Remembering Mrs. Neyland, 1961, by Randy Summers

From MemoryArchive

Who: Mrs. Neyland
What: High School Study Hall
When: 1961
Where: Lamar High School, Houston, Texas

One of my most unforgettable characters is Mrs. Neyland. She was a long-time school teacher in the Houston public school system. When I met her, in tenth grade in high school, she was my study-hall teacher. I had study hall the next-to-last period of the day. By that time, after lunch, I was usually pretty sleepy. I could get my geometry homework knocked out OK, but any kind of reading usually made me drowsy by that time of day. So dozing off or even folding our arms, and laying our heads down for a little nap was not uncommon in Mrs. Neyland's study hall. She didn't mind. Besides study hall, and her regular academic classes, Mrs. Neyland was something of a senior faculty member there at Lamar. Her room was very nice, in a plum location right across the big wide hallway from the school office on the second floor, and not far from the teachers lounge. Plus, her own son Randy Neyland was a Lamar student and in our class (the famous Class of 1963.) So, Mrs. Neyland was not only a Lamar teacher but also a Lamar parent.

Part of her duties must have included some administrative stuff. I recall occasionally various students would very quietly walk into the room, approach her desk, and dutifully wait for her to look up. There would be some business to be concluded, often with her signing a slip. It was a study hall, so all the talking was in hushed voices, like in the library. Say what you will about the public schools back then, we all grew up knowing how to be quiet in the library!

There is a famous mistake in one of the most famous poems in English literature. In "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," John Keats says Cortes when he means to say Balboa. It was in fact the explorer Balboa who was the first modern European to gaze upon the Pacific Ocean, not Cortes. Anyhow, no one has ever tried to correct Keats, or to do anything like insert the term [sic] after the word Cortes in Keats's text. No one would ever be that stupid and arrogant.

A boy in tenth-grade is not so young a boy anymore; in fact, as anyone who has ever worked with youth knows, he is getting on to being a man. One thing every man will eventually learn is when to call it off, when to retreat, if not, when to beat a hasty retreat. Now, as I have said, Mrs. Neyland was a nice lady, a very experienced school teacher, with a kindly, gentle manner who ran a nice, quiet study hall. One time a boy came in - I can remember him, but not quite his name - big man on campus, upper-classman - Mrs. Neyland had no trouble knowing who he was - and he needed her to sign off on something for her. Apparently, Mrs. Neyland noticed that everything was not quite in order. There was a little discussion. Then I could tell the boy was getting mad - not only mad, but also smart. He said something else. By that time, a couple of us were looking up and gazing. Then he said too much.

Mrs. Neyland did a double-take, and instantly said in the most even voice imaginable, "Are you getting pertinent with me?"

The big man on campus didn't really hesitate. He replied, "No, M'am, I am not." And, at that point, he had already known it was time to call it off. This "non-event" I have remembered over the years, because I think Mrs. Neyland actually meant to say "impertinent" rather "pertinent." But, as with Keats, the whole world would have understood perfectly well what she meant, and more importantly, that she meant business. That Lamar student sure did!