Charles Hamner

Mr. Hamner was throwing me to the wolves.

I was a 21-year-old, ill-confident student teacher at Grand Island Senior High, and my supervising teacher Charles Hamner was practically guaranteeing that my career would end before it started.

"This'll be a good experience," he tried to reassure me, "a fuller experience."

Charles and Devon Hamner with kids and grandkids

What he meant was that I'd had it way too easy with my other supervising teacher, Mr. Obester. Fay Obester was a kind, gentle old bachelor who taught American Lit. He'd handed over his very best class to me, and I'd taught My Antonia to those exceptional children and loved every minute of it.

Now Mr. Hamner had decided it was time for me to take a stab at the last period General English class. Charles Hamner could handle that class of all boys - boys who'd already failed the course or who had no intention of passing it the first time.  I'd observed him work his magic in that terrifying classroom and even coerce Jesse, the solidly well-built eleventh grader who was the unofficial leader of the pack, into behaving like a model citizen.

Truthfully, I was in awe of the great Mr. Hamner. In every circumstance and in every setting, Mr. Hamner always knew what to say or do. Only a couple of weeks before, poor Mr. Obester had lost his frail, elderly father whom he had lived with and cared for tenderly. When he came back to school a few days later, he strayed almost uncertainly into Mr. Hamner's classroom.

"Fay!" Mr. Hamner jumped up to cross the room and grip the sagging shoulder of the struggling Mr. Obester. "I'm so sorry about your dad," he said with direct, heartfelt sympathy.

Given permission to be a grieving son rather than a stoic teacher, Mr. Obester gratefully talked and talked about his departed father, and his kind eyes welled with tears. Mr. Hamner listened intently, said all the right things, and ministered to his old friend.

He dealt with the anguished Mr. Obester as deftly as he dealt with those ruffians in last period General English. I listened and watched as he talked to the boys about wrestling and hunting and all manner of things.They liked him - so much so that that they read and wrote and participated in class in spite of themselves. They wanted, I observed in a kind of wonder, to please Mr. Hamner.

They wouldn't care about pleasing me.

"Use your height!" Mr, Hamner said to me now. "Try to be a little intimidating!"

But he and I both knew it wouldn't matter if I was ten feet tall. Those boys would only see RAW HAMBURGER plastered across my forehead.

It was so much worse than I ever imagined. Last period passed quietly the next Monday, but I sensed rebellion in the air. It was the knife edge tension that coils to spring just before a prison riot. It was hard to ignore the grins and  knowing glances that passed across the aisles.

Tuesday was D-Day. I had just turned to write on the blackboard when I felt the snap of a rubber band against my shoulder.

Be calm, I said to myself. It's nothing.

Just like that, a barrage of rubber bands whizzed through the air bouncing off my back, my head and the blackboard before settling like so much debris around my feet. Aside from a few irrepressible snorts, the room was silent. They were waiting to see what I would do.

I didn't get mad. I didn't shout. I didn't cry. I did nothing. Because I was young and stupid and humiliated and out of my league, I ignored them. The same thing happened the next day. Only this time, there were no stifled snorts of laughter. I had abandoned ship. The natives had taken over, and chaos reined..

As soon as the bell rang after the longest 50 minutes of my life, I walked straight out of the room and straight to Mr. Hamner.

"I'm in trouble," I confessed.

He sat back in his chair with hands clasped behind his head and calmly listened as I blurted the terrible details of the last three days.  At last I collapsed into a chair across from his desk and stared mutely at the floor.

"So," he said quietly, "what will you do when you walk into that room tomorrow?"

I sighed. "Well, I'm never ever writing on the board again."

He laughed, and I felt marginally better. It was Jesse, I said, who fired the first rubber band, I was sure of it.

Mr. Hamner looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. "So maybe," he suggested gently, "the answer is to get Jesse on your side."

I stared at him. "How do I do that?" I sputtered.

He smiled. "That's for every good teacher to figure out for herself."

I didn't sleep that night. Instead, I wrestled with my dilemma, twisting it and wringing it like a rag. All the next day, I carried the burden of it, and when last period arrived, I marched to class like a convicted man walking the green mile to the electric chair.

They were all there - early for the first time that week - waiting and laughing in gleeful anticipation. I instructed them to open their literature books and then deliberately turned to face the board. I didn't have to wait long. The rubber bands rained down like a hail storm. Sending up a fervent prayer, I turned slowly back to face them.

 "Look," I finally gathered the courage to speak. "I know you wish Mr. Hamner was still teaching the class."

They laughed and grinned at each other. Of course, they loved Mr. Hamner. But who was I kidding? Pelting the student teacher with rubber bands was kind of a gas.

