Posted on 05/24/2004 4:37:36 PM PDT by freedom44
After weeks of waiting, the water and sugar had soaked its roots, and the lollipop tree decided to bloom. Kaylee Roe saw it first, in the school's back yard, on her way back from the main office. She threw open the classroom door and delivered the news.
"There's lollipops everywhere!" she yelled, as the children streamed past her, a blur of color and free-flying hair.
It was the tallest lollipop tree of Ron Cushman's career, a teacher's tribute to his last class of kindergartners. The night before, he had cut down a 20-foot-tall tree in his back yard, brought it to Shelton View Elementary School in Bothell and planted it near the forest border. That morning, he had some lollipops tied to the branches and spread dozens more around the trunk.
"I can't believe it!" said Nathan Barbee, collecting a fistful of lollipops. "They're fresh!"
The lollipop tree is the latest in a series of lasts for Cushman, who is retiring after 29 years in the classroom.
He hosted his Leprechaun Hunt on St. Patrick's Day, spreading green glitter for the children to follow. He celebrated his last birthday at school, going to lunch with all students born on the same day.
Retiring educators
Tomorrow and Wednesday, The Times will take a look at the contributions of other retiring educators on the Eastside, from a librarian to a principal, a bus driver to an athletic director. Each has helped students through the decades, working in the classroom and beyond.
And he gave his last Vietnam War speech to high-school students, explaining how combat led him to a kindergarten classroom all those years ago.
Here's the thing, he told the teenagers: So many good things in my life come down to that one day in Vietnam. A wife, two children, a college education. Twenty-nine years of singing, hugging, happy kindergarten classes.
All he did was step on a land mine, and there it was: the beginning of the rest of his life.
There was a strong feeling in the VA hospital that something wasn't right with Ron Cushman. He liked to pull the bedsheets over his head, pretend he was a cadaver, then jump up to scare the nurses. He had his high-school friends decorate the walls of his room with fluorescent crayons so they would light up at night. He made farm-animal noises when the others on the floor were trying to sleep.
The doctors took him upstairs to the psychiatric ward. They ran a battery of tests. They found no signs of mental illness.
"Turns out, I was just incredibly happy to be alive," said Cushman.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Cushman, who lost his right hand in the Vietnam War, speaks to Bothell High School students each year about his experience there.
Within weeks of coming home, Cushman had cut himself off from the boy he had been in Vietnam. It was not really him, after all. The one who was made to chant "Kill, kill, kill, with a smile, smile, smile" in the mess hall at boot camp. The one who saw a friend lying in a ditch in Vietnam, slashed, puffed up and eyeless from torture. The one who killed boys his own age with nothing but glee.
It wasn't really him.
"I can bring those images up, but I lose them in a few seconds," Cushman said. "I don't want them there."
A hand sawed off in surgery, a leg sewn together on the fly, wheelchairs, leg braces, shrapnel buried in his bones, and what Cushman sees most clearly are the "benefits of being blown up." If he had stepped to the right or to the left of that land mine in the jungle, he might have missed out on so much.
He might never have met his future wife, Sharon. She came on a visit to the VA hospital with her brother, one of Cushman's old friends.
He might never have earned his college degree. As someone who graduated high school with a 1.26 grade-point average, he needed that "disabled veteran" status to qualify for a scholarship.
COURTESY OF RON CUSHMAN Ron Cushman in Vietnam in 1969. Cushman was hurt when he stepped on a land mine, which he credits with leading to many of the good things that later happened in his life.
He could have missed out on this teaching career altogether. It was a bad economy for educators, he said, with few jobs around.
But as luck would have it, there was a position open at an elementary school, reserved especially for men coming back from the war.
Laughing and learning
For all his clowning around as a kid, Cushman started out with stage fright as a teacher. It made him shrink in those early weeks. The children just sat there, waiting for him to perform.
"It was scary and a little unnerving," he said. "I'd been in Vietnam, but this was a little different."
Slowly, he found little gimmicks to grab their attention. He called them "gotchas." Laughter was the best one. Throw pies in your own face. Rub glue all over your clothes. Writhe around on the floor like the class clown.
Get them laughing, Cushman said, and you've got them learning, right up until you say it's time to stop.
The missing hand is a good mystery too — it gets them every time. They come into that first day of kindergarten, faces puffy from crying, and Cushman takes the prosthetic hand down from the bookshelf. All of a sudden, the children are doing their oohs and aahs. They play with it, take turns wearing it, then finally leave it lying on the floor.
The biggest gotcha is Cushman's golden retriever. He brought Rocky in five years ago as a weeks-old puppy. That first kindergarten class recorded his measurements on graph paper every day, weighed him, watched him grow. Now the dog is Cushman's teaching aide, wandering around the classroom as the children work, fetching balls on the playground during recess.
With all these gotchas, and a good deal of talent, Cushman has become something of a celebrity at Shelton View. Children come barreling down the hallway to see him, arms outstretched. They wrap themselves around his legs. They yell across the playground, "I love you, Mr. Cushman!"
In a district with 41 kindergarten teachers, Cushman is one of only four men teaching that grade. Must be something to do with the male ego, he said: You get up into the junior-high grades, and men are there in droves.
Maybe there's something about kindergarten — the songs, the hugs, the "I love yous" that can come with it. Maybe it's just not manly enough for some men.
For Cushman, the hugs are why he works the job. There is no way to score children's happiness, no test you can give to see whether they are ready to learn. But a hug will tell you something strong, he said. It will tell you that a child feels at home in school, and safe.
To the parents who have watched him for years, there is no substitute for what Cushman can do. Barb Thomas has seen all four of her children pass through that classroom.
"What a way to start school," said Thomas. "You've got to think the rest of school is going to be magnificent."
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Great article on a very special man and teacher!
I LOVED this story! I really wish Oprah would have him on and reward him handsomely in some way! I’ve almost quit watching her because of the “gifts” she gives to some of her followers…people she deems really deserve something special. Nobody I've seen can measure up to this fellow. This guy really deserves something special!
P.S. I wonder if he got any medals in Viet Nam.
In seattle??...Arrest him.
FMCDH
In seattle??...Arrest him.
FMCDH(BITS)
Note to NEA: This is what's known as a "Hint" on how to do your job. This guy has it figured out.
What a great post!
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