{"id":136,"date":"2026-02-08T01:50:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newstephenddev.wpenginepowered.com\/?page_id=136"},"modified":"2026-03-07T19:12:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T19:12:50","slug":"mixed-metaphores","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/?page_id=136","title":{"rendered":"MIXED METAPHORES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Every Saturday in March and April of 1946, I\u2019d get in the back seat of our new, post-war Chevrolet, my dad behind the wheel and my mother, bundled in fur, beside him in the front, and we\u2019d drive to some rural place in Connecticut, or Massachusetts or Rhode Island in search of a boarding school whose admissions standards were elastic enough to accept me and where, not incidentally, I\u2019d be happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I had any expectations at all about boarding school, being happy wasn\u2019t one of them. But neither my three brothers nor I resisted the idea. Spending the high school years in boarding school was what \u201cour kind\u201d of people did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those trips were long and the passing countryside dreary.  If April is the cruelest month, March is the bleakest in New England. It was lonely in the back seat without my brothers. My older brother Henry was already ensconced in Andover and it would be several more years before my parents thought either of my two younger brothers were old enough to leave home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only exploratory visit I remember in any detail was at Deerfield, where I was interviewed by Mr. Boyden, the school\u2019s celebrated founder, a jolly and avuncular person who reminded me of Santa Claus. It was clear I was supposed to like him. Maybe that\u2019s why I dis<\/em>liked him. Maybe because he interviewed me rather than the other way around. I didn\u2019t have the presence of mind to interrupt him with questions to help me decide if I\u2019d would be happy there. For all I know, I would have, but I doubt it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pomfret School, at the time for boys only, in the north east corner of Connecticut, accepted me, provided I repeat the fourth form, British parlance for tenth grade. My mother delivered me there in September, 1946.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first thing I noticed when we drove onto the campus was that the buildings were sheathed in red brick. They were beautiful, stately, even to my untrained eye. I didn\u2019t know anything about architecture, but I sensed instinctively that this place was even more royal than those other schools, clothed in their Puritan white clapboard. This was a place for the upper portion of the upper class. Later, I learned that the architectural style was Georgian, named after 18th century British kings. I didn\u2019t feel like a prince.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother and I got out of the car. We had no idea which of the buildings was the dorm where I was going to live. We stood there hoping someone would come and tell us, and it dawned on me that I\u2019d be incarcerated here until Christmas vacation, which might as well have been forever. My mother felt the same \u2013 I knew because why else but to hide her feelings would she turn away from me? I still wonder whether if I had got back in the car, she would have got behind the wheel and driven us home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A man in a blue suit and a white shirt and red tie hurried toward us. His black hair, lightly greased \u2013 not cool for grown-ups of the Anglo-Saxon variety\u2013 was combed straight back. \u201cMrs. Davenport?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d my mother said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd this is Stephen?\u201d Turning to me, smiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d my mother said again. \u201cWe call him Steve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHello, Steve, I\u2019m so glad you are going to be with us. I\u2019m Mr. Banks, your dorm master.\u201d I\u2019d heard the so<\/em>. Only women were allowed to substitute that word for very<\/em>. But he put out his hand to shake, and I felt better already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, turning back to my mother, \u201cI\u2019m so sorry you had to wait here. I\u2019d been waiting at the other entrance to greet you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother was embarrassed to have not read the instructions. \u201cOh! Were we supposed to enter there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo matter. Let me help with the luggage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He and I carried my footlocker into the dorm, then down a long hall. I was sure we were headed to a huge gloomy space, like in a Dickens novel, where a whole class would sleep together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead we entered a big room, flooded with sunlight. There were two beds. \u201cYou get your choice,\u2019 Mr. Banks said. \u201cYour roommate hasn\u2019t arrived yet.\u201d Then turning to my mother, \u201cI\u2019ve arranged some refreshments for you and Steve in my apartment. You, especially will want fortification for your drive home.\u201d He didn\u2019t need to add, Because you\u2019ll be alone, away from you son. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his modest living room, he served us tea and little sandwiches with the crust cut off. \u201cI\u2019m so grateful,\u201d my mother said, and a half hour later when it was time for her to leave, \u201cSo very glad you are Steve\u2019s dorm parent!