Logan's Heroes

We'll soon have to decide. No, not between McCain or Obama but between a natural or artificial Christmas tree.

I was in seventh grade, and my teacher was Sister Mary Angela of the Holy Water of the Tabernacle or something like that. She was 80 years old when she previously had taught my mother, so you can imagine how old she was as my teacher. Sister Angela would cackle and quiver, and would point and shake her crooked arthritic finger at those of us who would disturb her lessons. The main disturber was Logan. Logan was a skinny little squirt, bright but totally anti-school. At least once a week, Sister would reach her fill with Logan's talking and noises, and would order Lewis and me (the cooperative classroom brain-nerds) to accompany Logan straight to the Principal's office. Off the three of us would go---but only as far as the candy machine down the hall to eat a bar or two, chuckle, then return to the room to tell Sister Angela that the Principal wasn't available. Oddly, Sister would buy that excuse week after week.

It was December, and our classroom needed a Christmas tree. Sister had me, Lewis, and nerd Sharon collect donation money from the classmates in order to purchase a tree. Now it was lunch hour, and it being an open campus in a small town, students could come and go as they pleased. So Sister told us boys to take the money down to the supermarket to buy a tree. When we arrived at the store, Logan's devious mind took over. He simply grabbed a Christmas tree from the store's sidewalk, and dragged it back to the classroom. The money he had us boys secretly split among ourselves. Sister praised our "wise purchase," and even accepted our praise of Logan as the one who "chose" that particular tree. And the girls in the room were lighter in the purse but not the wiser. Twenty years later, we heard that Logan was imprisoned after committing four burglaries in Mississippi. He probably had a nice tree in his cell for Christmas.

-Old Doc

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