An Empty Spoon by Sunny Decker

    The good old days are debatable. Some people are nostalgic, some are glad they’re over. There’s a scene in the Book of Exodus where the Israelites long for the “good old days,” in their case it’s their life in Egypt. Sweating it out in the desert, they moan “let’s go back to Egypt, at least we had food and water.” They don’t seem to remember all the persecution, just the scraps of food they occasionally got. At the time I was learning this, my Bible teacher warned us against nostalgia. He said “we never had to lock the door at night, because nobody would break in, and that’s because there was nothing to steal!”

    An Empty Spoon reminds me why there were no “good old days.”  It’s a bleak memoir, with a few funny scenes in between, by Sunny Decker, a teacher in 1960’s Philadelphia. She taught at a bad high school, with all of the problems that we see 50 years later – drugs, broken homes, teen pregnancy – and there’s nowhere to turn. The parents were no help, and the building was a mess.

    There are some positive things that happen in this book. Decker gives a troubled teenage girl a copy of Anne Frank’s Diary, and the girl reads it with diligence. Then one morning the girl comes into class crying, throws the book at the teacher, and screams “you lied to me, she dies in the end!” I consider this positive; the teacher got the girl to read, and got her to think. Perhaps this girl was used to seeing friends or family get killed, and thought that Anne Frank’s two years of hiding in an attack would end with her escaping? Another funny story is where she takes the kids to see Streetcar Named Desire, and they think it’s a comedy. They see the big stupid guy in the bowling shirt, his spineless wife, his alcoholic bimbo sister-in-law, and they think it’s meant to be funny. The kids laugh so loud that the actors can’t concentrate.

   An Empty Spoon could’ve taken place right now, because almost every problem I see in this book is the same as what I see now. There’s a scene where a student, probably older than the others, shows up with his two children. Most would be horrified at the idea of paying child support at that age (no money left to tease the girls) but for this boy, it’s his way of promoting his virility. The girl he had them with is an Italian-American. I’m surprised her parents didn’t have her killed for getting pregnant by a Black boy.

    When we look back at the 60’s, we tend to think that it was an age of rights and progress, but like the Israelites in Exodus, we ignore the bad things. There were riots in almost every city, and crime and drug use increased. We have the Civil Rights movement to remember well, but after that was over, what did we have? There was poverty, crumbling schools, and family violence. Bill Cosby once said “when we won the battle, we started partying a little too soon.” I agree, but I have something to add; after the party, the whole country woke up with a 40 year hangover. Even Woodstock, that great festival of peace, love, and music, ended badly. Some of those musicians would soon die of drug overdoses, and let’s not forget, the “peace and love” didn’t go well at Altamont

   I’m going to give kudos to Sunny Decker for staying positive in a horrible time. She put up with all sorts of stuff from her kids, and even from Dick Gregory, who came to the school and told the kids to burn the place down (I’m not joking.) She was dealing with 20 year olds who couldn’t read, kids who showed up once a week, and 17 year old boys who were making babies with multiple girls. President Obama seemed to have a fondness for the 60’s, but I don’t. I wasn’t alive then, and I wouldn’t want to go back there. Even if I could warn the people of the future, I doubt they would’ve listened.

The 1960’s were probably our worst decade. Good riddance.