Shakeup at the Oracle

I could spend hours talking to my dad about sports. He taught me so much about baseball, football, basketball, and even boxing. Dad had taken me to a few major league games. We went to a Cubs game in Chicago; we went to a Cardinals game in St. Louis, and once we went back to Chicago for a Bears game. Mostly, we attended many Des Moines Demon baseball games with Burnie every summer.

Dad also taught me how to swim at Pine Lake when we lived in Steamboat Rock. I think he wanted to make certain I was safe around water, but I don’t think Dad ever expected me to take swimming to the level I had now that I was a high school swimming champion. I had been a diver, too, but gave that up because it was damaging my already significant hearing loss. That was something that started after I got the mumps when I was little.

Not being able to hear very well was the one thing that made high school hard for me at times. It was most difficult to hear in crowds of people, where there were a lot of people talking at once. I mostly pretended to be listening at the tables of girls during lunch, or sometimes I would go sit with some of the fellas I knew. I was able to hear lower pitched sounds better than higher pitched sounds, so it was always much easier for me to have conversations with boys. They had lower voices, and they didn’t all talk at once or gossip. They mostly talked about sports, so I learned pretty much everything about all kinds of sports. Most of my good friends all through middle school and high school were boys. I guess you could call me a tomboy. Sure, I liked boys, and had a few dates, but I was so busy with sports and keeping my grades up, that there wasn’t a lot of time for a real boyfriend. That was fine with my parents. They were both pretty keen on me meeting my future husband in college, not in high school.

When school started again in the fall of my senior year, I was not surprised to see that Miss Hawn, the teacher who coached the high school newspaper staff, had not changed a bit over the summer. She obviously had not spent any time outside, because she was as pale as she was last spring. She looked healthy enough, I guess, but not fit. I mean she wasn’t a beanpole, but she wasn’t tubby either. She had the kind of curves a woman should have, my mother said. She was an excellent teacher and she had golden blonde hair, which I envied. Old-fashioned is the best word to describe her. I say this because I got the feeling at times that she thought a girl should not be as interested in sports as I was and certainly not as good at sports as I was. Even with that drawback, she was one of my favorite teachers because she encouraged me in my writing.

I was on the girls’ basketball, volleyball, field hockey, tennis, and swim teams. I had earned varsity athletic letters as a junior and was looking forward to more my senior year. Some kids were saying that I had already accumulated more athletic letters than any other girl had ever earned at North High. That sounded like it might be right, but I had little interest in trying to find out if it was true. I just liked to play, and I really liked to win! I had goals, but not all of them were athletic. I wanted to study journalism at the University of Iowa, so Miss Hawn was a stepping stone in my plan to achieve that goal. However, I wanted to be a sportswriter, which was unheard of for women, so Miss Hawn was also a potential obstacle to my plan to achieve that goal.

After several summers of lifeguarding and teaching swimming lessons, I had managed to save some money for my first year of tuition next year, but not even half of what I would need. Mother and Dad had promised to pay for my room and board, which was really generous of them. We were not well-off; no “putting on the Ritz” for us, but they were determined that their only child would be a college graduate. That goal did not seem to completely jive with my mother’s declared desire that I meet my future husband and father of her grandchildren in Iowa City. How was I supposed to stay home, cooking and cleaning house for a husband and several children, if I was going to be a reporter covering all the most hotly contested sporting events around the country?

Mother and Miss Hawn were living in the last century. This was the 1930s! Girls and women had a lot more freedom. We could even vote! I’m the girl who was named Mable Bertha Woodrow Hall; Mother wanted to honor my grandmother Bertha and President Woodrow Wilson. I was not trying to be a floozy Flapper, and I was no dumb Dora either. I just wanted to write about sports and I knew that I was already really good at it. Miss Hawn, if she would let me be Sports Editor of our North High Oracle, would know it, too. That would be the feather in my cap that could get me a journalism scholarship. Maybe it would even be enough money to take the pressure off my parents to help pay for the rest of my education. Finally, the first day of my senior year come!

“Miss Hall, I saw your name on the sign-up sheet for Sports Editor. Did someone put it there as a prank?” Miss Hawn could barely conceal her amusement.

“No, ma’am,” I said as calmly as I could. “I am the one who wrote my name there. I am the best person in this class for that job.” I was confident that was a fact, and I had to make sure I did not appear even a tiny bit doubtful, but she made me nervous as she looked around the room, checking for reactions from my classmates.

“There are three other names on the list, Miss Hall. What shall I tell those young men, if I assign that job to you?”

