In second grade, I was a skinny farm boy who loved adventure stories, reading, math class and, of course, recess.
I went to Tekamah-Herman Elementary School, and my teacher was Mrs. Jacci Mencke.
Before recess, we had to line up single file and wait for the teachers to lead us through the hallway and outside. Depending on the weather, we’d either head to the playground—with swings, monkey bars, a merry-go-round and a kickball field—or stay on the big concrete slab if it had been raining and the playground was muddy.
I never understood the problem with a little mud.
I grew up on a farm. Dirt was pretty much everywhere.
Looking back, I’m sure my mom was very grateful the school had a different policy. She was the one doing my laundry.
The concrete slab wasn’t nearly as exciting as the playground. It had four-square and hopscotch lines painted on it, but those were icky girl things and therefore of little interest to a seven-year-old boy. There were four half-court basketball hoops, though, and a solid wall with boundaries painted on it where we could play dodgeball.
In the winter, they piled snow at one end of the slab. To a second grader, those piles seemed fifteen feet tall, and naturally we climbed them and played King of the Mountain.
The wall also added an interesting element to dodgeball.
I remember one day that year when Bob Davis took a ball square in the face.
I don’t remember who threw it, but I remember Bob’s head snapping backward—and then continuing backward until it hit the wall behind him.
He didn’t need stitches.
He did, however, bleed.
A lot.
Off to the nurse’s office went Bob Davis.
That gives you some idea of recess at Tekamah-Herman Elementary School.
On the day that concerns us, it had rained. The playground was out, so we were headed for the concrete slab.
My desk was close to the classroom door. Todd Wragge, the new kid, sat at the same table group I did, so Todd and I were usually among the first kids in line.
We were also two of the three tall kids in our class.
While we were waiting for the bell, Mrs. Mencke commented on how much I’d grown.
I took this as a compliment.
I also took it as an invitation to update her on my overall physical development.
I rolled up the sleeve of my short-sleeved shirt, flexed my seven-year-old bicep and informed Mrs. Mencke that I was getting pretty strong, too.
She chuckled.
Before I could provide additional evidence, the bell rang.
Recess.
The door opened and we headed east down the hallway toward the breezeway doors.
Along the way was a set of security doors with an EXIT sign mounted above them.
This is where Todd and I being tall becomes important.
We had discovered that if we got a good enough running start, jumped at exactly the right moment and stretched as high as we possibly could, we could slap that EXIT sign on the way through.
Mrs. Mencke had also discovered this.
Every day, she reminded us that running in the hallway wasn’t allowed.
And neither was jumping up and slapping the EXIT sign.
Every.
Single.
Day.
Apparently Todd and I needed repetition.
That particular day, we got our running start and headed for the doors.
What we didn’t see was our principal, Mr. Dean Chase, coming down the hallway from the opposite direction with another group of students.
He saw us.
Mr. Chase stopped us and reminded us of the rule.
Then he handed down our punishment.
Todd and I were to stand beneath the EXIT sign and jump up and touch it fifty times.
We looked at each other with huge eyes.
You might think we were horrified.
We weren’t.
This wasn’t punishment.
It was practice.
Todd and I gleefully started jumping.
One.
Two.
Three.
If we missed the sign, it didn’t count.
We were being punished, after all. We weren’t going to cheat.
Four.
Five.
Six.
By the time we’d completed fifty legitimate touches, we’d had more concentrated EXIT-sign training than we’d ever dreamed possible.
Five minutes later we were outside on the concrete slab.
Todd and I found an open basketball hoop and started playing HORSE.
Mrs. Mencke was nearby with the other second-grade teacher. I remember them standing there talking and swinging their whistles around their fingers, winding and unwinding the cords.
And I remembered that Mrs. Mencke and I had unfinished business.
Between shots, I resumed explaining how strong I was getting.
She smiled.
It was a smile of disbelief.
I knew it.
So I decided to make my case.
I announced that I was so strong I could lift her off the ground.
Mrs. Mencke looked at me.
“No. You cannot.”
Now, there are at least two ways a reasonable person could interpret those words.
Mrs. Mencke meant:
No, John. You cannot pick up your teacher.
What I heard was:
I do not believe you possess the strength necessary to lift me.
Challenge accepted.
I squatted down.
This was important for two reasons.
First, even at seven years old, I apparently understood that you should lift with your legs.
Second, I needed a good grip.
And the best place I could see to get one was just under Mrs. Mencke’s rear end.
Before she had much opportunity to reconsider her wording, I grabbed hold and lifted.
And I was right.
I could pick up Mrs. Mencke.
For one glorious moment, my second-grade teacher was completely off the ground.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t agreed to participate in this demonstration.
Mrs. Mencke’s arms and legs shot out.
I lost my grip.
And Mrs. Jacci Mencke came back to Earth.
Hard.
She landed on the concrete, tearing holes in the knees of her new pantyhose and scraping her knees badly enough to draw blood.
Which led to my next meeting with Mr. Chase.
I don’t remember everything that was said in the principal’s office.
I’m fairly certain nobody congratulated me on my lifting technique.
Eventually I returned to class.
Mrs. Mencke apparently made a trip to the nurse’s office, too.
There she was at the front of the room with bandages on her knees.
And there was Bob Davis, also bandaged up.
Bob still had an ice pack.
It was a pretty quiet afternoon.
I felt terrible.
I hadn’t been trying to hurt Mrs. Mencke. In my seven-year-old mind, she’d challenged me to prove I was strong enough to pick her up.
So I did.
Mrs. Mencke took it remarkably well.
Many years later, as an adult, I happened across her name on Facebook. I sent her a message and asked if she was still mad at me about that day.
She wasn’t.
I’m sure a career spent teaching elementary school gave Mrs. Mencke plenty of adventures of her own.
But the strangest part of this story came decades later.
My oldest daughter, Peyton, was in show choir and had a friend named Sydney Mencke.
The name caught my attention.
I asked Peyton to find out if Sydney had family from Tekamah.
Then I made the mistake of telling Peyton why.
I told her about the day I picked up Mrs. Mencke.
Peyton looked at me like I had just made up the entire thing.
“No way you did that.”
So the next day, Peyton asked Sydney if she knew anyone from Tekamah.
Sydney said yes.
Which meant Peyton had only one question left.
“Did my dad really do what he says he did?”
Sydney said yes.
Then she added:
“That was my grandma.”
If this resonated with you, you’re not alone.
