Bailie
In sixth grade, my school got a new music teacher, Mrs. Bailie. Mrs. Bailie had really thick, wavy brown hair cut above the shoulder with bangs. The resulting look was striking. It took no more than two days for the student body of our 100 student school to dub her “Snoopy” behind her back. Her hair hung like ears down the sides of her head. I preferred to drop the “Mrs.” and refer to her simply as “Bailie,” quite disrespectful coming from a young lady in the south.
The first day of music class, she passed out our brand new music books. I opened mine and began to flip through it. Apparently, spartan discipline was valued above curiosity in Mrs. Bailie’s class. She may have directed us not to open our books, but I wasn’t the best at listening or following directions, especially when face to face with a shiny new book. At any rate, I was scolded severely. She sent me out in the hallway for the first time in my student career.
Mrs. T., the principal and the interim sixth grade teacher, came walking down the hall almost immediately afterward. I’d never been a problem for her, so she asked me what I was doing out in the hall. I told her what had happened, and she marched me back into the classroom and had a word with Mrs. Bailie in front of the class.
Looking back as an adult, I still think Bailie was a little out of line, but Mrs. T probably needed to back her up rather than undermining her authority. Feeling I had the brass firmly in my white oxford button-up pocket, I determined to spend my last few months at St. Ann terrorizing Mrs. Bailie. My family was moving to another state at the end of October, so add that to the onset of puberty and I had all the makings of an under the radar troublemaker.
My first point of attack was to have my mother schedule my piano lesson during the middle of music class. Private piano lessons were available for a fee at my school, and students were permitted to leave their normal classes once per week to attend. The routine was that the student need not announce this planned departure, they simply put their books away, gathered their piano books, and left.
As my assigned seat in Bailie’s class was at the front of the room, it was easy to make my departure disruptive, but not deliberately enough for Bailie to have a viable claim that my efforts were purposeful. Several weeks in a row, Bailie sent a notice that she’d given me detention for being disruptive to Mrs. Horton, my Science and Math teacher who was responsible for detention for my class. Mrs. Horton would ask me what happened. I would tell her I disrupted Mrs. Bailie’s class when I left to go to my music lesson. Mrs. Horton would then excuse me from detention.
This went on for the entirity of my final months at St. Ann, until the last week. I don’t remember what my infraction was that time, but I got in trouble in music class for a reason unrelated to music lessons. When Mrs. Horton got this note, she told me that she had no choice but to have me serve my detention. So on my last day at my beloved school, I left only after serving detention. Bailie triumphed at last.
I came back to visit several times and my parents always made sure we went to church services on Sunday. Bailie was a Eucharistic minister and I would go far out of my way to make sure I could take communion from her. I’d make eye contact and would wait for the split second transformation that would come over Bailie’s face when she recognized me. In my smug, 12 year old mind, I owned her ass, and in a time when I had control over precious little, that felt great. I imagine that it’s pretty dreadful to be a youngish teacher with a student who can do no wrong in the eyes of your superiors set on making your time with her miserable.
I googled Bailie last year. She’s still teaching music at St. Ann, and she’s still active in the music liturgy at the church. She organizes a tennis club.
I’m now older than she was when she started that fall day in the late 1980s. I think of her whenever I hear ”Sloop John B.” on the oldies station. I sing along, and I always try to remember the cleaned up lyrics that came out of that shiny new music book so many years ago.
