I Write Short Stories
Don't Ever Tell The Special Secret...
Everyone should have at least one teacher that was special to them for some reason. A teacher that influenced them to become what they are today or one that pushed them hard when they needed pushed, or one that understood them when no one else could. My special teacher’s name was Miss Dizuban. She achieved that distinction with fried chicken and a candy bar in the winter of 1974.
I grew up in a small section of a small town that was referred to by the locals as “Ducktown”. Ducktown was about 25 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was one of those little communities that were filled with modest, fr<x>ame houses, narrow streets and several family-owned corner stores that gave credit. History was told that this part of town adopted that name during the Great Depression when a lot of people raised and sold ducks and their eggs to make money. There were a lot of people of Polish and Slovenian decent in Ducktown so it was the norm for most of your neighbors to have a last name ending in “ski” as in Wasilowski, or Jendrejewski. During the time I was growing up there, a lot of the fathers of the families there worked at the local steel mill, the mothers stayed at home and the children all walked up the hill to Riverview Elementary School.
At Riverview, my best friend was (and still is) Joanne. She was child number six out of a 7 child brood had by the Valasek’s on Argonne Drive. She had dark hair, freckles, fair skin and was a little bit taller than the rest of the girls in class and that height difference seemed to embarrass her just a touch. She was a little shy, but not enough to make her socially odd. Her voice was soft but yet her laugh was louder than one would expect. There were a lot of kids in her family and I think she felt she got lost in the crowd a lot because of it. I don’t think she ever really felt special.
Joanne and I always walked home together from school because her and I were both school appointed crossing guards. We got to wear the fluorescent colored sashes with the silver badges. Oh! We felt like little police women with our shiny badges on! Because of our “very important job”, we left school later than everyone else. We always liked our teacher Miss Dizuban and sometimes we would go into the building after everyone had gone home and help her. We would clap the chalkboard erasers outside for her or help with passing out ‘dittos’ (I am showing my age here, I know it!) for the next day. Miss Dizuban was good friends with the Special Education teacher next door to our class room, Miss Medica, so we would help her too. Miss Medica and Miss Dizuban were both single women and were both young and attractive. Miss Medica had beautiful long blond hair that she would sometimes pin up on her head or braid down her back. Miss Dizuban was a brunette and she wore her hair short with wispy bangs and just enough length to occasionally take her index finger and put her hair behind her ear, showing a cute little earring that maybe a boyfriend or date may have recently bought her. They both wore tasteful make-up, had apartments and drove nice cars. We just idolized them and felt so good just being with them. The four of us would all work together, talking and laughing and Joanne and I felt like “one of the girls”.
One day after school right after Thanksgiving, they said they wanted to talk to us. They sat us down and were acting a little suspicious about the upcoming conversation. They shut the door to the classroom after checking to make sure no one was in the hall way and moved two seats close to us. Miss Dizuban started with “Now listen Girls, we’ve been talking and we want to do something but you have to PROMISE not to tell a soul. Promise?” The secret was that she and Miss Medica were so appreciative for how Joanne and I would stay and help them, that they wanted to take us out for the day. But, we couldn’t tell anyone because firstly, it was against school rules and secondly, all the other kids in the class would be extremely jealous if they ever found out that they took us. She said she was going to call our parents to ask permission and would let us know and reminded us, not to tell ANYONE! We enthusiastically (but very quietly) promised.
The big day came. Both of our parents gave permission and I was nervously awaiting Miss Dizuban to pick me up. It felt surreal to me in a way. My teacher was picking me up in her car, at my house and on a Saturday. My siblings were all so jealous! When she arrived it was almost like she was a celebrity in our house. My brothers and sisters were staring at her in awe and my mother was falling all over herself trying to impress her and make her feel welcomed. We finally left and drove around the corner to Joanne’s house and it was pretty much the same scenario at her house with her family too. OK, everyone was in. Everyone was buckled. We were off!
“Where are we going, Miss Dizuban?” I asked. “We’re meeting Miss Medica in the city at 11 o’clock” she said. We were going to Pittsburgh! I was 10 years old and I had never been to Pittsburgh before and neither had Joanne. When we were on the highway getting closer and we could see the beautiful, tall buildings in the distance, I felt like Dorothy looking at the Emerald City. Everything looked so big and exciting the closer we got. The radio was on and I remember Miss Dizuban turning up “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin and saying that was her favorite song. I can’t hear that song today without thinking about her and remembering that feeling of getting closer and closer to the big city.
