The Dreaded F

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Many people probably go through their school years without ever receiving a failing grade. In my twenty years of school, I had three failing grades.

I started early. My first F was given on a page of a writing book in the second grade.

Mrs. Yokum was a vial woman, in my view. She pulled my hair on more than one occasion, and paddling boys with a book seemed to be her hobby. To my knowledge, she never paddled a girl, and I think there was some discrimination there.

“On this page, I want you to practice your letters, staying within the lines and making your letters like the ones at the top of the page,” Mrs. Yokum said as she explained the assignment. These were new writing booklets, and we were reminded often of how lucky we were to have them. “And on this page, I want you to skip a line before starting a new line.”

That was simple enough, but if these were such precious booklets, why waste all that paper by skipping a line. Besides, I could use every line and still get it done with the other kids.

We were at the writing table. The entire second-grade class, all eight of us, were lined up on each side of the table. We were busy writing, just like the teacher had instructed. Mrs. Yokum came along behind us and watched over our shoulders.

When she came up behind me, she stopped and leaned over to look at how I had made full use of the page by using every line. She grabbed my hair and yanked my head back and forth several times. I was used to having my head batted by Dad once in a while, and I could duck and avoid those blows most of the time. This old witch cheated and grabbed my hair.

“I told you to skip a line,” Mrs. Yokum almost shouted.

“Yes, but!” I started to say before she pulled me out of my chair by my arm, grabbed my writing book, and hauled me up to her desk.

“I told you to skip a line, and you wrote on every line,” Mrs. Yokum said, still talking in a loud and cross voice. “You need to learn to follow instructions.”

She took her red pencil and put a large red x that covered the entire page. Then she marked the page with a large F.

“Now, take this book back to your desk and wait for the other kids to finish their assignment,” Mrs. Yokum instructed.

I bore those scars for weeks. Well, at least for an hour or two. 

It was several weeks later that we had completed the booklets. We were given the books to take home for our parents to see. On the bus ride home, I tore out that offending page and tossed it out the window. And that was that.

My next F came in the spring quarter of my senior year in high school. It was in my mechanical drawing class. I had straight As in that class, and after three quarters, I had completed the year’s course work. 

“This last quarter, I want you to do a project of a commercial nature,” Mr. Hayes said as he stood in front of my drawing table. “That will give you a glimpse of working for a client and doing a complex project.”

“I have a lot of things going on with the end of the school year,” I said. “Maybe it would be better if I just helped with the other kids in the classroom.”

“The French class needs a cabinet for holding their tapes,” Mr. Hayes said. “I think you would get more out of doing that project than you would by fiddling around in class. You can go up there tomorrow and talk with Mr. Sorenson. You will need to make some notes as to their needs and go from there.”

That sounded simple, but the guy wanted a large complex cabinet with a lazy susan and a lot of drawers. It was more of a project than I wanted to do, and I doubted if the wood shop would be up to making it.

So I made some notes and fiddled with some sketches, and in those last nine weeks of my senior year, I didn’t accomplish must on that project.

Mr. Hayes gave me an F for the quarter. That lowered my semester grade to a C, which came close to preventing me from having an honor cord at graduation. 

Everyone with a three-point grade point average or above was given an honor cord. My final GPA ended up as 3.001. I was the last one on the list to get an honor cord. Mrs. Starr, the senior English teacher and senior advisor had a tear in her eye when she handed me a cord.

My last F was in a History of Western Civilization class when I ventured to Colorado State University in 1964. It resulted from my inexperience in dealing with adding and dropping courses.

I knew from the moment the professor walked out on the stage of the large auditorium classroom that he was a dud. He was dressed to the hilt with a tailored suit and patent leather shoes. He was groomed to be a pretty boy.

Here in a classroom of nearly six hundred students, we were assigned seats. Each of his graduate students was given the task of taking a roll at each lecture. You were marked absent if you were not in your assigned seat at the start of class. Five absences, and you would fail the course.

That wasn’t the worse of it. The guy was a terrible lecturer, and the reading assignments were as dull as they could get. But I endured. Had I known better, I would have dropped the class. 

Then came the first midterm exam. It was an all multiple choice test. I usually do reasonably well on such tests, but this one proved difficult.

The results of the midterm test were disastrous. A full eighty percent of the class failed the midterm. This joker of a professor went ballistic, and he blamed everyone except himself.

“If you jokers don’t want to come to class, that is fine,” the derelict professor says as he throws his attendance book across the stage, with pages flying everywhere. “I don’t care if you never come to class.”

