Mrs. Schoberg

I heard a song yesterday that I had to sing in Chorus, in the 8th grade, and it's been going through my head ever since (don't you hate when that happens?). That song brings back all kinds of horrific memories, because I couldn't stand my 8th-grade Chorus teacher, Mrs. Schoberg. She was nervous, whinnied like a horse when she laughed, and hardly anyone respected her because she would start crying at just about everything. She blushed constantly.

From an adult perspective, I can see all kinds of things that I couldn't see at 12 and 13, and remember the stresses she went through on a daily basis. I knew the stresses because she would tell us, which caused me to respect her even less at the time, because an adult shouldn't be using her 12 and 13-year-old students' shoulders for crying, and I knew it.

I drew this pic as an assignment from Julie Cameron's "The Artist's Way," and needed to find it because of the song going through my head. I was supposed write a letter about someone from my "Monster Hall of Fame," from a child's perspective, and Mrs. Schoberg was one of them. So I wrote the letter, then quick-sketched the pic. Colored it later with pastels. That dress was a fave of Mrs. Schoberg's.

If you enlarge the pic, you can read my really poor handwriting.

I hope Mrs. Schoberg had lots more joy in her life than she was having umpteen years ago. Bless her.