We parked the car in a parking garage and found Miss Medica. It was so strange to be looking at the two of them outside of school. I was still a little nervous about the whole outing. We started to walk around and look at all the beautiful Christmas decorations the store windows had to offer. I had never seen anything like it. How odd it was for buildings to be so big yet so close to one another. The tall buildings blocked so much light from the sky, that it gave me unexpected cozy feeling that I didn’t expect from such a busy place.
It was time for lunch and we were treated to one of the nicest restaurants in town. (Of course we didn’t know this until we went home and reported to our parents and then they told us.) This restaurant was on the very top floor of the tallest building in the city. The building was 3-sided and the restaurant was appropriately called The Top of the Triangle. There you could see for miles and miles.
I can remember getting handed a menu that seemed bigger than I was. I didn’t know what half of the items were, but I wanted so hard to appear like a grown up, after all, I was out with my lady friends, so I safely ordered fried chicken. I knew what that was. Joanne followed suit and ordered the same exact thing. She didn’t know half of that stuff either. It was delicious, but in all honesty, not nearly as good as my mother’s.
After lunch we walked and walked and walked. We ended up in a magical place. A magical place for any typical 10 year old. Candy-Rama. You walked in the door and all you could smell was chocolate and all you could see was candy, candy, candy. Our eyes were as big as saucers! We’d never seen anything like it. They let us pick out a candy bar. Not just any candy bar. A huge, mammoth sized candy bar. We stood over the selection with our eyes open and our mouths watering trying to decide which one to take home. We made our choice and we were both happy with our Mr. Goodbars. We left the candy store with visions of going home and taunting our envious siblings and chanting ”lookie what I got!”
Our wonderful adventure was over and we made the drive home out of the city and back to our humble “Ducktown”. We dropped Joanne off first and then it was my turn to say good-bye. Miss Dizuban kissed me on the cheek and whispered in my ear “Now remember, don’t ever tell a soul! This is our little special secret. OK?” “Yes, Ma’am. I promise”.
Years later, Joanne and I, still hanging out, would go out partying at a little nightclub in town. Dancing and drinking, and meeting cute boys in the parking lot, wearing our newest and cutest outfits. We’d drink too much and then half of the bar would go down to the local 24 hr place to eat and drink coffee. We would run into all kinds of people at that place. People from high school and sometimes even people from grade school that still stayed local. One evening, Joanne and I bumped into a few of our grade school friends. I guess it was the drinking or the fact that so much time had passed but we finally let the cat out of the bag. We confessed. We told the big, special secret. We told our old classmates about the big day in the city with the teachers. They all became very quiet and stared at us blankly. Then, burst into a huge round of laughter! “You too?! They took me and Chuckie to Howard Johnson’s” Ronnie said and Anna said “Yeah, They took me and Michael out too and Dave Nicholas and Brian…” Oh, they went on and on about all the pairs of kids that these two teachers took out for a special outing. We could not believe our ears! We had no idea. We were all laughing so hard, the manager of the restaurant had to come over and tell us to be quiet. We were so surprised that after all those years, we were just now finding out that we weren’t the only ones. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt the next day.
That confession from my old classmates didn’t change how I felt about that day. Miss Dizuban did make me feel special. I saw her as an adult a few years back shopping at J.C. Penney’s. She looked great and I was so happy to see her. We had a nice, long talk and reminisced about that special day. When I told her all the details I remembered, the Harry Chapin song playing on the radio, ordering the fried chicken, picking a Mr. Goodbar, she laughed at just how much I remembered. I laughed when I told her that Joanne and I both found out about the other kids that she and Miss Medica treated to a day out. She blushed just a tad when I said it. She tilted her head down and gave me a crooked little smile and it was like she was trying to muffle the giggle of a small child inside of her that wanted to come out because she got caught. We had a nice visit and we hugged and she told me I was a very pretty young lady, which meant to world to me. We parted ways and when we were about 3 feet apart from one another, she turned back around and said “Hey Joycie, you two were the only ones who went to the city because you were special”. She did think I was special! That day, I walked out of Penney's with the same grin I had when I was clutching that candy bar.
