Teddy Bear Gets a Grip

In Fernley, where a man may call himself a “teddy bear” and expect to be judged by his intentions rather than his hands, a substitute teacher gave a classroom demonstration that will not be featured in any respectable curriculum.

The gentleman, forty years seasoned and reportedly soft of disposition, announced to his pupils that he was, indeed, a large and kindly stuffed animal. He then added, in the same breath, that any misbehavior would result in the ringing of “chicken necks,” which is a phrase that has never improved upon acquaintance.

It is the sort of promise that sounds folksy until it isn’t.

Now, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who speak in colorful warnings and leave it at that, and those who take a more hands-on approach to poultry metaphors. Witnesses in the room insist this particular bear chose the latter, placing his hands around the necks of two students and shaking them as though he were trying to wake a stubborn alarm clock. The bear, when questioned, denied the performance and suggested he may have merely demonstrated upon himself, an explanation that would be more convincing if the children had not been present and possessed of eyes.

The law, being a humorless creature, tends to frown upon experiments conducted on minors, even when introduced with a smile and a rural idiom. Deputies arrived, statements were gathered, and the tale unraveled in the usual fashion: witnesses agreeing with each other, the accused growing vague, and the truth sitting there like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, impossible to ignore and bound to cause trouble.

Though the students showed little at first glance, one was later found to carry injuries that they did not care whether they were seen. Medicine has a way of discovering what bravado tries to hide, and it seldom takes the side of the storyteller.

The school district dismissed the man, which is the modern way of saying the teddy bear has been returned to the shelf, though not for resale. A warrant followed, as warrants tend to do when facts pile up like unpaid bills, and the former educator was collected and lodged in the county jail with a bond set at $20,000, an amount that suggests society places a certain value on keeping its bears properly stuffed and at a distance from the young.

There is, in all this, a lesson so plain it hardly needs stating, that will be ignored anyway: authority is a delicate instrument, and when placed in unsteady hands, it becomes something else entirely. We entrust our schools with children, not cautionary tales, and while discipline has its place, it was never meant to involve the grip of a hand.

The investigation continues, which is official language for “we are not done being disappointed.” Meanwhile, Fernley carries on, as towns do, adding one more story to the long American record of men who mistook a figure of speech for a job description.