Shut Kingston Up

By

Bruce Conrad Davis

The Cast:

Eldrige Rice, Superintendent of the Garvey Elementary School District, Rosemead, California

Bruce Peppin, Superintendent of the Alhambra School District, Alhambra, California

Johnny Edwards- Editor of The Monterey Park Progress, Monterey Park, California

Bruce Conrad Davis-Garvey School District Principal aka Grant Kingston, author of The School Bag, a Monterey Park newspaper column.

I was the principal of the Monterey Vista School in the Garvey Elementary School District. My secretary, Marietta Jackson, said Superintendent Rice wanted to see me immediately.

I went to his office. Rice waved me in. He pointed to a chair. I sat.

“I just got a call from Bruce Peppin, the Superintendent of the Alhambra School District. He thinks you are Grant Kingston and so do I,” he said.

I said nothing. I looked straight at him.

“Let’s drive down to the Progress Newspapers and meet this Grant Kingston,” Superintendent Rice said.

I leaned forward. I looked straight at him. “Would you like to drive?”

His face reddened. He leaned back in his chair, snorted and waved me out of his office.

What was this about?

When I wasn’t at school being a principal I wrote for magazines, journals and two newspapers including The Monterey Park Progress. Many of my articles were about what goes on in schools. I didn’t use the real names of schools or districts. I never wrote about schools or personnel in the Garvey District.

So you have Superintendent Peppin telling Superintendent Rice to make me stop writing about what goes on in schools. I’d label them Nitwits but this ranks then higher then deserved.

After school closed that day I went to the Progress Papers and spoke with Johnny Edwards editor-in-chief chief. I told him what Rice had said.

Johnny tilted back in his chair, laughed and said that if they had come to the Progress to meet Grant Kingston he would have said Kingston was on an assignment.

I continued to write The School Bag. It was picked up by newspapers near San Diego, California and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Time marched on.

The members of the Garvey School District Board of Education decided to take a trip to Europe. They invited Superintendent Rice to go with them. When they returned I asked Superintendent Rice about the trip. This was his reply.

“Sweden was clean. Norway was clean. Germany was clean. Finland was clean. France wasn’t. Spain was dirty.”

Rice was a man of few words. I heard he liked to paint. I was surprised. I asked about his painting. His eyes lit up. He had painted his white picket fence 11 times in the last four years.

Peppin was a handsome busy man. He divorced his wife and married a district office clerk.

Fish gotta swim. Birds gotta fly. People gotta do something.