She strides down the halls of Lake Bluff Junior High, with her shoulder length, ginger hair parting seventh and eight graders like the Red Sea. Always looking as if she’s ready to mount a spirited steed, wearing brown and beige tweed, and a steely, determined expression.
She tries to fill young minds with old tales of the rise and fall of nations and heroes, cultures and convictions; and her classroom walls, laden with maps and relics, attest to all she has invested in the cause.
Rarely standing still, the fiery, young teacher has a fiery will to make her students listen; marching up and down the crowded aisles, often wielding a rather persuasive attention-getting device, which comes down with a “CRACK!” on desktops of students attempting to nap.
NOT in Ms. O’Hara’s Social Studies class.
As she canters through the halls with her tousled, red hair, Ms. O’Hara seems fearless and confident and cool, loath to play any part the fool. No one dares question how tough she can be. But I can see.
I can see in those eyes often wild with frustration, an impish will and inclination, lurking in the quiet shadows of a stern reputation. And once in a while, a small, smirking smile, which she’s been hiding all the while, will arise; first in those eyes, then form upon her lips – hands on hips – and eventually she’ll soften, dissolving my inhibition to hang nearby and feed on her powerful presence.
Made even more formidable in her red, Camero convertible.
She likes to rev its engine and make the boys grin, revealing the mischievous side within. Then hitting the gas when all signs of the school are past, she vanishes amid the village trees, in her brown and beige tweeds.
Into the reds and yellows and browns of autumn, and into my earliest images of a strong, modern woman.
Dog-eared Stories 