Don’t come to class. I didn’t need to be told twice. That was it for me. Had I been thinking, I would have dropped the course, but I just quit going to the lectures and quit reading. Life was better.

Maybe a month later, I thought I had better drop by the class and see what was happening. Wouldn’t you know, it was the day for the second midterm. I listened to some of the chatter in the hall before going into the class. Apparently, the lectures had not improved.

I sat in the row I had been assigned at the start of the term. I took the midterm.

I was pleasantly surprised when I passed with a low C. Pretty good, I thought, for not doing a thing. The professor was a little more pleasant with the improved results.

“I am going to make a deal with all of you people who failed the first midterm and passed this midterm,” the professor said. “I will give you whatever you get on the final exam as your grade in this class.”

That seemed reasonable, I thought. I might even read a few chapters, but I wasn’t going to listen to this joker. I continued to avoid the lectures.

Even with the deal, I wasn’t smart enough to make an effort in this class. I apparently didn’t do so good on the final. My grade for the course was an F.

After I was out of the Army, I still needed a history class. At Oregon State University, I took American History. A friend told me to just go to the book store and buy one of those plastic study sheets.

“Just learn everything on the study sheet,” Steve said. “It’s only two pages, don’t worry about the lectures. I think this guy does his tests off of these sheets.”

I followed Steve’s suggestion. Committing two pages to memory was no problem for me, and I got an A in that class.

Photo by Yinan Chen on Pixabay.

A Leap of Faith, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Preface: The summer following my sixth-grade year, Dana Watson and I thoroughly explored all the lands between Broadbent and Gaylord and over the hill to Yellow Creek. That covered a circular area of about 15 square miles. We climbed cliffs, traversed Neal Mountain, followed streams, and marveled at the engineering of beaver dams. We were vaguely aware of property lines but had no concept of trespass in those years.

***

I could hear Mom moving about in the kitchen when I laid in bed in the upstairs boy’s room. I nudged Dana awake.

“Dana, I have been thinking that we should go home to your place over Neal Mountain today,” I said as soon as he stirred.

“That would be a good idea,” Dana said. “I could show that large Beaver dam I was telling you about.”

We both bounded out of bed and dressed quickly. It was a cool summer morning with a dense covering of coastal fog. That meant that we had a few cool hours before the fog would burn off and expose the bright sun. But with the morning fog, even the hottest days would only be in the low eighties.

Mom had a plate of pancakes and bacon on the table when we tumbled down the stairs to the kitchen.

“When we go to Dana’s this morning, we are going to go over Neal Mountain,” I said to Mom, more to inform her than to ask permission.

“You two have been that way before, haven’t you?” Mom asked. 

“It is a steep climb, but other than that, it is an easy route,” I said. “Once we cross over onto Mr. Neal’s place, it is all downhill.”

“What does Mr. Neal think about you traveling across his place?” Mom asked.

“We just go down his far fence line,” Dana said. “He wouldn’t say anything, and if he wanted to make a thing of it, we could just cross the fence. It just that there is a lot of brush on the other side of the fence.”

“Maybe I should call your mother,” Mom said. “Just to let her know where you guys are going to be.” 

“They were going to Coos Bay this morning,” Dana said. “She probably won’t be home until after we get there.”

“Okay, but you be careful,” Mom said as we finished eating and headed out the door.

We headed across our upper field on a trot. Our plan was to reach the top of the shoulder on Neal Mountain before the fog burned off. The heat from the sun would make the climb up the steep slope difficult.

We crossed the line fence onto Herman’s and continued up the road to the old mill site. We gave the sawdust pile, left from the mill, a wide berth. Smoke rose from several holes around the parameter of the sawdust pile. 

We knew these sawdust piles burned for years from spontaneous combustion. There were many horror stories of kids getting too close and falling into a burning hole. I doubted the truth of the stories, but not so much as to want to get too close.

We crossed the creek here and rested in the cool breeze coming up the stream. Now it was all uphill to the crest of the shoulder of the mountain.

We took a deep breath and started up the sloop. Dana led the way, almost crawling at times. We used branches to pull ourselves along on the really steep spots. Finally, we hit a well-worn trail, probably made by deer, but we liked to think it was an elk trail.

“Wow, this is so much better,” Dana said. “This is wide enough. It has to be an elk trail.”

The only place I had seen an elk was in the higher elevations of Eden Ridge and Bone Mountain. 

“I don’t know, Dana,” I said. “I don’t think we have elk down here.”

