One More Lesson Learned

By Roberta Messner, Huntington, West Virginia

As appeared in

I came home from work, sank into the nearest chair and opened the newspaper I had carried in from the front porch of my log cabin. The business news section featured a piece about a local woman who had just gotten a big promotion at the bank, along with a snazzy photo of her.

She was in my class in junior high, I remembered. She made something of herself. Why haven’t I?

It had been another long day at my nursing job, and I had come home exhausted and discouraged. My checkbook wasn’t balancing, and I was still trying to adapt to life after divorce. Being reminded of my junior high days didn’t help at all.

Junior high. I was an awkward girl with funny-looking clothes. I never fit in. In my Westerner photo I wore big, thick glasses with ugly frames. My pigtails were anything but fashionable.

No wonder my smile seemed forced. Years ago I had thrown out that yearbook so that I’d never have to look at that picture again.

All the popular girls back then wore designer jeans. The boys too. And you had to have the right hairstyle. The right look. The right everything.

But I never did. I wore hand-me-downs and clothes my mother found on sale, like the out-of-style pants made from a fabric so stiff that the legs could stand up by themselves.

If there was a bright spot back then, it was definitely Mrs. Barrett’s home ec class. I sensed it the first day I took my place in front of an old Singer sewing machine.

Mrs. Barrett wore an ivory chiffon blouse with a high collar, her curly hair piled atop her head in an elegant swirl. “Good morning, class,” she said. “I’m going to teach you how to sew.”

I’ll learn to make my own clothes, I thought. I’ll sew things that make me look as put together as Mrs. Barrett.

Our first project was a simple apron. The other girls picked “in” fabrics like blue denim. I chose yellow calico. Mrs. Barrett stopped by my desk. Her eyes sparkled as she leaned over to scrutinize my work. “What a cheerful color,” she told me. “Your stitches are so straight and even, Roberta.”

The clicking of the other kids’ machines slowed. There was a lone snicker, followed by a full round of giggles. I thought I would die. I knew that the other girls were wondering if I would wear that dumb yellow apron over my ugly pants.

Mrs. Barrett never laughed at anyone. She would stop at someone’s Singer and always find something “positively stupendous” to remark on.

In other classes I sometimes daydreamed or even doodled in my notebook. But never in home ec. Mrs. Barrett was my favorite teacher. No other teacher talked to students the way she did. She made me feel noticed—not for being different, but for who I was inside. And the more she encouraged me, the more my talents emerged.

Thirty years later I still put to use what I had learned in her class. No matter how tough life got, I was always able to lift myself up by sewing, decorating and cooking. In fact, I’d made a second career as a decorating consultant. Thanks to Mrs. Barrett.

Now, tossing the newspaper aside, the thought struck me, Why don’t you tell her?

Would she think it was strange hearing from me after so long? Maybe, but I got out the phone book anyway and ran my finger down the Bs. Babcock, Barclay, Barrett...there she was. I jotted down the address and started on a letter.