When I was in fifth grade (in 1955) at Marquette School in Madison Wisconsin, I had a teacher (Miss Schultz) who seemed to hate me because I was fat. I was five feet tall and weighed 180 pounds. When she found out that I rode the same bus to school that my father took to work she was outraged because I did not walk the mile and a half to school, even though I did walk it three times a day back and forth for lunch and then home after school, since, we did not own a car.

She was outraged and reported me to the gym teacher (Mr. Rawls) and somehow after that I was no longer allowed to take the bus with my father, and I lost the time I would have had to talk with about history, life, and the rest of it.

I won't say that I hated Miss Schultz for that, but I would not have been saddened if she was hit by a truck.

The next year on the coldest ( -21 F pre- greenhouse effect) day of a Madison Wisconsin Winter we found myself ourselves walking towards each other.

We were the only people on the school ground. By now I weighed 210 pounds and had shaved for the first time. As I look back I think that I may have scared her (maybe) she thought I had a snow ball in my pocket, or I was going to push her into a snow bank. I had a sharp tongue which she may have feared as much.

With no other witness I could tell her she looked like a bull dog, or a north bound elephant from the south. As I look back we Kaveny's were a lot like the Adamms family.  

When she came within ten feet of me I forced myself to smile at her and say ,"Hello Miss Schultz have a nice day". Her face became radiant and she said "why hello Philip". I have reported this story a hundred times over the 40 years and it always comes out the same. I felt noticeably warmer through out my body after I spoke to her.

Every time since that day, when I tell the story, I feel the biting cold of the day and my warmth after greeting her.

Now as I remember her a picture of her forms in my mind. She was about the height and size of my wife, that is to say just over six feet tall, and just under 200 pounds.

At the time she was probably only a hand full of years older than I am now. This was in 1955. I also remember her saying wistfully one day that someone she had loved very much had "Gone over the top" at the Battle of Muse Argon, towards the end of the First World War and not returned.

We did not become friends, and never spoke again now I sort of wish we would have since I have become a student of the first world war.