“They could live on this mountain, and nobody would ever see one,” Dana said.

“I bet this is a cow trail,” I said. “We have cows that come to our place, and to Herman’s, from over the mountain. But it doesn’t matter. It makes the trip easier.”

Sure enough, we followed the trail to the crest of the shoulder, and there was a hole in the fence. We threaded our way through the fence and almost ran down the other side. 

When we came to the fence at the bottom of the hill, we were careful in crossing it. These old ranchers would complain if we stretched the wires.

“That beaver dam is up the creek at the bottom of this hill,” Dana said as we continued on down the hill.

There was still a good flow in the creek for mid-June. We followed the stream through some pasture land for about a half mile before coming to the beaver dam. 

This dam was about three feet tall and made with barked tree sections three inches in diameter and four feet long. There was a large pond behind this dam, and the water flowed over the top. This dam was solid as could be. We crossed the creek on the dam, jumping up and down in a few places to test its construction.

“My folks aren’t going to be home until later this afternoon,” Dana said. “Why don’t we go over and climb those cliffs by Gaylord?”

“Maybe we should stop by your house and let them know where we are going,” I said.

“My brothers don’t care,” Dana said. “And it would take us twice as long to get to the cliffs. Let’s just cut across these fields.”

And off we went, again at a trot. We were at the base of the cliffs in no time. These were exciting cliffs. This solid rock wall was pockmarked with shallow caves halfway up the cliffs. Some said it had probably been on the edge of an ancient ocean.

We went from one shallow cave to the next, almost in a stair-step fashion. There was a deeper cave in an indentation of the cliff wall. We climbed up to it and found that it went about ten feet into the rock wall before narrowing to an impassable passage. We found some bugs on the walls of this cave. They were nearly an inch long and were strange-looking. Sort of like a cross between a long sowbug and a grasshopper. When we would try to catch them, they would jump at us like a grasshopper. That was enough of that, and we went on to explore more of the cliff.

That is when we found it. We could see what looked like a nest of a hawk or eagle on the ledge above us. We needed to get onto that ledge.

The problem was, the ledge was sort of an overhang. We tried several approaches but could not get up to the ledge. Finally, Dana climbed onto my shoulders, and he could then pull himself up to the ledge. Then he laid on his stomach and extended his arms where I could just reach them. With Dana pulling and me digging for every toe hold, I finally made it up to the ledge also.

This ledge was was five feet wide and had a shallow cave on the cliffside. What we had thought was a nest may have been one at one time. But it was long abandoned at this time. We looked at every crevice, thinking we could maybe find an arrowhead or something. 

After spending nearly a half-hour on the ledge, we thought it was time to get down. Suddenly, the overhang loomed largely.

“I don’t think we can get down without falling,” I said as I looked at the smaller ledge below us. The ledge we were on hung out a foot or two beyond the ledge below us.

Dana laid down and looked. “There is no way we can land on that ledge.”

“Now, what are we going to do?” I said.

“Nobody is going to miss us until dark,” Dana said. “And then they are going to be looking on Neal Mountain, not here.”

We sat and pondered our situation for a time. Then it was time to do something. Anything was better than nothing.

“Let’s start looking for another way down,” Dana said.

I went to the right side, I could see a route up to another ledge. Maybe there would be another way down from that ledge.

Dana went to the left side and disappeared as he crept along on a narrow ledge that ran along the cliff wall. I waited for his report before climbing up to the next ledge.

Suddenly, Dana called out from below. He was on the ground.

“Just follow that little ledge around the corner, and you can jump to the top of a fir tree,” Dana said. “Just grab the branches and slide down the outside of the tree. The last branch will put you almost to the ground.”

I started around the ledge with my back to the cliff wall. It seemed to get narrower the further I went. When I was across from the tree, I stood on my heels.

The top of the fir tree was just a little higher than my head, and it was a full thirty feet to the ground. Dana came back to coach my jump.

“Jump hard, and you will catch the tree about five feet below where you are standing,” Dana said.

“Jump hard,” I thought. “How the hell do you jump hard?”

I squatted down by sliding my butt down the wall to give my knees some flex. Then I exploded into the air with outstretched arms. When I slammed into the tree, I grabbed an armful of branches.

I stayed put for a moment, clutching the branches to my chest.

“Now, just relax and slide down the branches,” Dana said, reminding me that I was still twenty-some feet from the ground.

I relaxed my grip, and to my surprise, I slid down to the next set of branches. After that bit of a confidence builder, I slid all the way down, with the last large branch lowering me to the ground.