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now years later, whenever I think of Muddy Banks, whose real first name was unknown to us, I feel a rush of affection. He was incapable of anger, even when we pinned a wet sheet to the door of his apartment in the middle of the night and then made a lot of noise so that he rushed out to find out what was happening and collided with the wet sheet. Splaat<\/em>! Later in the year, he fell for this again. Or did he just pretend to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was the French teacher. By senior year, my classmates and I were reading Victor Hugo and Guy De Maupassant in the original, and writing essays in French. I even wrote some very terrible poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And on a bitter winter evening, supervising the study hall whose brown walls imprisoned the low performing students, while the winter wind rattled the windows, he caught me reading John Steinbeck\u2019s Cannery Row<\/em> instead of doing my homework. I was ready to hand it to him to save him from the offense of taking it from me, but he didn\u2019t put his hand out. \u201cI love that book,\u201d he whispered, and continued his stroll down the aisle between the desks, and I realized he too would have loved to be under the Monterey  sun, next to the blue ocean, comporting himself with carefree people who conducted their lives according to no one\u2019s rules but their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muddy Banks\u2019 opposite was Mr. Joseph Barrelle, (pronounced  bar\/ell)  the Latin teacher, whose specialty was finding reasons to flunk us. Permanently on display on the blackboard in the front of the room in large letters was the list of 13 \u201cFlunking Matters\u201d that would automatically earn us a grade of 45 on our day\u2019s oral translation. You just had to begin making the mistake, just say the first word, and he would turn in his swivel chair behind his desk and rap on the blackboard with a long pointer at the specific flunking matter and tell you to shut up, and call on the next student. Everybody but the two or three boys who had a special talent for Latin lived in fear. We sat cramped in ugly brown combinations of chair and desk, each bolted to the floor, the classroom itself as rigid as Mr. Barrelle\u2019s personality and teaching style, waiting to be called on to render into English the assigned 15 lines of Caesar or Nepos \u2013 or some other unbearably boring person who had been dead since the beginning of time. Why he thought that normal humans would be pleased to know that all Gaul was divided into three parts or give a shit where Caesar\u2019s effing  impedimentia<\/em> was stored I\u2019ll never know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe because when I asked him that very question in those very words, he refused to explain?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Joseph Barrelle had a special hatred for me . Probably because when I entered his classroom the very first time and saw his name written on the blackboard, I said, \u201cGood morning, Mr. Barrel.\u201d  I guess he didn\u2019t like being addressed as something to store vegetables in. How was I supposed to know how to pronounce his name? He didn\u2019t answer that question either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Barelle had a way talking that sounded if his vocal cords were in his nose, and had a strange habit of lingering on a part of a word. One day, after I\u2019d translated a passage ineptly though avoiding flunking matters, he asked me \u201cDavenpooorrrtt, can you swim?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, I can swim.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGooood, because then maybe when you grow up you can get a job as a lifeguaaaard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather be a lifeguard than a Latin teacher,\u201d I said. I expected a reaction, anger, some kind of punishment, but he just rolled his eyes at the absurdity of the notion that I had any choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David E, the least capable of us all at accurate translation, came back from Christmas vacation of our fifth form (junior) year fortified with a trot, our word for a translation into English. Designed for the purpose of fooling the teacher, it was small enough to fit into the bigger book whose passages we were translating into English. What David didn\u2019t know was that his trot contained passages, unfit to be read by students that had been removed from the schoolboy version. Why David didn\u2019t notice this, I can only guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poor David. Did Mr. Barrelle know? Did he read David\u2019s mind? Did he have the original, unexpurgated Latin text by memory? Why else assign 15 lines exactly preceding a section devoted to a detailed description of sexual intercourse between a politician and somebody else\u2019s wife? David read those 15 innocent preceding lines with unusual aplomb. \u201cThank you, David,\u201d Mr. Barrelle said. \u201cYou must have eaten something for breakfast that woke up your brain. Would you honor us by reading the next section?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSure,\u201d David said, smiling victoriously. Then he resumed. He got to the place where penetration was about to occur, before he realized what he was reading, and stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Barrelle let the ensuing silence get louder and louder. Then in that weird nasal drawl of  his, \u201cDavid, how much is 45 minus 45?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No answer from David.