I needed to choose my words carefully. Two of those boys were my friends, and the other was Robert Dodd, but I had to have the job. I looked at the three of them, trying to read their faces for any sign of what they were thinking. None of those cowardly pikers would even look me in the eye. They were afraid Miss Hawn was actually going to make me the new Sports Editor! They apparently did not know her as well as I did. Last year she had all the others girls in our journalism class doing school surveys, writing about dances, interviewing new teachers, and other fluffy news articles. When I kept writing articles about the different sports teams, she would give them to one of those boys to read to make sure I knew what I was talking about. None of them ever changed even one word of what I had written. Those three fellas knew perfectly well that I deserved the honor, and they knew I could do the job better than they could.

Last year’s sports editor, Johnny, had graduated in May and the top candidate this semester was my nemesis, Robert. He thought he knew everything about sports and that he was a shoo-in for the job this year, but I had different plans. Robert Dodd was going to be working for me! The fact that he wouldn’t even look at me now gave me even more confidence.

“Well, Miss Hawn, I think you should tell them that you know they would want you to pick me, because they read all of the sports articles that I wrote last year, and given an opportunity to edit them, they changed nothing. You should tell them that I had more sports bylines in the Oracle than any of them had last year. And I would like you to tell them that I think they would make an excellent sports staff. They are all smart fellas and together we will make this year’s sports pages the very best ever!”

Golly! Where did that moxey come from? I was wishing that Burnie was there to back me up, but I suddenly realized that planning this takeover with him had given me this extra confidence. We had talked about this moment many times last summer on his back porch.

Miss Hawn was not so easily convinced. “Mable, swim season has already begun and you are practicing every night. There is a full schedule of swim meets.”

She also had her arguments ready ahead of time, I’m sure, from the minute she saw my name on the sign-up sheet.

Miss Hawn continued. “I’m trying to picture you going to school all day, going to practice or a meet, and then trying to find time to follow all that is going on with the football team, going to the games, and then catching up with the players and coaches. All the coordination an editor has to do takes a great amount of time. Then there are all the other fall and winter sports which need to be reported on: girls’ swimming, cross country, field hockey.” She took a short breath and kept going. “In addition to all that, the sports editor has to be looking ahead and be able to preview the winter sports; boys and girls basketball, wrestling, boys swimming. You participate in so many sports, Miss Hall. How are you ever going to have time for everything that’s involved with being sports editor?” She then directed her focus to the other contenders for the job.

“Even these young men who want the job will be running in circles to get all the news and features we will need.” She gestured towards them with one of her pale arms, and they all seemed to immediately shrink away from her, trying to look invisible now, like they were the ones she had been trying to talk out of the job. With her grueling description of the task ahead, she had managed to eliminate my competition for me! I saw my first real chance to convince her.

“My old German grandmother always said, “Busy people get things done.” and that is what I have always done. You know I worked hard on the Oracle all last year, and the year before, Miss Hawn. At the same time, I was earning my athletic letters and setting state records in the pool. I will continue to do that. I have some great ideas that will make our sports reporting the best North High has ever seen. I know I can make it the best of any of the schools in the city! Sports and writing are my dream. I love them both, and that makes me perfect for the job. I know I am a girl, and that you are having a hard time thinking I can do this, but if you look over all the work I have done the past two years, you have to know I will be a great sports editor.”

She looked unsure of what to say next for just a second. She glanced over at the three ever-shrinking boys again and asked them, “Do any of the rest of you want to say anything? I’m ready to listen to anyone else’s reasons for having this job.”

Everyone in the class was looking at me, not at Miss Hawn. They were silent. She saw this and finally just threw up her arms.

“Well, I suppose we are going to have a female sports editor. It appears you have convinced your classmates, so I am willing to give you a chance, Miss Hall. Please remember that if you run into difficulty and want to quit at any time, no one will think less of you. If that happens, I feel like Mr. Dodd will be able to do the job. I am making him your assistant sports editor; Herbert and Bill will make up the rest of the sports staff.”

I had to bite my tongue. I wanted to tell her thank you but felt that I had earned this more than she had done me a favor, so I simply said, “I will not disappoint anyone. I can’t wait to get started.”

I looked at the dumbfounded boys and announced, “Sports staff, we will meet tomorrow morning, right here, at 7:00 A.M., to start planning our coverage for the first issue of the Oracle.”

I could not wait to get out of school, finish swim practice, and then run home to tell Dad and Mother; and of course, tell Burnie, too. Mom and Dad would be shocked and very proud of me, but Burnie wouldn’t be surprised at all. I was closer to my college scholarship and Dad would be busting his buttons!