“See how easy that was?” Dana said.

I smiled and wiped my hands on my shirt. Pitch, I was covered with pitch. There was almost nothing on earth that I hated worse than pitch. That is, except for squash. I really hated squash.

“I have pitch all over me,” I said. “I hate pitch.”

“That’s alright,” Dana said. “Dad has some soap that will take it all off with no problem.”

We started off toward Dana’s house. 

“I wonder how long it would have taken them to find us?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Dana said. “But I don’t think we should be telling anybody about this.”

Photo by D. E. Larsen, DVM

Up a Tree with No Way Down

D. E. Larsen, DVM

It was close to seven when I finally got out of the clinic. I knew that Sandy had fed the kids earlier. I just hoped that there was something left over for me.

I was greeted with a house full of gloom when I walked through the kitchen door.

“Morris is nowhere to be found this evening,” Sandy said. “The kids are upset.”

“Well, let’s go see if we can find him,” I said

All the kids followed me out the door.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” I called as we walked across the backyard. Then when there was no response, we walked down the driveway, repeating the call as we walked along. 

When we reached the end of the driveway, there was a weak “meow” in response to our call.

“Where did that come from?” I asked.

“I heard it,” Brenda said. “But I don’t know where it was from.”

I called again, “Here, kitty, kitty.”

“Meow, meow,” came the response, louder this time. 

“We are close,” I said. “You continue to call, and I will l listen.”

All the kids called, I stepped back off the driveway a bit, and Morris spoke again. I looked up, and there he was, probably thirty feet up a fir tree at the end of the driveway.

“There he is, up a tree,” I said as I pointed him out to the kids.

“What are we going to do?” Amy asked. “How is he going to get down?”

“He’ll come down when he gets hungry enough,” I said.

The following morning, Amy and Brenda were just coming into the house when I got up.

“He is still up there, Dad,” Brenda said. “Maybe we should call the fire department.”

“We are not going to call the fire department for a cat that can’t figure out how to come down from a tree,” I said. “If he is not out of the tree by tomorrow evening, we will figure out something to do.”

“What are you thinking about doing tomorrow night?” Sandy asked as we sat down for breakfast.

“Maybe I could cut the tree down,” I said. “When they have tree huggers in the trees on a logging site, they come down when the loggers fire up the power saw.”

“No, that would be too dangerous for Morris,” Brenda said. “Maybe we could put a board up to his branch to help him down.”

“Brenda, he is almost thirty feet up the tree. We don’t have a board that long,” I said. “I guess we could put some plastic pipe together that would be long enough. We could put some burlap on the end of the pipe for him to grab onto and lower him down that way.”

“That might work,” Amy said.

“I think the power saw is easier,” I said.

***

The kids were all down by the tree when I got home from the clinic. Morris had not moved from his branch. At least he hadn’t climbed higher in the tree.

“We brought some food and water down here this time,” Dee said. “He still doesn’t try to come down.”

“I’m going to get the power saw,” I said. 

“Dad, no!” the kids said in unison.

“Listen, in all my years as a veterinarian, I have never treated a cat that had been stuck in a tree,” I said. “Now, what does that tell you?”

“It means the fire department got them down,” Brenda said.

“It means they figure it out sooner or later,” I said. “How would everyone feel if we had the fire department out here working on getting a cat out of a tree, and they missed a call for a house fire. What if a kid died in that house fire while the firemen were out here getting a cat out of a tree.”

“Just don’t hurt Morris,” Amy said.

I got the power saw from the shed and took it to the base of the tree. I pulled the choke out and pulled the starting cord. The saw started. I adjusted the choke and let the saw idle for a moment.

Then I gave it the gas and let the chain run. It made a big racket. Morris started down the tree. He sort of tumbled down, several branches at a time, and then fell the last ten feet, landing on his feet in the moss around the base of the tree. I turned the saw off.

The kids swarmed Morris. He was fine and happy to be on the ground.

“See, they tell me it is the same with the tree huggers,” I said. “When the saw starts up, they can’t get down that tree fast enough.”

“He could have hurt himself,” Brenda said.

“If that was the case, I would have seen at least one cat in the last ten years that was injured by coming down a tree,” I said. 

The kids carried Morris to the house and gave him a can of cat food and a bowl of water. He would be treated like a king for the next few days.

“You guys treat him so special. He’ll figure it out and be out there climbing another tree next week,” I said.

Photo by Elena Yunina on Pexels.