Once upon a time, Miss Henson flew in from San Francisco -- on a broomstick -- landing atop the middle school pitcher's mound late one moonless, autumn night.

It was not a mystery why she dressed the way she did. Everybody knew she packed bat wings in her London Fog pockets, stuffed eyes-of-newt beneath her backward baseball cap and lined her saddle oxfords with Witch's Wart.

What was a mystery was why she was teaching sixth grade Honors English? Teachers came in earrings, not backward baseball caps and teachers wore tweed skirts not trench coats, and what teacher in her right mind would replace high heels with rah-rah shoes? The junior high was as ripe with rumor as the hot September day was with humidity.

"Good morning, my little cherubs. From this day forward you will stand when I enter the room." As Army Brats, we knew the sound of a command when we heard one. Forty feet hit the ground and twenty pre-teen bodies stood at attention. My thighs stuck to the desk seat as I struggled to join the troops. Who was this witch and what was she doing invading my normal little world? Could things possibly get worse? They could. And they did.

We were such a ragweed crop -- this class of 6th grade honors -- not a flower bloomed among us. A multitude of teachers had used a multitude of nouns to describe us, but nothing even hinting at angelic origin.

Joe, the monosyllabic jock, slouched in the back of the class, not bothering to stifle a yawn while studying the football field outside the open window.

Dave, the nervous nerd, twitched in a front row seat while playing with his pocket protector. His skinny free hand was poised to answer any question -- even those not yet asked.

Christine, the class coquette -- most comfortable when the eye of every pre-teen boy was glued upon her every move -- twirled a Tony curl around a painted finger.

Karen hid behind a book. There was no category to place her in. She was the shadow girl who came and went while nobody was looking. The only time you remembered her name was when roll call was taken.

"Today, my little cherubs," Miss Henson smiled and sat while the rest of us frowned and stood, "is the first day of the rest of your lives. I intend to teach you who you really are."

Looking down at the slim volume of Emily Dickinson I had intended to stuff inside the standard sixth grade English text (ignoring as usual the required curriculum), I decided I already knew what I really was: I was a poor soul being punished for lucking out on some dumb IQ test.

"From now on, you will note, verbatim, in black pen (no ball points please) every word I ever utter."

I then decided we were all being punished.

No English texts were ever issued, and I soon found it was perfectly acceptable to carry Emily in the open. In fact, Miss Henson encouraged us all to bring our favorite authors -- from comic book to Hawthorn -- as long as they stayed in the open, and as long as we were prepared to share them with the class.

Miss Henson had once been a "beat" in San Francisco, and she introduced us to both Ferlenghetti and Poe -- read outside in the heat of day -- read to her bongo beat beneath a shady pecan tree.

Miss Henson had performed on stage in London and had us performing Shakespeare on a baseball diamond stage.

Miss Henson had traveled to Japan and Germany, and most everyplace in between, debating for Wellesley College. She had us stage a formal debate over what was behind that door -- the lady or the tiger? We never knew we were learning elocution; we thought we were having fun.

Somewhere between the novels read each week (chosen from a list of classics) and the ten-page book reports (written in fountain pen, of course) handed in each Friday, the mystery of sixth grade English Honors Class began to unravel.

Joe, our mute jock, proved to be as sharp of aim with words as bat. He home-ran each debate -- never mind the chosen side. Dave, our gangly nerd, strolled across stage a graceful king of tragedy. Christine wrote words that curled imaginations even tighter than her home permed jungle. And I penned poems as swiftly as the ink allowed. Only Karen remained a mystery; that is, if we thought of her at all.

Until semester's end when special projects were presented. We shone with our newfound talents -- each a special star in a universe Miss Henson had created.

The last to present was Karen. She stood and lifted eyes forever lowered. On the blackboard she pinned a five-foot mural -- an artist's eye depicting Miss Henson tossing warts and newts and wings of bat into a witch's cauldron, then reaching in to pull out a public speaker, an actor, a writer, a poet, and an artist whose name would never again be forgotten.  
 

I was born in Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, on a Friday, the 13th of October in a year that might be written in Roman numerals.

My mother was a beautiful, charming southern belle from Charleston, SC, and my father was an officer and a gentleman, but a New Yorker and damnyankee. My brother and I were Mason-Dixon line bastards...didn't belong to either side.

As an Army brat, my youth was spent traveling the world and home was defined as anyplace I hung my toothbrush that night. I learned early on that there is no one, "right" way of doing anything -- from raising children to fixing rice -- and found all people are truly one at heart.

I've done everything from being a model to being a stock broker, from being a mother (once -- to a beautiful man-boy) to being a wife more times than I would like to mention.

Aside from my son, my only constant love has been writing.