From Bill Michalski's Poland on the
Passaic
"Poison Ivy"
One day at about 4:00 p.m. our neighbor, Mr. Bednarz, was
sitting on his bench reading the newspaper. Back then all of
the older men had their own wooden benches, and they would
sit by their houses or sometimes get together and talk or
play dominoes. Mr. Bednarz called me over to ask me a
question, and seeing my hands in my pockets and constantly
scratching asked me what was wrong. I told him I had poison
ivy, and explained to him that my treatment was to scratch
the blisters open then to swab the area with rubbing
alcohol, this to be followed, if available, by a coating of
Octagon soap, a dark soap used for laundry and anything
else you could think of.
I didn't dare tell him that my pants pockets were completely
holed out and didn't even exist as pockets. Actually, my
legs and genitals were completely covered by poison ivy and
when my hands were in my pockets I was scratching my private
parts.
He thought for a moment, then walked over to some bushes and
began picking leaves. He returned with a large handful and
explained how this would help cure the poison ivy. He said I
should cover the poison ivy with the leaves and hold them in
place with some bandages. Back then we had a great deal of
respect for older people and I figured he was some kind of
sage, as he seemed to know a lot and could speak not only
Polish but Russian. I also knew from hearing my mother talk
to other women that the Polish people were big on home
remedies. I gladly took the leaves and thanked him for
providing me with a solution to my problem.
The next day before leaving for school I decided to apply
the leaves to my private parts, as this was the area that
itched the most. I was having a great deal of difficulty
trying to hold these leaves in place in an area that did not
lend itself well to bandages. The problem was solved by
simply stuffing the leaves into my underwear. Off to school
I went with the confidence that I would soon be free of this
pestilence.
The teacher that I had in the eighth grade was the most
disliked teacher in the school by unanimous agreement of the
older boys. Her whole demeanor was one of belligerence
towards the boys in her class, and she never passed up an
opportunity to humiliate or chastise us. To illustrate the
effect she had upon us, one day a group of us boys met after
school at our special hangout in the woods to decide how to
get even with her. After much discussion, and over the
objections of the timid, a course of action was agreed upon.
In the morning before she arrived in class we would place a
copperhead snake in the upper drawer of her desk where she
kept her attendance book. (We really wanted to use a
rattlesnake, but none of us had ever seen a rattlesnake in
the area.) We never carried out the scheme because the
weather became too cool for us to find a copperhead.
This was the class I was to enter that day, and I was
carrying an unusual burden: my underwear stuffed with
strange leaves that were supposed to cure me of poison ivy.
Everything was pretty normal, at least as the word normal
applied to this classroom. It was about 10:00 a.m. when the
teacher called my name to go up to the blackboard and solve
an arithmetic problem. To me there was nothing more
distasteful than doing things at the blackboard before the
entire class. All the girls knew who the dummies were and
when you were called to go to the blackboard you had to run
the gauntlet of sly comments and looks, knowing you were a
form of entertainment for others. At this particular age the
girls performed in class much better than the boys, which
helped explain their behavior.
I arose from my seat and approached the dreaded blackboard
with resentment. This always fed the feeling that the
teacher was picking on me. I removed a piece of chalk from
the tray and began studying the problem to be solved. My
thought process was interrupted by the teacher, who asked in
a rather threatening tone, "What have you got in your
pockets? You're making a mess on the floor."
It was then that I realized that leaves were apparently
escaping from my underwear and falling down my pants legs to
the floor. I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders,
portraying an "I don't know anything" attitude. Being very
aggressive, she insisted that I empty my pants pockets right
then and there. Placing my hands in my pockets, I turned
them inside out revealing two gaping holes which obviously
indicated that they were not capable of holding anything.
She stood there staring at me, as if waiting for her brain
to kick in with a new approach to humiliating me. The strain
that this episode placed on me resulted in an intense desire
to use the bathroom. I raised my hand, breaking the spell,
and asked her if I could use the boys room. Without a word,
she simply handed me the small wooden pass.
As I was leaving the room I could now feel the crumbly
leaves falling down my pants legs to the floor. Arriving at
the boys room, I quickly dropped my pants and removed what
was left of the now-dried leaves from my underwear. I was
quite surprised how few were left.
I returned to the classroom, and as soon as I entered, the
teacher called out my name.
"William, before returning to your seat, pick up the leaves
that you dropped on the floor on the way to the boys room."
Again I had to suffer the humiliation of going before the
class and picking up all the fallen leaves. While returning
to my seat I noticed that the room was extremely quiet, and
that all the other students were staring at me with puzzled
looks on their faces, as if mesmerized by the mystery of the
leaves.
As I took my seat and tried to compose myself, random
thoughts began to enter my head. The most dominant one was
to somehow, someway, get that copperhead into her desk.
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