A Wink to Miss Piggy

When I was six, my mother handed me off to strangers, who led me into a cold room with cinder block walls, painted a shade of warm white and lit by fluorescents bleaching out the day. It was a place of isolation and solitude. It was peaceful and disturbing. It was a gateway. It was heaven. This old, authoritarian lady, smelling of cigarettes, came in and laid before me a Dixon Ticonderoga No. 2 and a booklet sealed by an adhesive strip.

"Fill in the bubbles completely and I'll be back in a few minutes." she said as she drew the door closed behind her. In many ways, this was the last time I remember being a completely clean slate in my life. I was pure and unjaded. The moment you break that seal, though, you've unleashed the gorgons of time, you've unknowingly released yourself from the safety of childhood and embarked on a journey of standardized tests designed, specifically, to test your ability to take tests. This test, however, was different...

After I'd finished the bubble filling to the best of my ability, I turned to the last page, which was blank. "And essay?" I thought. Isn't this test little heavy to be throwing at six-year olds? But it was not an essay test. Rather, the directive at the top of the page consisted of one simple sentence that changed the direction of my life: "Draw a picture of a person."

My worn graphite lead seemed sharper, now...brought back to life by the freedom the challenge presented. "I can do anything here! A self-portrait!" I thought. Yes, I knew what I looked like! I'd looked at me thousands of times. And so I drew myself, full-body, wearing my zips, all the facial features, waving to the viewer, and I threw in a wink for good measure.

It turns out that the test was a skills assessment for The Stanley Clark School in South Bend Indiana. Though my reading comprehension was acceptable, I was vying for a choice spot in a class of 40 at a private institution with fierce competition clipping at my heels. I aced the test, but that was not enough to get me in. There was the issue of tuition, which, back in those days, was something like $1800 for the year. Now, I think it's something like $15k. We couldn't afford the school, however, so no matter how well I had done, there were still doctors, lawyers, and professors out there who wanted their kids to et the spot and were willing to pay cold, hard cash to make it happen.

My Mom, recently divorced, had taken a job there for $5.00 per hour as a secretary in order to support her two children. Initially, the idea of sending her children to this school was the main goal, not the measly salary, but we still had to get in legitimately and there had to be a way to pay for it.

Enter the lady who administered the test...Peggy Emery. I used to say, "Piggy Emery" in my head every time I saw her because of her upturned snout. An unemotional woman, a chain-smoker, and an authority figure who was instrumental in setting up the lower school from scratch, Peggy ran this show. As her team sifted through the applications and tests, acceptances to the right, rejections to the left, she dumped mine precariously in the middle. After this first round of evaluations, as was customary, they all stopped for a smoke break and resumed the task a few minutes later. From outside the room, shades drawn and smoke billowing out of the door vent, it looked like a dragons' lair. Peggy once again picked up my booklet and thumbed through it. Her eyes rested on the back page. Something caught her eye and she placed me in the acceptance pile. When it came time to hand out scholarships for students in need, I was at the top of the list. With that small act of recognition, my life changed from ignorance to bliss.

Years later, Peggy would say that the thing that separated me from the crowd was the wink. While other children drew more or less capable figures, mine was to one that stood out because it demonstrated an attribute of thought and action. My drawing made her FEEL something. That a detail so whimsically thrown in at the last minute could matter that much makes it all seem like an accident. That a woman who appeared so metallic and hard on the outside responded to the subtlest of details is incongruous to me. It is a mystery....and yet this is more or less how it all happened. Somehow, Peggy and I always had a connection, though it was never spoken and never acknowledged. I do not think I was her favorite student, but I would always be the one who, as a child of six, made a permanent impression on her psyche.

Stanley Clark was to become my home for the next eight years. I loved it. I loved school and reading and new supplies and lunch boxes. Mostly, I loved belonging to something. Coming from a shattered home, I now had a new family and the lessons I took from that place still have more of an impact on my daily life than did high school, or college, or my education after university. Peggy Emery handed me an identity. In some ways, this tough old bird was a kind of mother to me, a guardian angel who watched over me throughout my years at the school. I don't think I ever appropriately thanked her.

Peggy Emery was a prime-mover, a catalyst for learning, a cultivator of beautiful minds. She died Tuesday after a long battle with an Alzheimer's-like dementia. I don't know if anyone else from my class remembers or even recognizes her contributions to their lives. I do know that there are thousands of people out there who should. Thank you, Peggy.