From Purple Bras to Scorpions
Gift giving sure has changed since the days of the lowly red apple. Today? How about a purple bra. Or a death mask. Or a scorpion under glass. Or a “beautifully wrapped” 14-inch zucchini, grown by a proud student. It’s the time of year when teachers, especially those in elementary school, get all sorts of presents. Some come from overseas, others from a corner discount store--or a mother’s drawer. Sometimes, in their desire to please, youngsters simply grab something from home. One teacher recalls getting “a metal box with some weed still left in there.” The mother was quick to come to school to retrieve it. In other homes, parents stay up late to bake cookies or crochet a muffler, or scramble through a mall for that perfect mug. “I have so many coffee mugs at home,” said one Eagle Rock teacher, “that I don’t use glassware anymore.”
For the record, of course, many teachers say the best gift is seeing their students learn--to love books, for instance. Or receiving a hand-scrawled “thank you” note. But with a little prodding, the stories come out, such as the one from May Arakaki, principal of Logan Street School in Los Angeles, about a colleague who got . . . a girdle. “The child’s mom worked in the garment industry,” Arakaki recalled. “We were young at the time, and we roared with laughter. But now that we’re older we could probably use it.”
Times staff writers Susan Abram, Fred Alvarez, Karima A. Haynes and Duke Helfand and correspondents Mimi Ko Cruz and Lisa Fernandez asked teachers around the region to recall memorable holiday gifts.
MYRA GASSMAN
School: 3rd Street, Los Angeles
Grade: Fourth
Gift: Gardening
“Somebody came and did gardening for me. The student’s father was a gardener and he brought plants and planted them and the whole family worked on my yard. I was also given the use of a condo in Malibu, but I never did use it.”
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WYTERIA PERRY
School: El Cerrito, La Habra
Grade: Second
Gift: Purple bra
“All my kids know my favorite color is purple. It was Christmas 1987, and I was opening gifts in front of the whole class. One of my kindergarten students, Jonathan, gave me a present, all nicely wrapped. I opened it, and there was a purple bra and panties. All the kids were just like, ‘Ooooooooh.’ I could feel myself blushing.”
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PENNY BAISLEY
School: Apperson, Sunland
Grade: Kindergarten
Gift: Flute
“The father of one of my students asked his father in Japan to send some special bamboo that he grew especially to make flutes. The work that went into it and the fragile beauty just overwhelmed me. I cried when the father gave it to me, wrapped in silk and tied with ribbon.”
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NANCY SCHER
School: Eagle Rock
Grades: Fifth and sixth
Gift: A used handkerchief
“My first year of teaching, I got a used handkerchief. It was washed, but it was out of the wrapping.”
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SETH CUTLER
School: Loreto Elementary,
Los Angeles
Grade: Third and fourth
Gift: Cow salt shaker
“I still have on my table a set of cow salt and pepper shakers and a creamer and I have years and years of really bad cologne.”
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BETH PALLARES
School: Balboa Middle, Ventura
Grade: Seventh
Gift: A magnum of Korbel champagne
“There was a note attached from the parents that said anyone who could put up with their child in the classroom for the number of hours that I had deserves to have an evening of bubbly on them. I thought that was very refreshing in more ways than one.”
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TIM KUSSEROW
School: Logan Street, Los Angeles
Grade: Second
Gift: Cookie
“Last year, I had a class that was underprivileged and mostly Asian. I was trying to share with them the concept of Christmas and I read ‘The Night Before Christmas.’ There was a picture of the little boy opening a gift. The next day, a kid gave me a wadded tissue wrapped with rope and dropped it in my hand. I was trembling. When I opened it, it was a Christmas gingerbread cookie, decorated by him, with a pin in it. I still have it.”
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VANAE EHRET
School: Logan Street, Los Angeles
Grade: Third, fourth and fifth
Gift: Card
“We have a lot of kids who speak English as their second language. Once, I got a card. It was a beautiful card but it said, ‘Condolences on the loss of your loved one.’ ”
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SUSAN PRADO
School: Loreto, Los Angeles
Grade: Resource specialist, kindergarten through fifth
Gift: Heart-shaped pin
“An autistic child gave me this heart-shaped pin with the American flag on it. I value that very much because it was a heart and that means love. He chose it himself and he didn’t give gifts to too many people.”
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TANIA PASHKOV
School: Logan Street, Los Angeles
Grade: Special education
Gift: Candy
“In special ed, the kids all have food in their pockets and because they understand the concept of giving they’ll give you their snacks, like Gummy Bears with half the head consumed.”
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BARBARA ELSON
School: Coeur d’Alene, Venice
Grade: Preschool
Gift: Books
“We had a little boy who went through his library at home and brought each teacher a book he thought we would like. His parents were separated at that time and he was living on a boat. In better times, his family could once afford books.”
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LAUREL HITCHCOCK
School: Eagle Rock
Grades: Fourth and fifth
Gift: Seashell lamp
“When you lit it, it rotated and the shells hanging from the ribbons spun.”
