In the fall of 1981, I sat in the center aisle, second row, of what would now be considered Freshman AP English, in Seagoville High School. I figured that was about the best place to be. I’ve always been an over thinker. For half the summer, I had pondered this moment in my head. Front row is way too teacher’s pet-ish. I didn’t want to come across as someone who didn’t have a life outside of class, even though that was pretty much my situation. Sitting too far back gives off “I don’t care” vibes and I could not risk that. Second row/center aisle, however, seemed like just the place a really cool, popular girl (I was neither) would accidentally happen upon, you know, organically. This was one teacher I just had to impress. After all, my mom was a student when she first began teaching. She knew both of my half-brothers. She knew my Aunt Karen. She was a legend. What I wanted, what I needed, more than anything, was for Jill Means to like me, to notice me. I needn’t have worried. She was the type of teacher who made every student feel noticed, like they really mattered. What I couldn’t have known at that moment, was the effect Ms. Means would have on the rest of my life when, later in the year, casually talking about the Holocaust, as one does, she looked at me and said, “Ms. Stilwell, are you Jewish?” “No ma’am, we’re Baptist,” was all I could come up with at the time. “I knew that, but I’m making a point. Wouldn’t have mattered,” she said in her booming voice, “with your complexion, you’d have been the first group in the gas chamber at Auschwitz. They might as well have called you Ann Frank.” I learned everything I know now about English, humanity, manners, grit, & grace that year. I also realized what scared me more than anything and is the only reason I am not able to watch The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu. I am scared of waking up to a world tilted on its axis, bereft of law and order, where horrific things can easily happen to innocent people. I am terrified of anarchy.
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