In our Senior English class of 1964, our assignment was to write a poem. Simple enough, even when two friends ask me to write theirs. I had never written a poem, even a short one. Mine is below because. I’ve written it, read it, and told it so often it’s easy to remember. I wrote one for Barry Allen, my lifelong best friend, who passed over a year ago. I spoke at his funeral. The other one I wrote for Jackie Deshazo was called Wild Bill. I only remember the last verse, and it is:
Now Bill isn’t moving very fast.
In fact, he’s lying very still
Kicking up the daisies
Out on cemetery hill
At the end of the week, after the poems had been graded, our teacher, Miss Irene Binion, said she would read the three best ones. To my surprise, she began with the poem I had written for Barry Allen. It was the third best. I certainly wish I could remember it, even the subject. Next, and you could have knocked me over with a feather, was Wild Bill. I felt accomplished and important. And then Miss Binion began to laugh. We didn’t know why, but soon found out when she began to read what she decided was the best poem of the Senior English Class. She would begin to read and start laughing. Of course, I quickly knew it was mine, and she kept trying to read, and her laughing stopped her. Finally, she was laughing so hard she had to stop reading, take off her glasses, and wipe the tears of laughter from her eyes. It was a great day for me and poetry. I really didn’t realize how good it was until later in my life. I would read it, and even those who didn’t know Mr. Bolger would find it humorous, and those who remembered him truly loved the poem.
I enjoy presenting it once again.
Always Check the Flagpole
by Ron Barker
Sr English, Miss Irene Binnion, 1064
Once there were four young men
Whose thoughts were very bold
They thought that they would sneak on down
And steal the school flagpole
They waited round, till late that night
And it was very dark
Then drove down by the school real slow
And their car there, they did park
They all got out and looked around
To see what they could hear
Not a soul had come and seen
The coast, it was all clear
They got their tools and began to work
And kept listening for a sound
The job was strange and much work too
To get that flagpole down
But when they finally got it down
Their hearts, they thought would stop
For there was Mr. Bolger,
Sitting on the top!
Mr. Rufus Bolger was the principal of Mt. Vernon High School from the 1930s to the 1970s. He was a small man, a very unusual and interesting gentleman, to say the least. An often-heard story about Mr. Bolger was that he could walk across a tin roof with a bucket on each foot and tap you on your shoulder before you knew he was there. His version of a laptop computer was a well-worn cigar box on top of a clipboard. Mr. Bolger carried these “tools of his trade” every day, all day, and frequently made use of them. Of course, his notes for announcements were on his well-worn clipboard, but no one knew what was in the old King Edward cigar box with tape on the very ragged corners to hold the contents captive.
I never got a look inside the box, and we, the student body, could only guess what trash or treasures were inside. Probably money, loose notes that would fall off the clipboard, and whatever else would fit inside the 6x10 container that smelled like cigars.
