Subject: JACO STORY (PAY NO MORE)

I think this happened around the 1960's. I was drinking my second cup of 
coffee while getting ready to go to work. My wife, Virginia approached me to 
tell me that our daughter's teacher, Grace Carithers, had sent a note home by 
Judy to give us. The note explained that as an extra program of the school, a 
magician would present a show that day. There would be a charge. Parents must 
send in the necessary funds to purchase a ticket. Those with no tickets would 
remain in the room and not be allowed to attend the performance.  

This caused me to have an immediate flash back to around nineteen thirty when 
I was at the same school. The same type programs were presented then and paid 
for in the same manner. Those were some tough times back then for ours and 
many other families. There were four in my family going to school. Buying 
tickets for a show was not a priority. Buying food and clothing was.  I was 
always one of those left behind when the students marched out of the room to 
attend the programs. I was not alone by any means and I am sure that those of 
us left behind had the same or similar feelings.  I can't explain the feeling 
exactly but it was not a happy one for sure as you can see I am still 
remembering it. There was some mixed emotions and a little hurt. The feelings 
of being left behind because your parents were poor weigh heavily on a child. 


Virginia brought me back to the present with a "Well what are you going to 
do?" I opened my wallet and there was my emergency twenty-dollar bill. I took 
it out of the wallet and placed it on the kitchen table. "Find me a sheet of 
paper!" I asked, as I went in search of an envelope. I wrote a note to Grace, 
who was also one of our very best friends. I instructed her to purchase a 
ticket for every child in her room whose parents had not sent money. We 
wanted no child in that room to be left behind. I further asked her not to 
mention to Judy or the class that we had done this. I put the note with the 
twenty and sealed it in the envelope and addressed it to Grace. I felt real 
good about this even if we were not in a position to be throwing money 
around. This I thought in my mind was worth doing. 

Later Judy reported that the program was good and guess what daddy, she 
said," every body in the room went!" The event was soon forgotten by me but 
not by everyone. One morning several days later, John Wooly, the principal at 
the school called me to ask me to drop by his office for a talk.  John was a 
good friend and we were working together on several projects in the Lions 
Club. I thought that was what he wanted to talk about. I was on my way to the 
bank and told him that I would drop in then. I parked on the west end of the 
school building and the office was in the center. I had to walk down the hall 
a ways and I could see all of the little heads of students as I glanced 
through doors. I wondered if the desktops still had the little hole in the 
right hand corner for the inkwell. They were still on desks for many years 
long after ink was no longer used. I remembered that schoolhouse smell also 
from the years of long ago. Everything looked smaller however. The halls were 
not as wide and the desks appeared much smaller than I remembered them. 

John was standing in the door as I walked up to his office. "Come in." he 
invited. He went to his desk and I sat in a big chair directly in front of 
him. After a little small talk he said that he had been told that I had been 
involved the ticket buying for the special program that had taken place at 
the school. He was trying to find out exactly what had happened in regards to 
it.  One of the parents had denied his child permission to go as a 
punishment. The parent was disturbed and had taken his frustrations out on 
Grace the teacher, and then reported her to John. John was trying to decide 
what to do about it.  Grace was upset, John was upset, the parent was upset, 
and I was upset. 

To clear the air I accepted full responsibility for what had happened. I 
explained to John my motivation and stated that in no uncertain terms, the 
next time that such a program presented itself that I would do the same 
thing. I did not want and would not have any child left in a room for the 
reason of being poor. I promised to talk to that parent and would report back 
to John. I managed to smooth things over with the parent and he agreed to 
apologize to Grace but he was still not happy with me. That did not bother 
me, as I did not hold this man in high regards anyway. He had only been in 
town a short while and was always complaining about something. Personally I 
don't think he was happy with anything. He moved away shortly afterwards.  I 
am pretty good at calming disputes, as that was part of what I had to do a 
great deal as a homebuilder. There were always problems and conflicts in that 
business. I don't mind taking the blame for something if it will settle a 
dispute. It is not so important to always be right. As usually is the case 
some good things came out of that event. I firmly believe that something good 
can always be found in bad things if you look hard enough. John, Grace and me 
got to know each other better.  John called  a few days later and said that 
the school decided that in the future, there would be no charge to any 
student attending programs of that nature. The other good thing was I made a 
valuable discovery while talking to that parent. I found out that there were 
more horses Asses in the world than there were horses. People like me are 
always getting involved in things like the above. If only I could have 
learned earlier in life to do what every one else was doing, like go with the 
flow, and not make waves, I am sure I would I would have had a more peaceful 
environment. Perhaps this would have been a more peaceful world. On the other 
hand a lot of good things that happened may have never have occurred   
without my involvement. They might still be charging for special events at 
the school for example.