thank a teacher--Miss Heidtke

Do you remember how tall your teachers were when you were back in elementary school?ummm.....they really weren't as tall as you may think they were.  Here I am standing next to my first (and fourth) grade teacher, Miss Heidtke.  I believe she is barely five feet tall.  But, what a presence she had in the classroom.  She taught me how to read!  I loved our reading groups with names like bluebirds, robins and cardinals.  Here is an incident I remember very clearly from the first grade.  I was walking home from school on a warm (by Minnesota standards) Spring afternoon and I stopped to look at all of the melted snow water gushing into a storm drain.  I bent over to get a closer look and my textbook slipped from my hands and fell through the grate into the storm drain.  I couldn't rescue my book and I was so upset that I ran home crying all the way.  I was sobbing as I told my parents what had happened.  The next day my Dad went over to the school and talked to the teacher and made arrangements to pay for the book.  Later in the day my teacher called me to her desk and she, along with my Dad, presented to me another book.  I was still sad and started to cry as I swore I would take very good care of the replacement book.  Miss Heidtke comforted me by saying that perhaps the book floated all the way through the earth and some child in China would find the book  and read it.  That made me feel better.  I mentioned this to Pearl (as she prefers to be called now) a couple of years ago when I visited with her after sixty plus years.  She was delighted to hear the story of the lost textbook and was doubly delighted to be remembered as a caring teacher.  She was a great teacher and always will be remembered that way.  p.s.  In an earlier post I wrote about the time I was caught running around the schoolroom while the teacher was out and being given the punishment of sitting on a little chair out in the hallway for all who passed by to see.  Same teacher, same classroom right across the hall from the principals office, same silly me.  Thank you again and again, Miss (Pearl) Heidtke.  You are one of the best!