Roland High School - Ranger Yearbook (Roland, OK)

Page 6 text:

Mrs. Gazzola’s art class for junior high students meets the last hour of the day. Instead of her going over to the junior high building to teach them. thc come over to the high school building. She’s the only teacher in school w ho gets by with that. Mrs. Bauman, Mrs. Hall, Mr. Kelley, and Mrs. Webb all have to go to the junior high building - rain, snow, or burning heat. Such privileges come from being a character, or as she would put it, having character. Whichever way it works, everyone at school is afraid of her, from top to bottom. Well, almost everyone. Those who have had her classes know that under the shouting, uncouth, dramatic facade that there is sheltered a kind-hearted grandmother who really wants to mother all of the gentle, artistic spirits who pass through the portals of the art classroom. I know all of this because I came into being in that room. I guess Dr. Russell would say that it’s the delivery room. Lots of interesting and educational things go on in that room. We’re the only class in school which gets to listen to Mrs. Gazzola’s favorite recorded musical compositions. During one of those afternoon sessions, while we were all listening to Liebestraum, bor- rowed from Dr. Pickartz’s musical collection and never returned, I was conceived. When dear old Mrs. Gazzola realized that my creator’s mind was pregnant with a new creation, she simply could not contain herself. Ecstatic with joy, bursting at the seams with pride, she waltzed across the hall to announce my birth. Everyone in Dr. Pickartz’s room thought it was just another of Mrs. Gazzola’s wild safaris. When she laid me before his eyes. Dr. Pickartz wanted to laugh out loud at what he saw. He didn’t dare. He’s afraid of Mrs. Gazzola, too, even though they grew up together and are kin to the same people. None of his reserve was due to his being a gentleman and of kindly disposition toward creative efforts. So he said something nice to Mrs. Gazzola, she delivered a few more sallies, and then she went back across the hall. All of us know that infant mortality is a real danger to the kind and sensitive souls born into this world. As Mr. Lattimore likes to say, breed the strong and the dumb together and what you get is stronger and dumber. Pardon me, I didn’t get a double negative in there, but I will on the next quote. I certainly don’t want to mis-represent anyone or mis-quote. I almost died soon after I was born. I think I really would have if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Gazzola. Maybe it was the general absence of creativity that caused her to hang on and keep me breathing. Just look where I am now! Let me say from the beginning, before I tell you about my daddy, that I don’t have a mama. If I had had a mama, things might have been different. She would probably have wanted to dress me up like everyone else - Chris Williamson or Jim Dawson - and I would have been lost in the crowd. Fortunately, however, I have remained an individual. Grannie says that I’m the most original thing that has ever happened to Roland. I wasn’t meant to be. When your daddy is creative and imaginative, I guess you just wind up being original. Ike Hedrick is my daddy. He’s almost as proud of me as my granny is. He can’t explain how it all came about. He didn’t even remember that the record player was playing Liebestraum. He likes it, but he doesn’t remember the name of the compositions or the artists who wrote the good music he likes. Somewhere, however, in his medulla oblongata, as Mrs. Earnhart would say, there was a movement. Deep within the mind, a thought occurred. It moved a hand that held a pencil. Across the paper the pencil moved, guided by the hand, guided by the mind. From that humble beginning, moved by the sounds of love, I began to take shape. DEDICATION Mrs. Mary Gazzola 2