Tribute: Plodders

The word "plod" means a "slow, heavy walk". I should have known since I live on a floor under foot plodders. The only time the "slow" word is out of place is when the grandkid runs around.  Plodders are a rare breed of individual who are to be congratulated for being our solid citizens. I apologise to David who went to my high school and was, cruelly, the butt of teen jokes. We giggled about David. Who could possibly date him. Ha ha. David was typical of a plodder. They are reared by aging parents who have firm ideas on morality and all other top idealisms. Poor old David, was a sweet boy who tolerated his loving parents' ideas of what teens ought to wear and how their lives ought to be lived so that they can grow up to be perfect persons. Our David wore serge dress pants and shirts that buttoned to the top and oxfords in the fifties when all the other kids wore denim, some with flares, then, tee shirts and bomber jackets. David's hair was another feature of the plodder sorts. It was cut by a barber to a style that his father swore by, thus he and David accomplishing their regular father-son outing. The the local barber whom everyone in our town knew, gave all the men who entered his place of business replete with the usual Mr. magazines. It's pole was located at the bus depot where the daily radio announcer did his morning show. He made sure he included Paddy The Barber for his advice on any and all world matters. In our small town high school that was called an academic one, Latin was the favored language, a standby on the menu of the curriculum. There were English classes of course, taught by the oldest but, we thought, the best teachers. They served Literature, not textbook only and  could put on one-man or woman shows as they practiced reading masters of the English language better than Shakespearean actors could. Yes, it was a snob school, but we loved it because it saw students as equals in their pursuit of education, and not as minions serving a curriculum.  We were permitted to use the front entrance of the school and that was verboten in most Secondary Schools of the times. We ate lunch wherever we pleased, inside or out, because the school was actually part of a public park. We enjoyed freedom. Until I graduated from Duke School (I won't say which duke), I didn't realize that we, unlike other schools,  had no play grounds of any sort. We used the armory marching site and the YMCA gym and pool. I remember asking if my pals and I could take lifesaver swimming lessons instead of basketball. It was granted. Nor did I realize until   much later in life that our small school of three hundred, Grades 10 to 12, was rather rare in a snobbish way. How it slipped under the iron bars of the Ministry of Education's dictate, was interesting. It was the fifties and that may have been the reason. No one questioned what Duke did. Maybe because the "rich"  kids went there. Well, I wasn't rich but I was academic.  Back to the plodders, bless 'em. I met a few later on, and they were the bases that seemed to hold us all together in the work place. They were the cement conservatives. They carried on their lives and work, their way,  and nothing ever could or would change it. They wore their lives as solid examples of where the world ought to be. Period. To change that  tenet, was not remotely considered. David, however, broke away, apparently, because at the twentieth reunion of  Duke high school that they tore down to make way for a tennis court, he entered the hall donned in a floor length black cape, a long red scarf tossed over one shoulder, high heeled  boots, his hair draped to one side and who had become a poet of some note. We all sighed. The world was safe. David plodded no more.