"Okay," I corrected myself.  "I wish Mr. Hamner was still teaching the class." I drew a ragged breath. "The thing is, I'm young and I'm not a very good teacher. In fact, I'm probably a lousy teacher. But I'd like to be a good one." I looked up at them. "And I can't do it when you're slinging rubber bands at me. So, if you could just give me a break, I'd really appreciate it."

That was it. I waited. For something. Anything. Some looked ashamed, and many of them were staring at Jesse who sat slumped in his desk observing me in silence. After a second, he rose and slouched up to the front of the room. Then he emptied his pocket of what seemed like a hundred rubber bands and tossed them into the waste basket.  Slowly, he walked back to his desk. I saw lots of them stealing looks at each other. A couple of other kids rose to do the same thing.  Then it was a mass exodus of boys leaving their desks to empty their pockets of every last rubber band.

When they were all seated again, the silence in the room was thundering. I knew I was supposed to say something.

"Man," I squeaked at last.  "That was a lot of rubber bands."

I wish I could say last period English was perfect after that, but Jesse and I continued to do enthusiastic battle over control of the class, and although we achieved an uneasy balance, I never developed the rapport with those boys that Mr. Hamner did.

But they never shot another rubber band.

At the end of the quarter, I collected my final grades. Mr. Obester had given me an outstanding recommendation. I was not an outstanding student teacher, but Mr. Obester liked me, and I was grateful for his report.

Mr. Hamner, on the other hand, was bluntly honest and gave me exactly what I deserved - a very mediocre recommendation. I remember walking out of Grand Island Senior High for the last time poring over his recommendation again and again. The disappointment was keen. Then I noticed his handwritten comment on the very bottom: "Ms. Brown, with a little confidence, shows promise."

It wasn't much. But I'd take it. After all, hadn't I survived last period General English? In the weeks that followed, I swallowed my disappointment, signed a teaching contract for the next fall at Grand Island Central Catholic, and was determined to work on my confidence.

It eventually came, too, waxing and waning with years of successes and failures. I thought about Mr. Hamner a lot. Sometimes, after a particularly good class, I'd think to myself, "Chuck would have liked that." Instinctively, I incorporated all that I learned under Mr. Hamner's tutelage into my classroom management style and silently thanked Charles Hamner again and again for his wisdom and persistence.

Although I never saw him, I was always aware of his presence in town. He and his wife Devon, a blonde beauty, were legends in the Grand Island teaching community. Likewise, their good looking, gifted children were as remarkable as their parents. I remember hearing that Mr. Hamner and his wife eventually retired and thought, as I so often did, that I should write him a note to thank him for all that he'd done for me.But after 38 years, I was sure he'd long forgotten that hopelessly young student teacher.

You'd think since we'd lived in the same town we would have run into each other occasionally, but we never really did. Until two weeks ago last Saturday.

I was shopping at Walmart when I saw him and his young handsome son, Jonathan. I waved, sure that he'd never recognize me. However, to my surprise and delight, he not only remembered me but stopped to talk to me and introduce me to his son.

"How's retirement?" I grinned. "Is it the life?"

He was still youthful and fit and vigorous. But a shadow crossed his face, and he hesitated. "It's good. I don't know if you knew that Devon was diagnosed with cancer."

His beautiful wife. I did not know and was heartsick to hear it. After enduring a very difficult operation, Mr. Hamner said, she was only just able to start chemo treatment.

"We're trying to buy a little time," he said, and his eyes filled.

"I'm so sorry, Charles." I said. It was the first time I'd ever called him by his first name. And I was suddenly remembering how he had comforted poor Mr. Obester nearly 40 years ago after his father died. "I'll be saying lots of Catholic novenas!" I said.

I wished I could have taken it right back. Mr. Hamner was not Catholic, but I could think of no way to comfort him as he had comforted Mr. Obester.

"Thank you," he said graciously, as if I had offered him the one thing he needed most. We embraced, I shook hands with his handsome son, and we parted ways.

Then I turned into the mouthwash aisle and stared at the shelves for a long time

After 38 years, Mr. Hamner and I had come full circle, and I understood his great gift as en educator. He'd taught me always to look for the person behind the face - whether it was an old teacher grieving over the death of his father, an eleventh grade boy who needed the adoration of his classmates, or a young student teacher whose time had come to confront her fears. Only today, he'd shown me another person. The great Charles Hamner was a man who loved his wife very much. In spite of his quiet courage, his agony was a palpable thing. Even the great Mr. Hamner needed a little support.

Charles Hamner and I are peers now. The truth is, though, he continues to influence and speak to me in a hundred different ways.

And he will always be my teacher.