Say, has anyone seen my permanent record?
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By Burton W. Cole, Columnist
By Burton W. Cole, Columnist
In the 40-some years since I escaped school, no one ever has asked for my permanent record.
Not once did a job interview end with, “Before we offer you the position, Mr. Cole, let’s take a peek at your permanent record. Mmmm. Wait, what? How many chickens did you pack into the teacher’s hatchback? I’m sorry but we can’t allow you to flip burgers here.”
Yet, teachers and administrators continuously dangled that Damocles sword over our heads. The two most bone-chilling words that ever curdled a student’s cafeteria lunch were “permanent record.”
They promised that our lives surely would be ruined by those red marks.
“This grade will become part of your permanent record, so don’t blow it, bub.”
“I am ordering you to volunteer for the Fighting Skunks Benchwarmers service club. It’ll look good on your permanent record.”
“I don’t know how you crammed that many chickens in Mrs. Turtlebottom’s Datsun, but you can bet that it’s staying on your permanent record!”
Once, I got called down to the principal’s office, where the secretary slid a clump of fabric across the counter-top. “You forgot your gym shorts again. Your mom sent them in, with clean underwear.”
I stared at the clothes. “Is this going to show up on my permanent record?”
“Not if you wait until you get to the locker room to change.”
My prospects lay in shambles by the time I fled high school. I knew I’d never own my own home. Before I’d be able to sit down with a loan officer, one of those stupid chickens would have been dispatched to the bank with a copy of my permanent record.
“Let’s see now, according to this, you toppled off the climbing rope in gym class in 1973. No, I’m afraid we don’t offer mortgages to clumsy crybabies.”
But get this: No bank, no date, no employer, no credit card company, no church nor any civic group ever demanded to inspect my permanent record. Really. I kept waiting for them to ask.
When I couldn’t stand the tension any longer, I warbled, “Before we do this thing, perhaps you’d like to check my permanent record?”
“We’re just moving the couch from against this wall to against that wall. I don’t think your school attendance holds any bearing on sofa switching.”
A co-worker once wondered why our bosses got so huffy about her strolling in late three times a week. “They should know that in high school, I rarely showed up before third period. It’s right there on my permanent record. Didn’t they look?”
I had fretted for years over a record that turned out to be as permanent as a suntan in November.
And I discovered the real keeper of misdeed and embarrassing moments that will never be deleted — my mother.
It’s no big deal if my boss knows I once created an indoor snowstorm by clapping chalk board erasers together, but there are stunts of my youth that my kids didn’t need to find out.
Mom never forgot a single story.
“Did I ever tell you about the time your dad tied a blanket around his neck for a cape...”
“Mom! No! Don’t tell them that story, too!”
“…and jumped off the porch roof, shouting, ‘There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here’? You see that boxwood bush that no longer grows straight — that’s where your dad landed. Three days later, we still were picking leaves out of his hair, ears and nose.”
Forty-some years after high school, the permanent record that terrifies me no longer is the one the principal warned me about. It’s Mom.
Add to Burt’s record at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or at www.burtonwcole.com.