Mrs. Roach is a witch! And she eats roaches!” a 3ft tall girl yelled as she ran directly toward my Ema and I. It was early, around 8 in the morning & we had just arrived at Stepping Stones. This wasn’t the greeting my Ema and I were accustomed to. Usually it was a peaceful preschool save the squeals of children having fun; playing and running about. Upon hearing the news, we simultaneously started sizing up the source. We were sufficiently suspicious. Getting information from a young lady in her early 4’s could mean anything. It could be something personal such as a midlife crisis, or perhaps a game of pretend gone awry as they often did. My Ema and I knew we stood in a place where rumors, conjecture mixed with flat out lies bloomed and thrived like ethereal flowers, passing from one eager ear to another, like the spreading of the mischievous pink eye.
I was not shocked by what she said; as I recall, officially, 50% of me was surprised. I already knew she ate roaches. Everyone knew she ate roaches. We had established that weeks prior. The Witch part, however, was new information. Images from the wizard of Oz poisonously seeped into my vivid imagination bringing dark smoke into an even darker room. An evil green faced witch mixing up something mysterious in a huge black cauldron stirring away in a trance. “Why is that cauldron always so big?” I thought, but my thoughts were interrupted. It was the same excited girl and she was still talking.
Subconsciously at that age we knew thar we did not particularly want to spend time thinking about grown ups eating roaches, or being witches. We wanted to play with toys and have fun. Still, we were concerned and for good reason . We couldn’t ignore this fact we possessed. One of our classmates eloquently stated, “Mrs. roach is our elephant a china shop”. We all unanimously agreed nodding our small wise heads.
They were right. We had to address this woman at the end of our row of classrooms. It was, “the last classroom on the block” and it was being run by a lady named Roach… “Disgusting!”.
My short associates & I held an emergency meeting at the swing set. Nobody used the swings. We mainly stuck to our original line of thought which cited her last name as a huge cause for concern. After everyone spoke, we collectively felt the best course of action was to begin systematic one sided inappropriately suggestive poll taking , combined with rumors and conjecture.
We took action, asking students if they were aware of the facts we now faced: we have a teacher named Mrs. Roach and we are confident she eats roaches, mostly on account of her last name. Rumors were spreading and I began to believe some of them myself
Thankfully in the end we used a logic based argument. Even today there’s nary an individual who could effectively lay down just enough reason to completely abandon it. We had to embellish a few things. The conjecturing & embellishing quickly gave way to rumors and finally flat out lies. By the time we finished some were admitting (for the first time) that they had Actually seen her eating roaches, maybe it was a close friend or a sibling but that was good enough
I recall clearly when the topic surfaced most often. Generally we were doing what 3-4 year olds do. We were playing happily; running around within our fenced in world . It was small and usually shady despite it facing south. It’s still there as I write this, looking at NW 8th Ave which runs east & west through the small slow shady city of Gainesville fl
As most know and was mentioned, the playground, away from grown ups is where the best scuttle butt can be found, complete with conjecture pontificated as fact mixed with confusion & lack of knowledge in general. We humans think best on our feet. If one is trying to solve a problem it’s best to have more than one person focused on it and it’s best to address the situation while standing, dancing or doing some form of running around & playing, having fun (when possible).
The monologue about Mrs. Roach would usually begin by calmly laying out the facts as we knew them. They typically lasted 30 60 seconds and more often than not, circled back to her abhorrent last name which always got some kind of rise and reaction . We all felt her last name was relevant & important. This was the glue that held most of our arguments together. Even today I have to acknowledge the fact that it makes for an extremely solid argument & there is little to nothing I can retort worth value much less something that may sway ones opinion.
When someone would pause to talk about the potential roach eater, we would politely stop what we were doing, nod our heads and look at the ground. Of course each of us were playing a in our minds.
The scene: A gross roach scenario starring Mrs. Roach feasting on mound of roaches placed between soft white bread, Topped off with a heaping spoonful of mayonnaise.
Shakespeare asked a question, did some back door bragging & at the same time mansplained his opinion with “what is in a name?” “A rose by any other name smells just as sweet”. What an idiot! 1984 Joshua had not yet heard this hog wash. If I had, I would have disagreed with him then & it’s worth mentioning I disagree with him now.