to teach our class.

One of the assignments was, “Class, I want you to write a short theme about your hometown.” No problem. I could handle that.

None of the “majestic maple trees, or quaint New England homes, or lazy winding streams” for me. I liked good meaty topics. My hometown of Buxton had been given to a group of men who had helped to annihilate the Narragansett Indians in Massachusetts in the 1700s. Well, that’s what I wrote about.

Part of each class was devoted to grammar. Oh, how I feared English grammar. They say to fear the unknown, and that was exactly my situation. We were dealing with pronouns: “I,” “you,” “he,” “she” and “it”; “we,” “you” and “they.” There were some verb tenses: “I had been,” “you had been,” etc.

One day as I had been sitting there trying to look knowledgeable but not overconfident, Miss Fickett was saying something about a perfect future. She was asking someone to conjugate something. It was me. I heard my name. I stood, as was required. I paused. She repeated the question. I continued to pause. I was fighting for composure. I could have used a wrong answer. Anything.

Advertisement

Finally I heard my voice saying, “I’m sorry, Miss Fickett. I just don’t know how to conjugate verbs.” All eyes were zeroed in on my red ears.

Miss Fickett, seeing my embarrassment, helped me out. In total ignorance I stood there and repeated after her the whole damn conjugation. “You may be seated.”

Nonetheless, I stumbled through the semester and got a D for a final grade. Miss Fickett was compassionate enough not to call on me again. I was thankful.

I seemed to get a lot of sympathetic smiles from classmates thereafter. But I learned a little about humility.

Let’s see: “I am humiliated,” “I have been humiliated,” “I shall have been humiliated” — and so on …

By the way, it turned out my mother, who graduated from Farmington State Normal School around 1936, had a teacher by the same name. Miss Fickett confirmed that she was one and the same. Unbelievable.

Charles “Sandy” Wright is a Maine native who now lives in Cottonwood, Ariz.

 


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.