Freedom from Thinking
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| Near Uniontown, Pa. Ben Shahn/FSA, Oct. 1935. |
Way back in the days of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, there was a 12-year-old boy who lived in rural Missouri. His name was JD, and his prize possession was a handmade slingshot. He carried it around in a small canvas bag with long handles that let him hang the bag from his shoulder. Nestled with the slingshot in the bag were a bunch of of small round stones and, usually, a ham sandwich.
Mostly JD shot his stones at squirrels. He'd killed one once, early on, and taken it home. His Pa had cleaned it and thrown the meat in the stew pot and told him to go kill more squirrels. But they'd gotten very cagey. It was almost as if they talked about JD. Whenever he stopped and started to take out his slingshot, the squirrels would go on alert, watch him for a second, and then disappear.
The squirrels were getting boring, and shooting trees wasn't very much fun, even though it was good practice. He'd gotten so he could hit the same mark on a tree three times in a row.
JD was walking down a dirt road that led into town. He and his Pa lived in a shack on the other side of town. He was walking by a large, well-kept house that he had often passed before. He knew that an old widow lady lived there. He'd even seen her once or twice, sitting in a rocker on the porch.
JD looked at the porch. Back on the house's wall there were two large windows, each with twelve panes of glass. JD wondered if he could hit the bottom left pane on the left window. It would be a little tricky. He'd have to almost graze the top of the railing.
He took out his slingshot, loaded a stone, looked up, aimed carefully, and fired. There was a very satisfying crash of glass as the bottom left pane of the left window shattered, sprinkling shards of glass everywhere.
JD admired his handiwork for a moment, and then something told him it would be a good idea to leave the area. He was walking away, stuffing his slingshot in the canvas bag, when he heard a voice.
"Young man, where do you think you are going?"
It was a lady's voice. He stopped and turned. It was the widow lady. She was standing on the porch.
"Why did you break my window?" It was a stern voice. He had heard that she had been a schoolteacher.
"I didn't mean to, ma'am. I didn't know it would break."
The widow lady had indeed been a school teacher.
"What did you think would happen?" she asked.
"I don't know, ma'am."
The old lady had been a schoolteacher for a long time . She'd seen a lot of twelve-year-old boys.
"So you weren't thinking about the consequences of your actions?"
The boy thought for a moment and then brightened visibly.
"Yes, ma'am. I wasn't thinking."
The lady thought of what she would teach this boy, given the chance. Some science. How cannons worked, slip in a little ballistics on the side. Maybe Euclid's Elements. If this, then that.
"Do you go to school, boy?"
"No, ma'am. My Pa says the great outdoors is my school."
"Like Daniel Boone."
The boy looked at her blankly.
"What's your name?"
"JD, ma'am."
The lady thought that perhaps he went to Sunday school.
"Do you know the story of David and Goliath?"
He looked at her blankly. The lady sighed. She had no way into this boy's mind. Her husband had been a doctor. When they first arrived, he had tried to convince his patients not to dig their privy pit directly next to their well. After a few years he gave up, and just treated their symptoms as best he could.
"All right, JD." She walked to the edge of the porch and leaned her arm over the railing.
"Hand me the bag."
JD complied. She dumped the contents onto a table. She put the ham sandwich back in the bag and handed the bag to JD.
"I'll be keeping your slingshot and your ammunition for a while." She couldn't resist trying to teach him something. Maybe he'd ask his father what "ammunition" meant. She continued.
"Tell your father if he comes today and fixes my window, I will give him the slingshot. You may go now."
Dejected, the boy hung his head and walked away.
Years later, one of her grandchildren visited her from the big city, and told her they were trying to figure out what to do with all the unruly children who kept skipping school. The schools could expel them for truancy, but that just made things worse - they would have every day to get into trouble on the streets. He said he didn't even know what to call them - street urchin seemed unkind, and didn't necessarily imply the petty criminality they were seeing.
They were sitting on her porch, she in her rocker, he in a wicker armchair, lemonade on the table.
The lady looked out, somewhere across the porch's railing. She thought of JD and smiled.
"Have you thought of calling them juvenile delinquents?" she asked.
See also The 800-Pound Gorilla in the Oval Office, Little Karl.
