The Log
Okay, I told this story a hundred times in my classroom: At my old high school in Upper Darby, PA there was a revered couple, Johnny Scott and Sally Drake. Johnny was the star quarterback and Sally was the head cheerleader somewhere back in the 1950’s. They went to Silver Lake to make out, and somehow their car rolled into the lake and they both drowned. Fast forward to me in 1966, on a date with a hot girl. I asked her if she knew the legend of Silver Lake—she was interested. The legend was that if you parked your car backwards on the boat ramp on certain nights, you could see the lights of their car moving through the lake. Did she want to try it? She did. (I usually got a little hammy about my make-out skills at this point.) The car rolled backwards. The brakes didn’t work. We freaked out. Just as we were sliding into the lake, a log wedged itself in between the car wheels and our watery doom. On the log was carved a heart with the initials “JS” and “SD” in it. It was their lake.
I cannot even begin to describe how effective this story was in my classes, especially Creative Writing. The kids hung on every word. (I have to admit, I told it pretty well.) I used to give a quiz afterwards—stupid questions, like “What song was playing on the radio as we rolled backwards into the lake?” Everybody aced it. My students would approach my children in the hallways: was it true? (Beth would back me up, the boys, not so much). Toward the end of my career, my students would google Silver Lake and Johnny Scott and Sally Drake. I explained that it was a long time ago.
Clemens finally gave me an Advanced Creative Writing class, whose sole purpose was to be filmmaking, and the first film my students wanted to make was the story of Silver Lake. What a time it was! My students were totally into it, and I’m not sure I’ve ever had my creative juices flowing like that. I probably never came so close to getting fired, and yet it was one of the most fulfilling times in my career. And, I gotta admit, I ended up really liking “The Lights of Silver Lake.”
How did I come up with this story? I don’t even know. I’m sure I stole things from other stuff that I read. I felt like one of the most important things I could do as a creative writing teacher was to tell stories that held my kids’ attention. I can’t even remember when I started telling it. I do remember sitting on my back porch and carving a heart and “JS” and “SD” into a log. My son Nathan was with me at the time, and yes, he sold me out a few times in his high school years.
So here is my moral/ethical question: was it okay to lie to my students? When I told this story, I really sold it. I did everything I could do to make my students believe it. And I didn’t back down. When skeptical students asked skeptical questions, I held firm. I sometimes wondered if I should confess—I was just messing with you all—but I never decided to do that. I know it is wrong to lie. I just do not think that it is black and white. Jesus’s disciples ate wheat on the Sabbath. There is a Spirit who leads. What I lost in integrity, I gained in imaginativity.
At least, that’s what I tell myself. I am at peace with my log. It is sitting up there on my bookshelf looking down at me right now. And Karen and my kids know that when I get cremated, that baby gets cremated with me.
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