Believe It Or Don't
By Bruce Conrad Davis
My teaching career started in September in Riverton, Wyoming. In October, Jim Moore, the assistant superintendent invited me to go with him to a conference in Cheyenne, Wyoming. What was a conference? Educators gathered to confer? What did they “confer” about?
Doctor Moore said the conference started Monday. We’d leave Sunday morning. He was my boss. What he said was good enough for me.
He picked me up in his pink Cadillac Eldorado. We headed for Cheyenne. It was a four hour drive through wide open spaces on a highway littered with squished jack rabbits, sage hens and critters obliterated beyond recognition.
We stopped at Bob’s Lunch in Rawlins for greasy chicken fried steaks. Doctor Moore rattled on about this and that. He was quite a blabber. We arrived in Cheyenne late in the afternoon. We checked in to the historic Plains Hotel founded in 1911.We were on the third floor. Doctor Moore was two rooms down the hall from me.
It was Sunday evening. Shops were closed. Not a car was moving. No pedestrians. The town was dead. We walked around looking in shop windows before heading back to the hotel for a dinner of more chicken fried steak in a bubbly crust.
I snuck a peek at my watch. I had hoped to be back in my room in time to watch Sea Hunt, an action adventure show starring Lloyd Bridges. The show revolved around frog man Bridges solving crimes committed under water. Who knew? Lloyd knew!
In those days Wyoming had one television channel for the entire state. Reception was poor. Broadcasts were in a dense black and white snow. Color television hadn’t been invented. You weren’t certain if Bridges was in or out of the water.
I got in my pajamas and sat on the edge of the bed. I turned on the television. Bridges was submerged. He was paddling toward the hull of a ship. My phone rang. It was Doctor Moore. Could I come to his room for a minute? Yippee! I knew it! He was going to tell me I was to be promoted. I’d be a vice principal. Hallelujah!
I didn’t put on my robe and hurried to his room. The door was slightly open. I knocked. I heard him say come in.
Doctor Moore was lying on top of his bed wearing nothing but a pair of white boxer shorts sprinkled with little red hearts. The television was tuned to Sea Hunt. He patted the bed inviting me to lay down beside him.
Holy shit! My boss wanted me to get in bed with him. What to do? What to say?
I stammered, “I’m expecting a call from my mother. I need to get back to my room.”
I hurried out closing the door behind me and returned to my room. I hadn’t missed much. Bridges was removing a mine from the hull of a ship.
My phone rang. It was Doctor Moore. I was to be in the lobby with my bag packed by nine in the morning. We were returning to Riverton. And we did. Faster than before. We didn’t stop. He didn’t speak for the entire trip. Not even so much as a goodbye when he dropped me off at my apartment.
Even though the population of Riverton was only four thousand I never saw him again. I did see the Superintendent. He was a doozy with a capital D.