Wendell Wilkie

Remembered as the 1940 Republican presidential candidate who lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt by nearly 5 million votes.

I figured with the election tomorrow, i should tell my readers (all 12 of you) a story about politics. Get ready to ride....

When i was in the 7th grade, my English Class was combined with the 8th graders. That's what you do when you go to a small Christian school. You combine classes. You also tend to have to give up your classroom for many various reasons. So on this lovely afternoon, we were having English in the Library. Our Library was about the size of a small kitchen. It held two computers and a gazillion national geographic magazines. There were also some books. haha! It was split down the middle by a bookshelf. The left side of the room held the desk where you checked out your books, and the right side held a round table that our small, combined class managed to fit around. There was also a white board and a world map on the wall. And windows that gave all us poor kids barely making it at the expensive Christian school a nice view of the Principal's mansion. And greenhouse. Yes, i just said greenhouse. They had a greenhouse. Oh, and a boat.
So anyway, being the excellent grammar student that i was (toot! toot! (that's me tooting my own horn)), our teacher, Mrs. Neal, left me in charge with the Teacher's Edition Answer Key book. I was to call out the answers so everyone else could check their homework. Clearly, i was not ready for this kind of power. Right away, the first sentence threw me off task. I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was something to the extent of, "Wendell Wilkie lost the election to FDR in 1940." Wendell Wilkie?? Wendell Wilkie!?!? WENDELL WILKIE!!! Talk about a fun name to say. I just couldn't get over it. Never heard of the guy before, but immediatly LOVED his name. Then i decided he needed a special voice. So i made one up for him. I continued to use that voice as i read more sentences and called out more answers. Well, my classmates did not have the same enthusiasm and appreciation for this man. Sorry Wendell. I refused to quit, and that's when it all went downhill. I have to tell you, for Christian school kids, we could be pretty coniving and mischievious. And by we i mean everyone else. Not me. I was just having fun with a name and a voice. They were plotting to shut me up....forever. duh-duh-duh (that's the scary music).
This is how it all went down:
I'm innocently sitting in my chair at the round table, swinging my legs back and forth, annoyed by the run in my required-by-dresscode pantyhose, and calling out answers as i perfect my Wendell Wilkie voice. Meanwhile, THEY are up out of their seats, one grabbing my legs from under the table, one grabbing the back of my chair, and the other two grabbing my arms. Before i could say, "Wendell!" My chair was rudely yanked out from under me, and my chin went on a blind date with the table top. SMACK! It hurt. badly. I don't think i cried though. I don't remember crying. I just remember being EXTREMELY upset. My pride was hurting worse than my chin. But, i was able to get over in time to laugh hysterically with everyone else at the humor in it all. It was pretty funny.
We came to our senses and got ourselves together before the teacher came back. In a small Christian school (really just the one i went to) antics like that will earn you a double detention at the most, note sent home at the very least. We didn't want either. The bell rang, school ended, we were in the clear.
Yeah, right.
One of my classmates had to go and run his big mouth (bless his heart - saying that makes it ok for me to make fun of him, right?), and the next thing we knew, we were all lined up outside the principal's office receiving our pink slips to inform our parents of our upcoming detention. Great. Not only did i have whiplash and a sore chin, but now i was going to have to scrub the baseboards in the bathroom with a toothbrush. No joke. That's what we did in detention. After we found a verse in the Bible that explained why our actions were wrong, and we had written at least a page about it (talk about learning some BS skills (yes mother, i know you're cringing at those letters, but no one would know what i meant if i said DW (Donkey Waste)).
In the end though, i made out better than the guy who told on us. See, he was the only boy in our small gang of "criminal students going to hell in a handbasket," so he had to scrub the boys bathroom by himself while all us girls got to scrub the girls bathroom together. Bless his heart.