Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Friday, February 1, 2019

An Imaginary Line


Life is filled with lines. They are drawn early. This is a story of one.

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It was long time ago, another time, another place. It was the Fall of ’52 when two 5th grade boys grappled on the playground behind the elementary school during recess.

It wasn’t a mortal battle with a zero-sum outcome, nor one where we’d swapped our snacks for sharp stones. Merely a ‘conflict resolution’ issue, a settling of the score. It happens every day. It centered on a broken pencil and the concept of the personal pronoun, ‘mine.’ It was my pencil.

We’ve been hearing a lot lately about walls, about borders and boundaries, about imaginary and real lines drawn in the sands of the affairs of politics and people. Gerrymandering is an exploitive art.

We draw lines every day, lines that shout, ‘no farther.’ We post them with visible and invisible signs of ‘No Trespass’ to protect our vulnerable and fragile frontiers. We roar, “Back off” and dare anyone to cross them. The conflict is never-ending.

We even walk around with an invisible line, a prophylactic shield drawn around the aura of ourselves. Alarms sound an alert when someone or something approaches. Like fur on a dog’s back, our hackles become quills. Our defenses are engaged, our missiles are armed. We prepare for battle. Not much has changed since 5th grade.

The bell rings for recess. Like a pack of wild dogs, the class bolts for the door and runs helter-skelter to the playground. All but two of us. He watches with glee while I pick up what’s left of my favorite yellow pencil, the one with a # 2 lead, special only because it’s ‘mine.’

Breaking pencils comes naturally to boys. We did it regularly, usually those of girls. They mostly sneered at us, though some retaliated, slashing viciously with the stub of the pointed end. Black pencil scars remain in my hands. It’s good training for women interested in politics. Congress has many.

It’s easy to snap a pencil into two equal parts. Simply place the victim on top of the middle finger, lock it in place with the index and fourth finger as shown by the photo. Then for shock value, slam the palm down on the nearest horizontal surface. Instantly, one pencil becomes two. Picture a guillotine. Such was the fate of mine that day.

You broke my pencil,” I remember saying.

Your fault,” he says. “You poked me.”

I’ll get even,” I say, chasing him to the playground.

Recess is getting a bad rap these days. Schools are so busy cramming information into the thick heads of children they have ignored the value of recess. ADHD is on the rise. Ritalin is everyone’s solution. Only Big Pharma and Big Testing are the winners.

Lessons of life are learned on playgrounds. Recess provides opportunity for social interaction, for conflict resolution, for team building and for learning that to bite means to get bitten. Playground rules are inviolate.

Recess is superior to ‘nap time,’ where brain-dead kids are compelled to put their heads on desks and pretend to sleep. It’s the teachers smoke break and it’s a perfect opportunity to practice one’s spitball aim.

A lot happened on our playground. There were options. Girls clustered around such dull pursuits as hop scotch, jump rope or jacks. There was always kick ball, dodge ball, Red Rover and old-fashioned tag. There was leap frog, snap the whip and horse and rider. These burned off a lot of energy.

Recess also offers opportunity for ‘getting even,’ a lesson essential throughout life. And today my broken pencil demanded recompense.

Exactly how it happened I don’t recall, but somehow, we found ourselves face to face. A line was drawn, a dare was thrown, and a double-dog dare echoed back. Somebody pushed first, the other pushed back. Two boys ended up wrestling in the dirt. It took maybe a minute until the teacher stepped in.

Nobody was hurt; nobody won, nobody lost, except my pencil. It was still broken. But the conflict cleared the air and equilibrium was restored. Recess continued unabated.

It was on a school playground at recess a long time ago when an imaginary line was drawn, and two boys wrestled over a broken pencil and a silly concept. ‘Mine’ is still a powerful personal pronoun.

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Where pencils and policies are concerned, it’s wise to think twice before drawing lines. What if someone crosses them? Then what?


Bud Hearn
February 1, 2019