Two columnists in other Arkansas newspapers recently reflected on single acts in their lives that they most regretted -- something that they had done that still disturbed them.
Surprisingly, each columnist had a guilty conscience for an act of unkindness that had been committed when he was in grade school.
One writer had participated in cruel ridicule and humiliation of another child. The other guy harbored feelings of guilt for not coming to the aid of a child who was being physically attacked by several other children.
Strangely, even at my advanced age, I still feel sadness for something that happened when I was in the third grade.
A little girl named Cora Lee Jones transferred to our school. Her family was very poor.
In fact, they had moved into an old, weather-beaten, abandoned house that had no windows and no doors. Cora Lee came to school barefooted and she wore the same dress every day. A teacher gave her a pair of old tennis shoes to wear.
In those days, everyone brought their lunches to school in paper sacks or lunchboxes. We put our lunches in our lockers until lunchtime. I usually had biscuit/sausage or biscuit/quail in my sack, while the richer kids had light bread and bologna sandwiches.
Soon after Cora Lee came to our school, I noticed that some of my lunch was missing sometimes. Another boy, Bobby, reported that someone was taking sandwiches from his lunch sack, too.
In talking about the problem, Bobby and I decided on a way to find out who was taking part of our lunches. We would sprinkle sand inside the sandwiches we put in our lockers, and put our real lunch sacks in another kid's locker.
We were all seated on the big merry-go-round in the schoolyard where we ate lunch on pretty days. We were watching our suspect, Cora Lee, as she bit into the sandwich she was holding.
As she chewed, Cora Lee's face took on a pained expression. She began to cough and spit. We kids started laughing and pointing at her. She ran crying from the merry-go-round back into the school building.
Several of the teachers and the principal talked to her and told her that they would see that she had some lunch every day.
Cora Lee moved away a few weeks later, and we never saw her again.
I still have pangs of regret over what we did to that poor little girl. She was actually a beautiful child, enduring a sad life, just trying to survive.
For some reason, when the movie star Raquel Welch first came on the scene, I was struck by the resemblance of her features to the child Cora Lee. Could it be? No.
It takes a cruel soul to begrudge little children food, as some of our congressmen do as they eat their own free lunches at our expense and pack their pockets with subsidies. It must be great not to have consciences.
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Louis Houston is a resident of Siloam Springs. His recent book, The Grape-Toned Studebaker, is available at Cafe on Broadway, Amazon.com and grapetoned. com. Send comments or questions to [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 01/14/2015