During idle moments I sometimes wonder what sort of trauma arrested Bob Greene in late adolescence. Did a girl do something dirty? Did a couple of mean boys subject him to some grotesque humiliation?
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Jones, as we all know by now, was Bob’s high school principal. This time, Jones’s spirit is conjured up by the local school regulations “here in Roanoke.” As usual there is no apparent reason for Bob’s presence in the datelined city. It is impossible to conclude, even for Bob, that Roanoke’s unremarkable rules rated a plane ticket to Virginia. Perhaps he had a layover there and headed instinctively for the nearest elementary school, carrying his Davy Crockett lunch box and an apple for the teacher. “I’m sorry, Mr. Greene. You’re not enrolled, and you’re not a parent, and you can’t just attend a day of fifth grade–here are our regulations that say so.” Presto: a column.
His fond recollections have the flavor of a battered wife rhapsodizing her abusive husband. In a 1977 interview, Bob described himself as a person who “never read anything…never read a word of Hemingway. I’ve never read any F. Scott Fitzgerald. I certainly never read any fuckin’ Shakespeare.” It never occurs to Bob that this aversion to education might have been inculcated at Bexley High School, by martinet administrators hectoring him about the color of his pants.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Jeff Heller.
