NOT SO PERFECT AFTER ALL (Published June 16, 2013)

I was a “perfect” student in school. I was at my desk every day for 12 ½ years. But I wasn’t so perfect, after all. It began in kindergarten at Longfellow School on the south side of Binghamton. I was one of several students called to the front of the room at the end of the year and presented with a certificate for perfect attendance. I was hooked; I did something perfect? And, got a certificate for it? I wanted more. Year after year, I made it to school every day, on time, and was feted with a certificate for perfect attendance, signed by the superintendent of schools, the school principal and the director of attendance. The last one I received at Longfellow read, “Neither absent nor tardy for 6 ½ years.”

Many of the days when I “occupied” a desk I should have been in bed at home. But, neither head cold, nor sore throat nor measles, mumps or chicken pox (nor the dark of night, I suppose) deterred me from my perfect attendance quest. Eventually, the obsession got me in trouble; it happened in West Junior. My attendance record prevented me from skipping school like everyone else when I hadn’t prepared for a test or finished an essay paper.

I somehow never got into the true spirit of homework. There wasn’t any at Longfellow. We learned stuff in class, not at home. When the bell rang at 3 we ran home with the enthusiasm of escaped convicts. We were free! So, at junior high, I stuck to my elementary school routine, doing little if any homework. The A’s and B’s that once graced my report cards were replaced with C’s, D’ s and an occasional F. My attendance was perfect, but everything else was mediocre. I dragged home my report card after every six-week marking period with extreme dread, until I discovered a flaw in the system. At the end of the marking period we were given a blank report card in homeroom; we took it to each class so the teacher could transcribe our grade from their class book. They signed the card with their initials. Our parents signed them too, proving they saw how we were doing. We returned them back to homeroom. My friends were treated to a sundae or a similar reward; I was treated to the “you better buckle down” lecture.  

Then, fate came and tempted me and I took the bait. I lost a card one “report-card” day and was given a new one for the teachers to fill in again. But, before I took it around to the teachers I found it, the one with an “F” in Social Studies. Why take that home and get in trouble?” fate chided me. “Fill in the blank card with good grades.” So, I did! Carefully copying each teacher’s initials. All of a sudden, I was an honors student, a report card full of A’s and B’s. I finally got my sundae! My father signed it and I copied his signature onto the real card. Life was good! Until the Social Studies teacher made a courtesy call to my mother to make sure she knew I was failing Social Studies and needed to buckle down. “How can that be?” my mother exclaimed. “He got a “B” on his report card.

The next morning I was sitting in the principal’s outer office, awaiting my doom and getting a whack-up-the- side-of-the-head from my mother every time the secondhand on the big IBM clock swept past 12. My trial was a short one; I was convicted and sentenced to confinement at the kitchen table until my homework was completed and checked every day after school. Even Friday! I also had to apologize to each teacher, even the ones whose grades I hadn’t altered. Surprisingly, I started to do better in school. The connection between doing homework and learning the subject matter finally sank into my thick skull.

 I kept up my attendance record all the way through high school. I received a check for $25 dollars at the West Junior graduation (a fortune to a 14 year-old back then), got my picture in the paper with the boys counselor at the end of 10^th grade but no picture and no check when I graduated, just a certificate. The school principal was still steaming from catching me going to the pool hall in 11^th grade instead of to St. Pats when we were released from school an hour early to go to religious instructions. But, that’s a story for another day.