by Peter Bennett from Grimsby, ON
I used to teach at a high school in town. When I was teaching our school had a student population of about 1100 kids. And occasionally we would discover two students who shared both first and last names.
The incident I want to tell you occurred on a Friday night at a school dance attended by two identically named boys, one of whom ended up rather drunk. I should add that school policy frowned on such behaviour. And so the boy’s friends and supervising teachers responded by duly escorting the boy to the nurses room where he would lie down in safety and in close proximity to a toilet. The vice principal in charge then looked up the boy’s telephone number, rang the house and asked that one of the parents come and collect their son.
The boy’s father left his immediately, driving some distance down to the school from their home in the country.
Perhaps out of anger or embarrassment the father did no get out of the car when he arrived at the school. The kid was loaded into the back seat and driven away.
When they arrived home the man helped the boy stagger into the house where his mother stood waiting. She apparently cast one look at the boy and then, I suspect, a rather longer one at her husband. What words passed between them we do not know…and that may be a blessing.
One hour later the man was back at the school delivering his tottering charge back into the arms of the supervisors…muttering, somewhat sheepishly I remember: “He’s not our son.”