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow much?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cZero?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYup. Zeeeero,\u201d Joseph Barrelle said, making a show of entering David\u2019s grade for the day in his grade book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David,a most affable boy whom it was impossible not to like, started to cry, and Jack W, sitting in the desk behind me, murmured just loud enough for me to hear. \u201cThat prick\u2019s gonna pay for this!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And pay he did. Or maybe what I remember was the visualization of how we would make him pay that came to me when Jack, Win C. and I made our plan. It is hard to believe that we would not have been severely punished, maybe expelled. I still don\u2019t know. Nor care. Real is real whether actually lived or imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jack, Win and I always got to the field before football practice started. Win, our quarterback would throw passes to me, and Jack, who starred on defense would cover me. So, that afternoon, when Mr. Barrelle took his daily walk, always cutting across the same part of the field every day at that time, as regular in his walking as in his dispensing of 45\u2019s, there would be a very satisfying mistake-on-purpose collision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We watched Mr. Barrelle approach us through the apple orchard that was near the field. \u201cI hope he doesn\u2019t notice we aren\u2019t practicing where we usually do,\u2019 Jack said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d Win said. Nobody would think we\u2019re evil enough to plan this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Mr. Barrelle got to the specified place on the field, Win called the number of the pass play we had planned:  a long, banana shaped route, my favorite pattern. Jack would stick with me all the way. Everybody would understand that you can\u2019t see somebody who\u2019s dumb enough to get in the way of a pass pattern when two guys are fighting for a ball flying overhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poor Jack! He only managed a glancing blow. I arrived an instant before Jack, and Mr. Barrelle was already flying through the air, upside down.  I wish I\u2019d been a little more skillful in my timing so Jack and I could have equally shared the satisfaction. We kept on running for another dozen yards or so to show Mr. Barrelle, who might have been dead for all we knew, how insignificant he was when away from his Flunking Matters. Then we trotted back to watch him get to his knees. \u201cYou should watch where you\u2019re going,\u201d Jack said in his most paternal tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d Win said. \u201cIts dangerous out here. Did you get permission from your mamma?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Formal practice was about to begin. We jogged to where the other players were gathered around our coach, Mr. Mansfield.  I could tell by the way he was staring at us he had seen what we\u2019d done. We were in trouble for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Wendel Doolittle (Manny) Mansfield didn\u2019t say one word to us about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few days later, David E, and I were playing against each other in a scrimmage, David on offense and I on defense. On a certain play, David\u2019s assignment was to block me. He missed the block and I tackled the ball carrier for no gain. \u201cLet\u2019s run it again,\u201d Manny Mansfield said. Now I knew what was coming, so it was easy for me to ward David off and tackle the runner again. \u201cLet\u2019s do it again,\u201d Manny said. We did, with the same result. \u201cNice try, David,\u201d Manny said. \u201cSometimes a defensive player knows what\u2019s coming, especially late in the game, right?\u201d David nodded. He was on the verge of tears. So was I. \u201cGood,\u201d Manny said, and we did it again. Once more the same result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne more Time, David?\u201d Manny asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please say no, <\/em>I thought. I remember not hearing anything, not a sound. Our world had gone mute with tension.  But I still can\u2019t figure why I felt the stakes were just as high for me as for David.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David nodded his head and we lined up again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time he collided into me harder than I had ever been hit.  He got his shoulder pads beneath my forearm shiver and ran right though me, and the runner went right on by, and now Manny was the one who was trying to hold back tears. \u201cNice block, David,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d follow you in a war anytime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did he know that that David only needed one more time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manny never bloviated about courage and determination, never gave an inspiring speech before a game and never once talked about winning. And most important, he never raised his voice to any of us. He taught us technique<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years later, after Manny had retired, I paid him and his wife Priscilla a visit at their home in Florida. I told him about the recent birth to my wife and me of a daughter, Elizabeth Wendel Davenport. \u201cWe call her Wendy,\u201d I told him. Once again, Mr. Wendel Doolittle Mansfield was suddenly trying not to burst into tears while smiling. It took me a moment to figure out why: Elizabeth was the name of a