Daddy and the PTA
Dad is still willing to learn new stuff.
I was in the seventh grade when Daddy became famous in town.
Life hadn’t been easy for Daddy. After surviving the battles of Okinawa and Saipan in World War II, he came home to marry my mother, only to be hit with two bad drought seasons in a row. He sold their small Ozarks farm and headed for Wichita and a steady aircraft factory job. Then my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died.
After a couple of years as a single father, Daddy married my mother’s youngest sister, Zela, who had lost her own significant other in the war. They worked hard to rebuild their lives and managed to save a down payment on a modest house in Valley Center, Kansas.
I wasn’t stellar popularity material—strict parents and attending the town’s uncoolest church made sure of that—but I managed to make friends and enjoy school.
One fall morning, I dressed in a favorite red plaid jumper (remember those?) Zela had made. She looked at it with concern. “That might be getting a little too short.” I insisted it would be okay, and besides, it wasn’t anywhere near short enough to be stylish in 1969, but Zela had me take it off. She quickly let out the hem, leaving just a narrow strip of hem tape turned under, and steamed out the old hemline with her iron. (We had time to do this because when your dad is a WWII Marine veteran, you are ready early.) “There, that might be just enough. I know you like that outfit.”
School started like any other day, until second hour when the secretary’s voice came over the intercom. All girls were to leave class, one room at a time, and report to the home economics room. When we got there, we found the home ec teacher and the principal directing each girl to kneel on the floor. If her skirt brushed the back of her legs, all was well. If not, the principal measured from where her knees rested on the floor to the bottom of her skirt. If it was more than the dress code of three inches, that girl was handed a seam ripper and scissors. Probably 90% of the girls in Valley Center Junior High finished the day with hemlines dragging mid-calf. My beloved jumper just barely didn’t pass, but thanks to Zela, there was really nothing else I could do about it.
After school, all hell broke loose. Spearheaded by the moms of some of the most popular girls with the most stylish (shortest) skirts, angry parents called news outlets and planned a protest meeting. Local TV reporters jokingly referred to “Harper Valley PTA,” based on the country song (which as a good Pentecostal girl, I had only rarely heard). I didn’t figure on attending the meeting; my parents usually sided firmly with the teacher or principal in any incident at school. Taking their cue from Pa Ingalls in Little Town on the Prairie, they said I needed to learn respect even if the teacher was wrong.
The meeting was held at the elementary school not far from our house. We could see cars headed that way, lots of cars, including a news station vehicle. After supper, Daddy surprised us by saying he thought he’d walk over there for awhile. Zela didn’t want to go, saying she had nothing to contribute. Daddy didn’t invite me to walk along and I didn’t ask. But after a few minutes, Zela said we might just slip in at the back. We got our jackets and walked to the school.
The roar of voices came from the gym. A couple of the angriest moms appeared to be in charge, and along a side wall, a line of people waited for a turn to go on the stage and speak. Most were calling for the principal to be fired immediately; some waved skirts or dresses in the air, yelling that the garment was ruined. Whenever somebody said something like, “Mr. ____ just has no idea about style,” or “He doesn’t understand girls,” people clapped and yelled. One older woman dared to mention that junior high girls should know how to alter a hemline without damaging it, but she was told she was missing the point. A few men spoke, saying it was their own business how their daughters dressed, but most speakers were women, and the situation was getting louder by the minute.
Suddenly Zela gasped and pointed. There in the line, almost to the front, was Daddy. I wondered what he could possibly have to say to a bunch of angry parents.
It didn’t take long to find out. “Next!” yelled a lady, and Daddy walked onstage to the microphone.
He waited a bit and then raised his hand for order, which, amazingly, happened. “My name is Ralph LeMarr,” he said quietly. “I didn’t have the chance to get much schooling because my family was poor, and then I went to the Marine Corps. My daughter Cindy is in seventh grade. And her skirt was just a bit too short. I feel bad about that because I believe school is a privilege and school rules are to be followed. And if you don’t like the rules, there are procedures to get them changed. We are lucky to live in a country where you can do that. I’ve seen what happens in countries where you can’t.”
The crowd remained quiet. “I’ll bet,” continued Daddy, “that most everyone in this room goes to one of the churches here in town. You sat there last Sunday and worshiped God. Yet when something happened that you didn’t like, instead of finding a way to solve it, you got mad. Up until yesterday, most of you were satisfied with Mr. ____. Tonight, if you could’ve got ahold of him, you’d have torn him up like a pack of dogs on a squirrel. Maybe you should think about a better way. Thank you.”
Daddy nodded at the lady in charge and left the stage.
After that, there didn’t seem to be much to say. A man finally made a motion that the PTA president appoint a committee to examine the dress code and make a recommendation to the school board, and the crowd dispersed.
For weeks afterward, people we didn’t know spoke politely to Daddy at the gas station and the grocery store. A couple of older guys at school, who wore junior ROTC uniforms sometimes and hadn’t given me the time of day before, said my dad was sort of cool (wha-aa-a-t?) and asked me where he fought in the war. The principal resigned at the end of the year, but not before he wrote Daddy a nice note, and for several Christmases following, Daddy got a Christmas card from him.