Huck Finn

   Similar to seventh grade, it appears that English is the class I have the most memories of from eighth grade. My teacher was Mr. Constable. He was very tall and soft-spoken. This class was my first exposure to Huckleberry Finn. Except for the whitewashed fence chapter from Tom Sawyer in another English class textbook some other year, Huck Finn was really my first exposure to Mark Twain.

    But it was not Mr. Constable's first time reading Huck Finn! He read it every year with every class. And he loved it!

    We would be assigned a chapter or two for homework, and the next day Mr. Constable would stand in front of the class – so tall – and with the book held open, he would read certain passages and often whole pages out loud to us. He would stop to point out literary devices. And mostly he would stop when something humorous had taken place.

     He'd stop and chuckle softly. 

     It amused him every single time! Then he would look around to see if the rest of us got it.      Sometimes Mr. Constable would explain what was funny, and sometimes he would assume we already knew what had been funny, and sometimes he just chuckled to himself.

     Seeing someone else enjoy reading, especially something he had obviously read so many times before, and to witness his joy in sharing that love has always stuck with me.            Would that I could aspire to a job doing what I love every day and sharing it with others!

     I do confess that Huck Finn was not one of my favorites at the time. His dad floating down the river was a disturbing image that I could not get past. Since then there was so much more that Mark Twain wrote that I enjoyed.

     It was not until my daughters and I read together years later that I finally got to know Tom Sawyer – and Tom's story is much lighter than his buddy Huck's! And of course the girls wanted to read Huckleberry Finn next, expecting the fun adventures to continue. I put it off for a while, until I thought I was ready for it, and then finally we dug into it - what some refer to as the great American novel – and we got to know Huck, his dad, Jim, the River and the many characters to be encountered along the way. I channeled Mr. Constable during the reading – pausing to explain things, pointing out literary devices, and chuckling at every bit of humor.

     And what a wonderful time we had!

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