beloved aunt, and Wendel was my father-in law\u2019s middle name. Of course, I didn\u2019t tell him that. I did tell him, though, what was true then and still is: how glad I was that my daughter would go through her life bearing his name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had other fine teachers: Mr. Cooper Ellis, the owner of many tweed jackets adorned with leather patches at the elbows, an open model T car and a contagious love of literature, would make a big show of guzzling Milk of Magnesia to sooth his ulcer whenever we said stupid things in class. Mr. Henry, our history teacher, referred to always as the Little Red Hen because his political opinions were  too far left of Hitler\u2019s to be acceptable to royals, marched around his classroom, a long pointer on his shoulder like a rifle. It had a bicycle bell on it, which he would ring, then prod a student in his chest, asking \u201cand what do you think Mr. Steve?\u201d No classes I took in college or graduate school were as exciting as the Little Red Hen\u2019s and Coop\u2019s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late in my fifth form (junior) year we got the glorious news that Mr. Barrelle would resign in June \u2013 \u201cto pursue other opportunities.\u201d We were surprised. He seemed to us to be the most powerful person on the faculty.  I was on the staff of the school newspaper in charge of writing headlines, our method for which was to write several versions on the blackboard so everybody on the staff could see them and suggest improvements. But when I got to the blackboard to write the headline for the article about Mr. Barrelle\u2019s resignation, I was surprised to discover my mind was blank. After several minutes I still hadn\u2019t written anything. Mr. Ben (Benny to all of us) H., the faculty adviser to the newspaper, celebrated for his quick intelligence, sauntered across the classroom and stood next to me. \u201cWhat are you working on?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMr. Barrelle\u2019s resignation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow many spaces are allotted?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019s easy, he said, without an instant of hesitation. JOE BLOWS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmazing!\u201d I said. I couldn\u2019t have come up with that in less than a year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He shrugged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut you aren\u2019t gonna allow it, are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHell no.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood! Glad you\u2019re learning how things need to work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah? Mr. Barrelle didn\u2019t think I was learning anything. He kept telling me the only thing I was going to be good for was lifeguarding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReally? A life of sun, surf, pretty girls in bathing suits? Sounds okay to me \u2013 except in the winter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I always said I\u2019d rather be a lifeguard than a Latin teacher. We were a broken record. Both of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, poor Joe,\u201d Mr. H said.  \u201cI wonder what was eating him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latin was required only through our 5th form year. The last thing I wanted was another year of Latin. I didn\u2019t sign up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had no way of knowing that Joe Barrelle\u2019s replacement, Mr. David B\u2014a chain smoker who therefor was known immediately to everyone as Butts \u2013 would turn out to be so different from his predecessor. Gentle, funny, a brilliant storyteller, who made the relevance of Latin to the mastery of English vocabulary and sentence structure clear, he brought the classical Roman world alive. I\u2019d made a big mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years later, when I was teaching English at Kingswood-Oxford School in West Hartford, CT, he joined our faculty where he was equally as effective as he had been when, as a much younger person, he\u2019d been at Pomfret. We became good friends. One day over coffee in the faculty room, he challenged me: could I think up a more stunning example of a mixed metaphor every day than he could? We\u2019d find a time to compare and declare a winner, sometimes with advice from anybody who happened to be listening. He usually won. We got more and more competitive as the weeks went by and spring approached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David died long ago \u2013 gone to that place fine teachers go to teach the angels. But whenever I think of him, he\u2019s as alive as ever. I\u2019m in my classroom together with teenagers, the most supple minds on earth. Each time, I remember trying my best to reveal a different beloved story, play, essay or poem. But what David does is always the same. He opens the door, sticks his head in, waits for me and the students to notice him. \u201cI have many irons in the fire<\/em> I, he announces, \u201cand they are all bearing fruit.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he closes the door and disappears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every Saturday in March and April of 1946, I\u2019d get in the back seat of our new, post-war Chevrolet, my dad behind the wheel and my mother, bundled in fur, beside him in the front, and we\u2019d drive to some rural place in Connecticut, or Massachusetts or Rhode Island in search of a boarding school […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-136","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}