Tommy Can You Hear Me?

 Week Forty-six: Tommy Can You Hear Me?


Tommy can you hear me?

Can you feel me near you?

Tommy can you see me? 

Can I help to cheer you?

Ooooh Tommy

Tommy

Tommy

Tommy


            —The Who, Tommy Can You Hear Me? from the rock opera Tommy


For the first twelve years of my career in public education, I was an elementary school teacher. For various reasons I can remember very well some of the approximately 300 students I taught during those years. Some showed astounding potential. Some were funny. Some were athletic. Most were loving and receptive to my efforts on their behalf. One of them conspicuously stands out  in my memory for various reasons, but mostly because of me.


Tommy was a kid who would not be ignored. He was “in your face” so to speak. If something was said, he had a response. Usually a negative one. He had an interminable habit of disagreeing…with everything. If I said I was going camping, he would say, “Nunt uh.” If I said my kids did something, she would claim they didn’t. It was a habit. 


Tommy was an acquired taste (to say the least.) One particular day he said something about Duke University. I responded by telling him that my cousin went to Duke. “Nunt uh,” he shot back. “He does not!”


It’s not like I would lie awake at night trying to conjure a way to stop this intolerable behavior or to get even with a kid who tested my patience on a daily basis. I had no master plan. In fact, I had no idea, but in that moment, the very moment he told me that my cousin did not go to Duke, something snapped in me. Did I raise my voice? Nope. Did I scold him for his pessimism? No. Did I grab him by the throat and shake him senseless? In hindsight I’m glad that didn’t occur to me at the time. I didn’t do any of those things. I did something ultimately a lot worse.


“Well, actually he’s my cousin’s son. His name is Chris.”


Tommy remained unconvinced.


“He plays basketball. His name is Chris Laettner. Do you know him?” Of course he knew him. Tommy LOVED Christain Laettner, and I knew that.


“Christian Laettner is NOT your cousin!” Tommy protested.


“OK you don’t have to believe me. I don’t care,” I said. 


“You’re lying,” he said, but he would not drop it. I knew I had set the snare that would eventually trap him. In the space of thirty seconds, I had concocted a plan that would cure Mr. Negative for the rest of his life. The plan was so perfect that the only thing left to do was spring the jaws that would trap him.


Here’s the thing: when I told him that my cousin went to Duke I wasn’t lying. I contacted my cousin’s daughter at Duke and asked a huge favor. Several days later a postcard from Duke University, signed by “Christian Laettner” arrived at school.


Tommy cried. He grabbed me around the waist and thanked me profusely for the greatest gift he had ever received. In that moment I should have realized that the trap that had been so cleverly set had indeed snared its prey. Me. Instead of apologizing and hoping to be forgiven for a cruel practical joke, I did the opposite. I doubled down. “See?” I said. “My cousin really does go to Duke.”


After a few days and I was sure he had learned a painful lesson about being so negative, I used an awkwardly appropriate time to inform him that the whole thing was fake. “My cousin does go to Duke, and SHE sent you that postcard,” I told him.


Again Tommy cried, but this time the tears were a combination of anger and disappointment. “I hate you!” he said. 


At some point I was reminded of a day many years earlier at Salisbury State College. Dr. Jack Wulff proposed a scenario to a class full of teacher-candidates. Although I do not remember exactly what Dr. Wulff said, I do recall something a brave but  foolish volunteer said in response. We were presented a situation in which a student was not paying attention, possibly sleeping in class. When asked how we might handle it, one of us suggested embarrassing the kid.


Dr. Wulff hesitated and then he said, “And that kid will hate you from that day forward.”


All those years later, I had woken Tommy.


---------


Years later at a restaurant, Tommy recognized me and joined me for a drink. To this day, I am grateful that it wasn’t forever.



Tommy Can You Hear Me?

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