Mrs. Runyon’s Homeroom

I don’t recall running for the position, but then again, the eighth grade was an eternity ago- thankfully. Even though I can’t say how I got there, I do have a vague memory of attending one of the meetings. As I stop and dig deeper, there is a realization that I’m not even sure whether this remembrance concerns a place on the student council or simply being a homeroom representative or what it was exactly. What brings it all back right now, ironically enough, is a discussion that took place in that meeting way back when about a time capsule that I guess the eighth graders were thinking about putting together. I do not remember what else had been discussed at that meeting, which is kind of funny since the only thing that remains stuck in brain stasis is what I chose to leave out of my report. There was no malicious intent, nor a desire on my part for secrecy or concealment of this project. I just didn’t feel it was all that important, so I just left it out when reading my notes from the meeting back to my classmates- what did I know? As it turned out, someone else in the class had heard about it, and after I had finished my report, a hand went up in the room and the question concerning the time capsule and why I had failed to mention it hit me like a chalk-dust laden eraser or the folded leather car key case that Mr. Brownsword used to heave across the room at errant pupils back in elementary school days. I remember a knot forming in my stomach and a creeping feeling of failure moving in- things were bigger in a smaller kind of way at age thirteen.

Even though it wasn’t on the lesson plan, I had my first unofficial class in civics that day. I learned pretty quickly from this what it meant to represent a group of people and what the responsibilities involved in that were and are. It was embarrassing to be called out in public for a blatant omission and an obvious lapse in judgment as to how one is supposed to carry out the duties of gathering and representing information that might be of some importance to one and all. It doesn’t haunt me- I don’t even remember if the time capsule project was ever started, installed or buried, but that’s not really the point. I left out any mention about the time capsule while presenting to the class that day because I didn’t think it was important- to me. What became quite clear at that time was that there are circumstances out there that require going beyond the me. It was not so much an epiphany as it was a jolt. It was, in many ways, having that dream about suddenly realizing you don’t have any clothes on as you walk down a crowded sidewalk while, instead, being awake and fully clothed. It was not so much an ah ha moment as it was a very profound and resounding Oh!

Of course, on the other side. I may have learned the wrong lesson that day. As this was a good six or seven years before Tricky Dick  and his not being a plumber or a crook, had I embraced the act and art of denial when confronted by that whistle-blowing class member, I could have been on the cutting edge of the craft of omission long before it became fashionable. These days, I look at the Yahoo! Internets homepage when I log in and see line after line of information crafted to distract one from the actual, real and important news that is being omitted. Instead of hearing, as I do on those troublesome outlets like Democracy Now! and al Jazeera, about real news, I find now that I can instead learn about Kourtney Kardashian’s naked and pregnant ass, watch a Prius “burn rubber” , or be privy to ten things that successful people never do. If I had only been able to glimpse the future world of creative omission by personal choice, everything might have been different. I would never have had to worry about feeling guilty over our starting a war in the Middle East over threatening weapons of mass destruction that it turned out never existed. And just think of all the hours of fretting and standing around at Vashon Park District meetings I could have avoided if I had just accepted all the omissions of truth and logic regarding David Hackett’s VES fields project.

On the other hand, maybe this whole life lesson thing needs another rethinking . After all, if I had given that report today, instead of omitting any word of a time capsule project, it might have been the first thing I reported on, given my changed sensibilities around history and preservation. Burying evidence of the present, however, and trusting that the future will remember to dig it up is a somewhat risky proposition. I read something just the other day in an article about climate change by Rebecca Solnit, in which she said that “…to know how things have changed, you have to remember how they used to be…” Perhaps what would serve us best is to strive to not omit key information necessary to the daily dialogue, while at the same time burying the sensational, useless pop that is serving to distract us from what is important. Then, if there is someone around in a hundred years to dig it up, when they then see what vied for our attention as important in this time, they can be that much more amazed that civilization survived such utter nonsense, in spite of itself.