The boys were smiling slightly more than the girls perhaps because they out-numbered the girls almost 3 to 1. The photo is sharper than any digital photo although I know that seems impossible 55 years later.
Miss Tapper was school Principal. She had a chest you could set a piano on and an iron hand-- although she had no electric paddle. The electric paddle was an invention of my older siblings and other older kids. The paddle was second only to the electric chair as a fear factor to me. I heard about the electric chair in the news daily. It was an era of what seemed to be daily executions. Executions for murder. Executions for espionage. All the transgressions we read about in the news. All the fictional crimes on the radio and in comic books. It seemed quite a normal thing to kill those people who did bad things. In private moments I think it would be a good idea in the 21st century. At any rate the electric paddle had me terrified of Miss Tapper and the whole old, ancient, spooky looking building where she reigned as the High Executioner.
Miss Tapper would stand at the great second story window with ruler in hand as we played at recess. When she observed misbehavior she did not tap but rapped harshly on the window so that the whole glass shook. All eyes looked up to see her looming presence. All the children came to attention and behavior was modified although I'm sure it would not have been called behavior modification in that time. To see her there at that window meant she was probably warming up her electric paddle for her next victim. She never smiled much but wore her stern look like a badge as much to display her authority to her charge of teachers I'm sure as to her students.
Fifty years later I looked at my report cards covering my years at Polk School, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I noticed for the first time Miss Tapper had written small notes on each card. The notes start with "needs to do (this,that)", needs to improve (this,that). The final note says simply "good report --IBT." It was only then that I appreciated Miss Tapper's silent hand that guided me through her feudal estate where she ruled
supreme --ruler in hand like an emperor's scepter.
(This piece was inspired by a picture sent to me in 2010 by classmate Irv Hubbard. Pictured are:
David Young, Paul Saylor, Danny Arnold, Irvin Hubbard, Johnny Baldwin, Larry Johnson, Jimmy Carlson, Dale Dykhusen, Johnny Niedermayer, Freddie Donegan, Howard Hopkins, Lynette Smith, Barbara Burgess, Judy Lane, Sharon Smith. We were the last mid-year class of 1954.
Not pictured but surely present was Miss Inga B. Tapper)
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