SOME EFFECTS OF ONE'S EDUCATION LAST FOREVER

I haven't thumbed through a college catalog for many years. Don't know what all is on the menu these days. I guess the good old basics are still there English, history, math and sociology. Perhaps there are courses in computers and electronics. Could there be cybernetics 101? Cryogenics? Super Colliderism?

I recently had occasion to send for my Transcript of Credits from Flat River Junior College, now known as Mineral Area Community College or MAC for short.

Looking over the transcript, I came to the last semester of my sophomore year and there, written no larger than the other courses, but looming large in my remembrance, was zoology, course 1W, hours 5, grade E.

The college then graded on the E, S, M, I basis rather than A, B, C, D, as they do now.

When I first entered Laura Nahm's zoology class, I did so with much trepidation. I had heard she was a no-nonsense teacher who expected her students to reach, reach, reach perhaps beyond their mental limits. I was prepared to do that.

The textbooks, lectures and workbooks were "a piece of cake." But, The Frog!

About the second week into the class each student was presented with a whole frog, preserved in formaldehyde or some combination of formaldehyde and water in a glass pint jar, with lid, of course.

That frog, even closed-eyed, seemed to peer accusingly at me through the fluid and glass even before I opened the lid and removed him as per instructions.

With about 30 students opening 30 jars of that preserving fluid and taking out a dripping frog to deposit on absorbent paper, it was, well, heady. Not only heady, but stomach-y when we were further instructed to take the sharp knife, also provided, and make the first slit all the way down the underneath side from throat to tail.

These, I thought, were the same kind of frogs which had delighted me when I saw them sitting on a lily pad underneath the swinging bridge spanning the St. Francis River or making their sudden plopping sounds from bank to river as Lou and I sat on the Flat Rock, fishing for perch. Dragon flies, with their beautiful iridescent wings, would light on our poles. Scarlet tanagers would move in and out of the riverside thickets. Cowbells could be heard in the distance. I thought, I'll keep my mind on these things when my head began to feel too light for my body and my stomach too unsteady for its purpose.

Day by day we got deeper and deeper into the frog and I grew more unstable by the day, but my drawings in my workbook of the frog's insides were meticulous and came back weekly with an excellent grade.

Nahm, not only a demanding teacher, but an observant one, no doubt noticed my predicament and quite often just casually came to stand close to my spot at the long table. I imagine she wanted to be on hand if I fainted and fell forward, spilling the preserving fluid, or worse.

At the close of that semester I stopped by her room when she was straightening up things, popped my head in the door and said, "Thank you for the grade." She replied, "Don't thank me. You earned it." We exchanged knowing glances and I walked away quickly, hoping I'd never again have to smell formaldehyde.

Talk about lasting effects of learning, I never see a frog now without having a flashback to that zoology class, course 1W. I wonder what that W stood for. Worry? Weariness? Wince? Woeful? The animal rights activists would say, Wrong.

Subconsciously I guess I have tried to make it up to that frog. In my book, The Deep Forest Award, Head Frog is the smartest one in the community. Why, he can read, write and spell in the English language!

REJOICE!