Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Teachers teach; arming them is ludicrous

Pete would talk with me and my friends during lunch break, and swipe a handful of candy while saying, “I need to make sure the vending machines aren’t poisoning you guys.”

When you’d ask him to borrow a ruler, he’d counter, “King or queen?” I’d choose prime minister.

He had a daughter after I left the school. She won a state championship on the golf team he coached and is soon to be married. He’s got another daughter who’s growing up too fast.

Mary knew I was learning French, and would encourage me by having conversations with me in French. I know she was involving me, because she asked me about the basketball league I started; fortunately, basketball is French for basketball.

Tom has smoked for as long as I’ve known him, and he chewed gum when he couldn’t. His desk drawers looked like a convenience store that only sold Trident. Whenever we had to measure out buildings, he’d jokingly remind us to “allow for the curvature of the Earth.”

Terry loved good writing, and introduced me to the nose flute — it’s exactly like it sounds, and I’m never buying one. He was down to earth, and admitted that he played favorites to his favorites and his non-favorites. He’d laugh when we’d call him Ted Nugent but get upset when anybody made fun of tennis.

Catherine had a New England upbringing, and she had a great joke about the University of Massachusetts’ debate team. If there was something funny I heard on TV or in a movie, she could always tell me where it first appeared in a book.

Bill ran a concession stand, and showed me how to operate it. He showed me too well. I figured out the bookkeeping system had no way to discover if I comped myself a 20-ounce Coke. Maybe he did figure it out, because I was never asked to fill in again.

John was a big fan of music, sometimes impersonated Elvis and told everybody there was no such thing as a girl’s instrument or a guy’s instrument. He once wrote an exhilarating song to introduce the local basketball team before games, complete with electric guitar solo. I loved it, but I didn’t have a vote, and one game later the pep band was back to off-key trumpets blaring, “We will, we will ROCK YOU.”

You’ve probably figured out I’m talking about my teachers. They taught me to not only find the correct answers, but point out the incorrect answers, and they’re responsible for my favorite childhood memories.

My teachers were not named Jack Bauer or John McClane. They were real people whose work days ended with dinner and grading papers, not credit rolls with heroic theme music.

Arming them wouldn’t turn them into Jack Bauer and John McClane. They wouldn’t innately know how to win a Glock vs. AR-15 firefight. It wouldn’t change with less training than the sheriff’s deputy who waited outside while 17 people were massacred in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School 11 days ago.

Arming schoolteachers nationwide is not a realistic policy answer. Anybody who says otherwise is lying or deluded.

Kevin Wilson is managing editor of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at: [email protected]