The beginning of my sophomore year at Culver, there was a choir teacher changeover. The previous director had been lax and well-loved by the students. The new director was, well, more stern and prickly. On the first evening, we were going over the usual expectations and requirements. The beloved "excuse bucket," usually filled with acorns from students who had wandered in late, was to become something to take seriously. On the ever-growing stack of papers spelling out these sorts of things, I unthinkingly scribbled a note to my sister. I wrote, "what a power hungry freak!" Yeah, I'm not so proud of that one. In my defense, I'll feebly state that I was fourteen and angry.
Anyway, I later discovered that the new director had gone through and cleaned out our folders, something the previous director had never done. The note briefly occurred to me, but I dismissed the thought because who would actually bother to reread every single page of all that! You see where this is going? Several weeks later as I was leaving fencing practice at the gym, I ran into him outside. For the life of me I don't know what we spoke about. All I remember is his smile and parting words, "Oh, and I am not a power hungry freak."
I was mortified. I was burning red and it took all I had not to run back to the dorm. Dee sympathized with me, but it took weeks to get up the courage to relate the incident to my mom. I knew I had no one to blame but myself. Truthfully, he had walked into a tough position and I felt a little sorry for him, sternness, prickliness, and all.
Lesson learned (in mom's words): never write down anything you don't want the world to see.
