Chapter 3

It was Wednesday of the first week of classes, and Ed Brennan, Memorial High’s new principal, was still finding his way around. The fact was that he had only been hired a few weeks before school started. Although his predecessor, Charley Peters, had been fired — or tendered his resignation — in the spring, the school board had been unable to fill the vacant position for months.

There were at least two reasons for this: First, Charley had been very well-liked and respected in the school administration community; no one was in a great rush to take his former seat. Second, the word had gotten around that the reason for his departure was a dispute he had had with Red Adams, the football coach, regarding alleged activities during and after spring practice. The school board had unquestioningly backed Adams. At this point, things were unclear. No one except the parties concerned knew if Charley Peters had resigned in protest or if the board had asked for his resignation. No matter. It had taken Peters no time at all to land an even better post, and no one was very interested in taking his place at Memorial, in spite of — or perhaps, because of — the school’s football prowess.

Ed Brennan was 37 years old and was serving on an emergency certification as a school administrator. He had just retired from the army as a major after serving 20 years, virtually all of it as a Ranger. He had enlisted at 17 and later was commissioned after going through OCS. Along the way he had earned his BA with a combined major in history and political science, and later earned his MA in American history. But at no time had he taken any education courses and, in fact, considered them to be an utter waste of time.

Now he was waiting to meet with Florence Zachary, a newly-hired social studies teacher, who was teaching 9^th grade civics and 9^th grade history, among other courses. When Mabel Stevens, the secretary he had inherited — thankfully — from Charley Peters, told him of Zachary’s appointment, she had presented her personnel folder to him with a sniff. Ed already knew Mabel well enough to recognize that sniff as signifying extreme disapproval.

Brennan looked over the file, paying particular attention to Zachary’s academic background. To be sure, she was fully accredited as a high-school social studies teacher. When he looked over her academic transcript, though, he muttered a soft but fervent, “Oh, shit!”

He checked the transcript and then checked it again. All it did was to confirm his first impression: Florence Zachary had no college-level courses in history, geography, civics, or economics. Instead, all of her subject-matter courses for her certificate in social studies in the School of Education were in psychology or sociology.

Ed leaned back and closed his eyes. What he had found was a partial answer to the rhetorical question: What’s in a name? All too often, he had found, the answer was: A great deal. And this was one of those times. By changing the title of the certification from history, civics, or whatever, to social studies, all of a sudden courses in the social sciences qualified as subject-matter courses required to be certified to teach the subject at the high-school level. So here he was, stuck with a teacher assigned to teach civics and American history yet having had no courses in either subject beyond whatever she may have had in high school or before.

Then he checked again to find Zachary’s date of hire. Again, there was the muttered, “Oh, shit!” but it was even more fervent this time. As he should have guessed, Zachary was hired between the time Charley Peters left and he had come onboard. She had been hired by the bane of his existence, Clarence Edwards, his assistant principal. Quite honestly, Ed had no idea what to do with Clarence, except that he reminded him of von Moltke’s famous square regarding the assignment of military officers.

Von Moltke had a two-by-two matrix. On one axis, the entries were Smart and Stupid. The other axis was labeled Aggressive and Lazy. Von Moltke was chief of the German Imperial General Staff. He argued that an officer who was smart and aggressive was an ideal line officer. Faced with changing battlefield conditions, he would pick the best available option and aggressively pursue it. An officer who was smart but lazy was fine as a staff officer. He could sit back in his chair puffing on a pipe and come up with all sorts of stratagems for the line officers to execute.

Then there was the officer who was lazy and stupid. Him you put in the rear area, stacking underwear or something. This left the officer who was aggressive and stupid. “Him,” von Moltke argued, “you shoot!” For he will be aggressively doing all sorts of dumb things that could lose battles and lose the war.

As far as Ed Brennan was concerned, Clarence Peters could have been the model for the aggressive-stupid box in the square. Shaking his head, Ed figured that if he put Peters in charge of paperclips, he would find some way to paralyze the school. But that was a problem for another time.

Mabel had just buzzed to tell him that Ms. Zachary had arrived. “Send her right in.”

As she entered his office, Florence Zachary looked puzzled. “What’s the problem?” Brennan asked.

“You ... you saw me right away,” she replied, shaking her head as if in amazement.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“But ... but you’re the principal!”

“So... ?”

“You’re the top boss, and I’m the newest teacher. I’m supposed to be kept waiting.”

“Where in hell did you ever get that idea?” Brennan asked. “If I kept you waiting unnecessarily I would be wasting both our time. It’s senseless.”

“But that’s what they teach administration majors in Ed School,” she insisted. “That’s what my roommate was majoring in and she told me.”

Ed just rolled his eyes. “But I understand you have a problem. What is it?”

“It’s those infernal Corcoran twins!” she wailed. “They’re insufferable!”

“But what exactly have they done that’s insufferable? School has only been in session for two days.”

“They ... they challenge my authority!”

“And how do they do that?”

“Well, take this morning, for example. Would you believe it? They had the nerve to tell me that ... that God — her voice dropped to a near-whisper at the mention of the word — is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence! They did! They honestly did,” she insisted.

“And what did you say?” Ed asked reasonably.

“What could I say? I said that was utterly ridiculous! After all ... we have separation of church and state!” Zachary proudly declared.

“Ms. Zachary, I agree there’s a problem,” Ed said quietly, “but the problem is yours, not theirs. The amendment in question reads, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion... ‘ And at the time the Constitution was adopted, about ten states had established churches. The reason for the amendment was no one wanted a national church — such as the Church of England — imposed upon them. For the most part, the drafters had no problem with the concept of an established church; they just could not agree on which one to establish so the amendment bans a national church.

“Are you familiar with these lines: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’?”

Florence Zachary looked puzzled and said, “They sound vaguely familiar, but I really don’t recognize them.”

“They’re from the Declaration of Independence. When our founders said, ‘ ... they are endowed by their Creator... ‘ who was that, do you suppose?”

The woman’s eyes widened. “Do you mean... God?”

“I’m unaware of any other meaning ever being accepted for the term,” Ed replied blandly.

Feeling outgunned, Zachary shifted her target. “But that’s not all. They have the nerve to claim that handgun control laws are ... are... unconstitutional! Can you believe it? The nerve of those two!”

“They have a point. No less than Professor Lawrence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard — and himself a handgun opponent — wrote not too long ago that if people want handgun control, they would have to amend the Constitution.”

“That’s nonsense!” Zachary protested. “The Second Amendment deals with the National Guard!”

“I’m sorry,” Ed retorted, “but that’s the reason for Tribe’s statement. Scholars are now in agreement that the militia referred to in the Amendment is the General Militia — all able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 40 — not the Organized Militia which were the antecedents of today’s National Guard.