By Tony Deyal
Why were the teacher’s eyes crossed? She couldn’t control her pupils. One of the boys, the son of a very rich man, threw his watch out of the school window because he wanted us to see time fly. I was one of the others and my partner in crime was Brewster. Our teacher, Mr Bunsee, gave us a test which required that we name the young of various creatures. We did well with “cat” and “lion” but when we reached “goat” I didn’t know the answer. I asked Brewster because he had a goat that he tied out every morning and took care of. “What you call it?” I asked. “Meggy,” he replied. We both went with “Meggy.”
Brewster got some hard talk and that was all. However, knowing me as the class clown the teacher first took me to the principal who was not just the king of the school but also the Ruler and I got twenty of them. Worse, because a young goat is a “kid”, Teacher Bunsee also gave me 300 lines to write, “I must stop kidding, I must stop kidding…” Still, I was better than the piano teacher in the city school where I spent a year. He was arrested for fingering A minor.
Like my teacher used to say, “leaving joke and fun aside,” had and still have a great deal of respect for all teachers. When a teacher told us, “One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world”, I replied, “Miss, all I have is a pencil. You think that will work?” Many years later I was in secondary school and my Irish priest/teacher quoted his homeland hero, poet William Butler Yeats, “Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.”
Once again I got into trouble, “But sir, you have to fill a pail to out a fire.” That got me a visit to the Principal who was called “Brother” Jerome. I never understood why. So when another student asked me what the “Brother” was about, I replied, “It beats me!” What beat me even worse were two lines from the song, “Son of Man” by drummer, songwriter and lead singer of the rock band Genesis, Phil Collins. It went, “In learning you will teach/And in teaching you will learn.”
That’s true, but Caribbean people take it another step. It’s common to hear the expression, “He didn’t talk, he preach!” Even though that person delivered a powerful message with deep conviction, is it enough to move from teacher man to preacher man? In other words, do you practice what you preach and walk the walk and not just talk the talk? Also, there is “preaching to the choir” which means to present an argument or opinion to people who already agree with it.
There is a story about a Baptist preacher sitting next to a cowboy on a flight. After the plane took off, the cowboy asked for a whisky and soda. It was brought promptly and placed before him. The flight attendant then asked the preacher if he would like a drink. Very upset and even angry, the preacher replied, “I’d rather be tied up and taken advantage of by women of ill-repute than let liquor touch my lips.” The cowboy then handed his drink back to the attendant and said, “Me too, I didn’t know we had a choice.”
Of course, we always have a choice but many times don’t use it. A preacher told his congregation, “Next week I plan to preach about the sin of lying.” He added: “To help you understand my sermon, I want you all to read Mark 17.” The following Sunday, the preacher asked who read it and every hand went up immediately. The preacher smiled and said: “Mark has only sixteen chapters. I will now proceed with my sermon on the sin of lying.” Maybe for being too cute, the preacher might have been made to pay for his sin.
A few weeks after he went through chapter and worse, shame really, the church council met to discuss the pastor’s compensation package for the coming year. After the meeting, the chair of the council told the pastor: “We are very sorry, Pastor, but we decided that we cannot give you a raise next year.” “But you must give me a raise,” said the pastor. “I am but a poor preacher!” “l know,” the council chair said. “We hear you every Sunday.” Maybe he was like the Pastor who told one of the women who came to church by herself every Sunday but had come with her husband, “I couldn’t help notice that even though this was his first visit, he walked out of my sermon this morning!” The lady responded, “Pastor, I’m sorry it happened but please don’t take it personally. He’s been walking in his sleep for years!”
Of course, some priests try hard to get their own back but not always with success. A policeman pulled over a priest and was immediately hit by the alcohol in the priest’s breath. Then the policeman noticed an empty Jameson whisky bottle lying on the passenger seat. “Have you been drinking?” the officer asked. “Just water,” said the priest. “Then why do I smell whisky?” the policeman asked. The priest looked at the bottle, looked up in the sky, looked at the bottle again and shouted loudly, “Good Lord! He’s done it again!” I suppose this is why if you want to make God laugh, you either tell him your plans, get him involved in yours, or get scotched for your stupidity.
Like the preacher who had just died and was in the line for Heaven. Another guy was waiting in line and the preacher asked him, “What did you do in your life?” The man replied, “Well, I was a teacher and used to get drunk, go to work and beat the children.” The preacher replied, “In my life I was a preacher. I always supported charity, was nice to people, and gave the longest sermons about God.”
Soon the teacher walked up to St Peter, they talked for a few minutes and the teacher strolled easily into heaven. When it was the preacher’s turn he told St Peter: “As a preacher, I always followed the commandments and preached for a long time every chance I had. Do I get to go to heaven?” St Peter wasn’t sure. He explained, “When you gave your sermons, everyone always fell asleep. But when the teacher came to class, the whole school of kids were always praying to God for help.”
While this was happening, God was talking to one of his angels and asked: “Do you know what I have done? I have just created a 24-hour period of alternating light and darkness on Earth. Isn’t that good?” The angel replied, “Yes, but what will you do now?” God (and I followed suit) said, “I think I’ll call it a day.”
*Tony Deyal was asked: “ Why are priests called ‘father’?” Because it’s too suspicious to call them ‘daddy.’
