ROOM 110

The new construction at the high school where I teach is nearly completed. All that’s left is the flooring of the new commons area for the cafeteria, and then things can return to normal—almost. On the other end of the building, fourteen new classrooms have been added. Teachers moved into them during the beginning days of the second semester. Those new rooms turned out to be like an end of me, even though I moved into a flat top building two years ago.

I’ve taught at Karns High School for more than twenty years. The school is two miles from my house; that’s one reason I’ve stayed so long. I tend to find a place a roost: that’s the second reason. For most of my tenure at Karns, my home was Room 110. I moved in for the first time on November 5, 1985. Over the years, I taught thousands of kids. I remember many of them, and a few I’ve tried to forget. I’m equally sure that several of them have tried to put any memories of me out of their minds as well.

At any rate, Room 110 became my home for a long time. A student named Aaron cut into a wooden plague “Mr. Rector’s Neighborhood” during that first year. I hung it over the threshold of the door and also draped a pair of toddler tennis shoes and a toddler blue cardigan sweater that belonged to daughter Lacey across the edges of that plague. Occasionally, I would play the theme song from “Mr. Rogers” when new classes entered the room for the first day. Some thought it was humorous, but more thought the whole thing was wierd.

I performed many roles in Room 110. Sometimes, I would act the fool. That meant I dressed in strange garb during the week of homecoming. I’ve worn hillbilly clothing, hippie clothing, backward clothing, all in the name of school spirit. At times classes, usually senior ones, made me furious with their stunts or lack of effort. In those early years, I did things for effect, things that would wake up students and have them worry whether or not I was mentally unstable. I threw a piece of chalk against the back wall. Another time, I tipped over the metal podium so that it crashed to the floor and scared everyone. My greatest performance came when I rose from a coffin placed in front of the darkened room. I held a set of Macbeth test papers on which the class had performed miserably. The message was clear: get busy or the possibilities of your graduating are all but dead. The stunt proved effective. In fact, I met a woman in a store not long ago who recalled the stunt; her daughter was in that class.

Room 110 has been a place of comfort over the years. It was a familiar place to which I returned after neck and back surgery. It was a room where students could go when the life of one of their friends had been snuffed out from a tragic accident. That room is where Lacey and Dallas came at the end of each day when they were in elementary school. Room 110 welcomed me back after my mother and my older brother Dal died. Its familiarity helped me through those painful days.

In 2003 this room became my writing sanctuary. Before and after school, I spent plenty of time cranking out the first of hundreds of columns, stories, poems, etc. I sat down and wrote my first piece there; it was a column for the church newsletter about a retreat the congregation had taken to Crossville. Room 110 gave me my start in the writing business.

Things have changed in the building. The new rooms extended the hallway where my old classroom was located. The administration re-numbered them, and now Room 110 is Room 129. The custodian and I managed to save my name plate and the number plate from that room. I have them both at home. The room is now inhabited by another who is making his own history. I doubt that he’ll stay for twenty years. Regardless of the number on the door, to me that place will always be Room 110. They’ve erased the number, but no one can erase the memories that I made there.