Everyone should have at least one teacher that was special to them for some reason. A teacher that influenced them to become what they are today or one that pushed them hard when they needed pushed, or one that understood them when no one else could. My special teacher’s name was Miss Dizuban. She achieved that distinction with fried chicken and a candy bar in the winter of 1974.
I grew up in a small section of a small town that was referred to by the locals as “Ducktown”. Ducktown was about 25 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was one of those little communities that were filled with modest, fr<x>ame houses, narrow streets and several family-owned corner stores that gave credit. History was told that this part of town adopted that name during the Great Depression when a lot of people raised and sold ducks and their eggs to make money. There were a lot of people of Polish and Slovenian decent in Ducktown so it was the norm for most of your neighbors to have a last name ending in “ski” as in Wasilowski, or Jendrejewski. During the time I was growing up there, a lot of the fathers of the families there worked at the local steel mill, the mothers stayed at home and the children all walked up the hill to Riverview Elementary School.
At Riverview, my best friend was (and still is) Joanne. She was child number six out of a 7 child brood had by the Valasek’s on Argonne Drive. She had dark hair, freckles, fair skin and was a little bit taller than the rest of the girls in class and that height difference seemed to embarrass her just a touch. She was a little shy, but not enough to make her socially odd. Her voice was soft but yet her laugh was louder than one would expect. There were a lot of kids in her family and I think she felt she got lost in the crowd a lot because of it. I don’t think she ever really felt special.
Joanne and I always walked home together from school because her and I were both school appointed crossing guards. We got to wear the fluorescent colored sashes with the silver badges. Oh! We felt like little police women with our shiny badges on! Because of our “very important job”, we left school later than everyone else. We always liked our teacher Miss Dizuban and sometimes we would go into the building after everyone had gone home and help her. We would clap the chalkboard erasers outside for her or help with passing out ‘dittos’ (I am showing my age here, I know it!) for the next day. Miss Dizuban was good friends with the Special Education teacher next door to our class room, Miss Medica, so we would help her too. Miss Medica and Miss Dizuban were both single women and were both young and attractive. Miss Medica had beautiful long blond hair that she would sometimes pin up on her head or braid down her back. Miss Dizuban was a brunette and she wore her hair short with wispy bangs and just enough length to occasionally take her index finger and put her hair behind her ear, showing a cute little earring that maybe a boyfriend or date may have recently bought her. They both wore tasteful make-up, had apartments and drove nice cars. We just idolized them and felt so good just being with them. The four of us would all work together, talking and laughing and Joanne and I felt like “one of the girls”.
One day after school right after Thanksgiving, they said they wanted to talk to us. They sat us down and were acting a little suspicious about the upcoming conversation. They shut the door to the classroom after checking to make sure no one was in the hall way and moved two seats close to us. Miss Dizuban started with “Now listen Girls, we’ve been talking and we want to do something but you have to PROMISE not to tell a soul. Promise?” The secret was that she and Miss Medica were so appreciative for how Joanne and I would stay and help them, that they wanted to take us out for the day. But, we couldn’t tell anyone because firstly, it was against school rules and secondly, all the other kids in the class would be extremely jealous if they ever found out that they took us. She said she was going to call our parents to ask permission and would let us know and reminded us, not to tell ANYONE! We enthusiastically (but very quietly) promised.
The big day came. Both of our parents gave permission and I was nervously awaiting Miss Dizuban to pick me up. It felt surreal to me in a way. My teacher was picking me up in her car, at my house and on a Saturday. My siblings were all so jealous! When she arrived it was almost like she was a celebrity in our house. My brothers and sisters were staring at her in awe and my mother was falling all over herself trying to impress her and make her feel welcomed. We finally left and drove around the corner to Joanne’s house and it was pretty much the same scenario at her house with her family too. OK, everyone was in. Everyone was buckled. We were off!
“Where are we going, Miss Dizuban?” I asked. “We’re meeting Miss Medica in the city at 11 o’clock” she said. We were going to Pittsburgh! I was 10 years old and I had never been to Pittsburgh before and neither had Joanne. When we were on the highway getting closer and we could see the beautiful, tall buildings in the distance, I felt like Dorothy looking at the Emerald City. Everything looked so big and exciting the closer we got. The radio was on and I remember Miss Dizuban turning up “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin and saying that was her favorite song. I can’t hear that song today without thinking about her and remembering that feeling of getting closer and closer to the big city.
