For some reason I was trying to remember the name of the math teacher I had in junior high, so I dug out my report cards. All of them, from Kindergarten through graduate school, are stored safely in The Box (you know, The Box that I wrote about in October). I was hoping the teacher's name would be on the grade report, but it wasn't.
I looked through all the report cards, however, and I came across some other names that brought back a memory or two. There was Miss Liddberg, my seventh-grade gym teacher. Say her name out loud -- doesn't it sound like you're trying to say Lindberg when you have a code in your dose?
I believe I have mentioned before my favorite teacher, the alliterative Wilma W. Watkins, from third-grade, but as names go, you can't beat my fifth-grade teacher. I couldn't understand why adults always laughed when I told them my teacher's name was Mrs. Sexauer. (Kind of like Happy Hour, they must have thought.)
And then there is the mystery of Miss Lauschke. She was my first-grade teacher, and she left us for a week or so toward the end of the school year to get married. When she came back, she told us she had a new name, so it was inappropriate for us to call her Miss Lauschke and incorrect to call her Mrs. Lauschke, but she was afraid her new last name would be hard for us to pronounce (like Lauschke was a bargain?) and since there was only a week or so left of school, she decided we could just call her Mrs. Anna. I assumed at the time and have believed ever since that Anna was her first name.
Then today, nearly 60 years later, I see on that report card, where it says Name of Teacher, she has written Corinne Lauschke.
So, who the hell was Anna? Or was her new last name Annamagdalena or Annaproximato or something like that? And why get married a few weeks before school lets out? Why not just wait?
Oh. Never mind. I can think of a reason.
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