It wasn’t Mrs. Koerner’s fault, really. Anybody can get pushed over the edge. I should have known that when you tax anyone too much, well, you’d better be ready to pay the price.

I’m a little fuzzy on the events leading up to my conviction, but I’m pretty sure I’d overloaded the camel way before I laid on that last straw. Anyway, Mrs. Koerner marched me to the head of my third-grade class and told me to hold up my left hand so everybody could see it. As I remember, there was a murmur of admiration from the class. I’d spent a good deal of class time secretly drawing a colorful clown head on that left palm. That spontaneous murmur is probably what cinched my fate.

Mrs. Koerner limbered up a ruler and made me stand still as she whacked my right palm. Well, I was stubborn. I was determined to pass out before I’d cave in and cry in front of my classmates. I’d overestimated my fortitude and underestimated her skill and determination as a teacher. I don’t know how many licks it took — seemed like a hundred or more — but Mrs. Koerner won hands down (pardon the pun). I went whimpering back to my desk vowing to give myself over to a life of outlawry as soon as I could bust out of the third grade.

But the truth is, I never drew another clown on my hand. In fact, I never drew anything on my body. Even the thought of getting a tattoo causes my right palm to tingle and I get tears in my eyes. So, today, I’m tattoo free and I owe it mostly to my third-grade teacher. Thank you Mrs. Koerner.

This comes to mind because this week I join millions in observing World Teacher Day on Oct. 5. Recent events show us just how tough it is to be a teacher these days. When I was a kid, things were simpler (pardon the cliché). Columbus was honored on Columbus Day. Our teachers weren’t conflicted on whether to balance the story by telling us that some consider him a war criminal.

When John Glenn circled the earth in 1962, our teachers allowed all the sixth-grade classes to spend hours watching his entire mission on TV. These teachers were absolutely shameless in impressing us with a sense of pride in this accomplishment and optimism in the great future in store for America. No one mentioned to us that American students are pawns in a propaganda tug-of-war to determine exactly who should tell us how to feel about our country. There were no choruses pointing out the reasons we should feel ashamed.

Back then, if the president wanted to address America’s school children, we would have felt it was our patriotic duty to hear him out. Whether we agreed with him or not, we trusted him. The president was referred to with respect. No one ever called our president a perjurer, a war criminal or a socialist. I guess some of our educators were laying down on the job.

When I was in school, our teachers joined with us in celebration: Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Valentine’s Day and Sadie Hawkins’ Day. We thought it was all about simple happiness and sharing a good time. We didn’t realize that we were mindless participants in primitive observations calculated to promote intolerance at best and ethno-centric hatred at worst.

Our classes recited psalms together and we sang spirituals in our all school assemblies. So far as I know, we never had a teacher compose a hymn or anthem in praise of any political figure — no matter how popular that figure might be.

As for Mrs. Koerner’s brutal ruler regime, my parents never dreamed of filing a lawsuit. If I got a lickin’ in school, I probably had it coming. Our parents trusted our teachers — so did we.

In addition to World Teacher Day, this week marks Leif Erickson Day. According to some historians, Erickson landed in North America on Oct. 9, 1003, hundreds of years before Columbus did on Oct. 12, 1492. No doubt somebody will get around to pointing out that Leif Erickson has some miserable personality flaw and we should be ashamed of observing a day in his honor. A manly man is not supposed to be too sentimental, I know. But I can’t help but be nostalgic for the days when we had more to agree about in this country.

I’m Hink and I’ll see ya.