We parked the car in a parking garage and found Miss Medica. It was so strange to be looking at the two of them outside of school. I was still a little nervous about the whole outing. We started to walk around and look at all the beautiful Christmas decorations the store windows had to offer. I had never seen anything like it. How odd it was for buildings to be so big yet so close to one another. The tall buildings blocked so much light from the sky, that it gave me unexpected cozy feeling that I didn’t expect from such a busy place.
It was time for lunch and we were treated to one of the nicest restaurants in town. (Of course we didn’t know this until we went home and reported to our parents and then they told us.) This restaurant was on the very top floor of the tallest building in the city. The building was 3-sided and the restaurant was appropriately called The Top of the Triangle. There you could see for miles and miles.
I can remember getting handed a menu that seemed bigger than I was. I didn’t know what half of the items were, but I wanted so hard to appear like a grown up, after all, I was out with my lady friends, so I safely ordered fried chicken. I knew what that was. Joanne followed suit and ordered the same exact thing. She didn’t know half of that stuff either. It was delicious, but in all honesty, not nearly as good as my mother’s.
After lunch we walked and walked and walked. We ended up in a magical place. A magical place for any typical 10 year old. Candy-Rama. You walked in the door and all you could smell was chocolate and all you could see was candy, candy, candy. Our eyes were as big as saucers! We’d never seen anything like it. They let us pick out a candy bar. Not just any candy bar. A huge, mammoth sized candy bar. We stood over the selection with our eyes open and our mouths watering trying to decide which one to take home. We made our choice and we were both happy with our Mr. Goodbars. We left the candy store with visions of going home and taunting our envious siblings and chanting ”lookie what I got!”
Our wonderful adventure was over and we made the drive home out of the city and back to our humble “Ducktown”. We dropped Joanne off first and then it was my turn to say good-bye. Miss Dizuban kissed me on the cheek and whispered in my ear “Now remember, don’t ever tell a soul! This is our little special secret. OK?” “Yes, Ma’am. I promise”.
Years later, Joanne and I, still hanging out, would go out partying at a little nightclub in town. Dancing and drinking, and meeting cute boys in the parking lot, wearing our newest and cutest outfits. We’d drink too much and then half of the bar would go down to the local 24 hr place to eat and drink coffee. We would run into all kinds of people at that place. People from high school and sometimes even people from grade school that still stayed local. One evening, Joanne and I bumped into a few of our grade school friends. I guess it was the drinking or the fact that so much time had passed but we finally let the cat out of the bag. We confessed. We told the big, special secret. We told our old classmates about the big day in the city with the teachers. They all became very quiet and stared at us blankly. Then, burst into a huge round of laughter! “You too?! They took me and Chuckie to Howard Johnson’s” Ronnie said and Anna said “Yeah, They took me and Michael out too and Dave Nicholas and Brian…” Oh, they went on and on about all the pairs of kids that these two teachers took out for a special outing. We could not believe our ears! We had no idea. We were all laughing so hard, the manager of the restaurant had to come over and tell us to be quiet. We were so surprised that after all those years, we were just now finding out that we weren’t the only ones. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt the next day.
That confession from my old classmates didn’t change how I felt about that day. Miss Dizuban did make me feel special. I saw her as an adult a few years back shopping at J.C. Penney’s. She looked great and I was so happy to see her. We had a nice, long talk and reminisced about that special day. When I told her all the details I remembered, the Harry Chapin song playing on the radio, ordering the fried chicken, picking a Mr. Goodbar, she laughed at just how much I remembered. I laughed when I told her that Joanne and I both found out about the other kids that she and Miss Medica treated to a day out. She blushed just a tad when I said it. She tilted her head down and gave me a crooked little smile and it was like she was trying to muffle the giggle of a small child inside of her that wanted to come out because she got caught. We had a nice visit and we hugged and she told me I was a very pretty young lady, which meant to world to me. We parted ways and when we were about 3 feet apart from one another, she turned back around and said “Hey Joycie, you two were the only ones who went to the city because you were special”. She did think I was special! That day, I walked out of Penney's with the same grin I had when I was clutching that candy bar.
56-60, F
