pink dogwood dilemma

I don't look at the beautiful dogwood trees without remembering an incident I had when I taught in Savannah, Georgia.  

When I went to University of Tennessee, each spring the dogwoods bloomed.  White ones and pink ones.  

Well, when I was teaching in Savannah, under my first woman principal, I had a real eye-opener.  Each teacher was responsible for the office bulletin board that greeted parents.  My turn was in April, right during dogwood blossom time.

So I took coke bottle tops, rounded-cut pink tissue paper strips about two inches long, layered and glued the tissue strips in the opening of the bottle cap and put a yellow construction center on each 3-D pink dogwood blossom.  Then I carefully cut brown strips for the branches of the tree and glued each 3-D blossom to the tree limbs.  Kapow!  The bulletin board was gorgeous!

Two days went by and I got compliment after compliment on my beautiful bulletin board. 

Except for one person: the principal. 

She called me in her office and told me to "Take that down.  You are misleading our students.  There is no such thing as a pink dogwood."  I argued with her for a little bit and told her I could prove that there were pink dogwood blossoms.

At which point I called someone (I'm thinking it was my twin), and said,  "Mail me a pink dogwood blossom."  And I explained my predicament.

The pink dogwood blossom arrived in a white jewelry box covered with white tissue paper.  I showed my principal and she responded, "That's fine.  But pink dogwoods don't bloom in Savannah, so take that bulletin board down."

"Yes, mam," I answered.  Then I put up some store bought poster of "Spring" and labeled it "Spring", and immediately applied to teach at a different school. 

Sometimes, for the fun of it, I look at my white dogwood blossoms across my driveway and imagine they're pink.

So there!

 
 

Comments

[Tiffany]

Stifling, oppressive, suffocating...no wonder pink dogwoods don't bloom in "her" Savannah. The bulletin board sounds beautiful.