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BILL MERKELSON
School: 3rd Street, Los Angeles
Grade: Fifth
Gift: Banana magnet
“They know I eat a banana everyday at lunch and they’ll bring me everything banana shaped that’s possible, from cards shaped like bananas to banana magnets. I’m known as Mr. Banana Man.”
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MARTY HENTE
School: 3rd Street, Los Angeles
Grade: Fifth
Gift: Death masks
“I had one student bring me a box filled with little masks. I think they were Thailand death masks.”
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TONY BIREN
School: Logan Street Elementary, Los Angeles
Grade: First
Gift: Assorted porcelain
“I have a porcelain collection of everything from teddy bears to a sinister white hand.”
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MICHELE DUNNER
School: Garden Grove, Reseda
Grade: Resource teacher
Gift: Stuffed toy frog that croaks “Jingle Bells”
“I bring it out every Christmas.”
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BETH OJENA
School: Coeur d’ Alene, Venice
Grade: Principal
Gift: Pink lingerie
“One student’s mom worked at Frederick’s of Hollywood and the family gave me a pink teddy. Great teddy, wrong body!”
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SUSAN WEISBAUM
School: Garden Grove, Reseda
Grade: Fifth
Gift: Angel figurine
“I received a very religious figurine--but I’m Jewish.”
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CAROL HUSE
School: Logan Street Elementary, Los Angeles
Grades: Third, fourth and fifth
Gift: Makeup compact
“I was teaching sixth grade. I got a compact that has at least 52 iridescent eye shadows with the little pull-out tray of bright rouge because [the kids] think I should be wearing makeup and makeup is what is on their minds at that age.”
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LARKIN BROOKS
School: Third Street, Los Angeles
Grade: Third
Gift: Coffee cup necklace
“I got this necklace that was a huge gold chain, and at the end of the chain was a coffee cup with a huge glass gem on top, and on the bottom were the letters HSN for Home Shopping Network.”
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MARY ELSENBAUMER
School: Lincoln, Ventura
Grade: Fifth
Gift: A stuffed piranha
“It was an old, dehydrated piranha mounted on a wooden base. It was a beauty with its mouth wide open.”
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LOIS CURRY
School: Logan Street, Los Angeles
Grade: Fourth and fifth
Gift: A matchbox
“I got a matchbox filled with rocks and sprayed with perfume. I also got a miniskirt and I’m 55. I still wear it.”
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ANNA L. PIERCY
School: Lexington Junior High, Cypress
Grade: Seventh and eighth
Gift: Ski muffler
“I had a very quiet young man in class who gave me a red and white striped snow muffler 25 years ago. I still have it. “
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TRESE SIMMONS
School: Trabuco Elementary,
Trabuco Canyon
Grade: Kindergarten
Gift: Hand-carved wooden pencils and pencil stand
“I had this little boy whom I was tutoring after school, and he hand-carved these pencils and a little stand for me. On the back of the stand he carved, ‘I like you,’ but he spelled it ‘L-I-C-K.’ I’ll keep that gift forever.”
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JILL HAWKINS
School: Eagle Rock,
Los Angeles
Grade: Substitute
Gift: Lion muumuu
“We had gone on a trip to the zoo and then at Christmas I got an orange, green, and brown muumuu with a giant lion on it.”
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VICKI PRELESNIK
School: Handy, Orange
Grade: Fifth
Gift: 14 angels
“We were reading a story about angels as part of a language arts lesson. That Christmas, 14 students gave me an angel--I collect them. Each one matched the personality of each student. There’s one with a football, a funny one, a frilly one. They’re not supposed to bring gifts, but they do, and I cried. . . . They all sit on my bookshelf at home.”
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SUSAN BABIT
School: Dixie Canyon Avenue,
Sherman Oaks
Grade: Third
Gift: Handmade quilt
“As a kindergarten teacher about six or seven years ago, I was given a quilt with all the children’s handprints on it and they signed it in their own handwriting. If I get cold when I curl up to read, I put it on.”
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CAROL PHILIPS
School: Weathersfield Elementary, Thousand Oaks
Grade: Principal
Gift: Elvis clock
“Well, I’m an Elvis fan and the students discovered that. I got an Elvis clock. The legs move back and forth.”
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LORI DIXON
School: Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, Pacoima
Grade: Second
Gift: Negligee
“I opened up the gift and thought, ‘Oh, this is interesting.’ I didn’t expect it from a child. Everyone said, ‘Oh, does the father like you?’ And I said, ‘No, he’s not like that.’ ”
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LINDA SHAPIRO
School: Calvert Street,
Woodland Hills
Grade: Teaches hearing-impaired
Gift: Scorpion under glass
“A few years back, a student gave every teacher in the hearing-impaired department a dead scorpion under glass on a plaque. To this day, no one knows what was meant by the gift.”
