Nelda Bristow (pronounced Brist-oh) taught me English in high school. Before writing this post I tried to find out if she was still living in the town she retired to after leaving Houston. I saw to my dismay that she died in 2018. She was 84.
You can see in the photo how affable she was, always with a ready smile. Her hair when I knew her was dark brown and cut in a casual medium length style. I remember her as tall and strong-looking, yet very feminine in a peach-colored suit.
She’d also taught my brother the year before, and they seemed to like each other, so I guess she was disposed toward liking me too. In fact she seemed to like most people. I’d call her approach to teaching magnanimous and tolerant of human foibles. On her Life Tribute Page, a student wrote that one of her major memories of Ms. Bristow was “her imperious posture. She reminded me of the carving on the front of a grand sailing ship. The other was how she threw me out of class, telling me to stand in the hall while hurling the epithet ‘Smith, (not her real name) you're nothing but a catalyst’ at me.” That student’s experience assured me that Ms. Bristow remained, as I suspected she would, unforgettable throughout her teaching career, long after I’d moved on. (Despite being thrown out of class the student wrote that she remembered Ms. Bristow fondly.)
My brother called her “a great lady” and a “great encourager.” I agree, and though I don’t remember thinking about her in exactly those terms then, I felt free in her class to be and to accept myself. As a result of skipping third grade due to a messy change of schools when my family moved, I found myself not only the “baby'“ of the family but also, from fourth grade on, of my classes. That was okay in fourth grade, but by high school I’d become noticeably more juvenile-looking than my classmates. With my mother’s added protective propensity for keeping me looking young and innocent, I often felt embarrassed about looking like a child, and sometimes being treated like one (although kindly) rather than like a friend by some of my classmates.
Ms. Bristow may or may not have noticed this, but she did treat me like the others. While she expected and required good work, she remained approachable. This was no small thing because there was another teacher many students described as “scary,” and I found myself in her class too. She knew her stuff and we learned a lot, but being in a state of anxiety in her room made learning considerably more stressful. There was no abuse, certainly, but enough of a whiff of threat in the air to scare us into working very very hard. (I think most of us would have worked just as hard without the fear.)
I think Ms. Bristow knew that our mother was a writer and English teacher, and that like my brother, I would mostly get the work done and do a good job of it. (I was barely surviving geometry however.) I wasn’t so sure at first, but her consistently kind and understanding manner toward me helped me to find my footing. I think she also knew I was studying the violin, and understood that studying music was intense and time-consuming. It was only near the class’s end that I learned to my delight that Ms. Bristow was a member of Houston’s Gilbert and Sullivan Opera chorus. At that time I had no idea that in a few years I’d be singing on stage myself, and even producing operas, a future you could say was made more likely because of one of her assignments.
She’d asked that each student in our class present a piece—anything we wanted, no holds barred—on a Shakespeare play of our own choosing. I found this exciting, and forgot all my insecurities, having already been bolstered by her ability to help me feel I was on the same level as the rest of the class. I shocked myself a little with how free I felt to let my imagination fly off in all directions. Actually it probably flew too far off, but I was having so much fun that I took a chance, pretty much a first for me, and just hoped she wouldn’t find it ridiculous and then fail me.
I immediately knew which play I would choose—The Tempest. I’d read it in an old, beautifully illustrated book I’d found in the tiny library of a hotel where my family had stayed. It was the only book there that appealed to me, partly because of the lovely pictures. I’d also seen the play on TV, loved the fantasy characters Ariel and Caliban, and imagined myself as the magician Prospero’s daughter Miranda and as narrator of the story.
I and a childhood friend had loved putting on short, silly shows for our families, thrown together with pieces of material and props we found in the house. It didn’t even cross my mind not to make my Shakespeare project an entertaining (hopefully) summary of the play, made from things at home. I had to represent several characters, and we had some puppets at home, so the best choice seemed to be a puppet show. I began with a ferocious-looking hand puppet with snapping jaws revealing a fiery red mouth and white teeth. It looked like an enraged wolf. This of course would be Caliban. I can’t remember what I used for Prospero, but Ariel was a problem. How to make a fascinating flying spirit? I found a styrofoam ball, glued on some sequins, wrapped it in bits of trailing filmy material, and attached a string to it so Ariel could fly. When he did fly, he looked like a glorified tennis ball.
I could hardly wait to present my project. I think I knew it might not be taken seriously, but tried to ignore that feeling. When my Caliban first appeared, the class burst out laughing, and so did Ms. Bristow. It felt wonderful. I sensed they weren’t laughing at me, but were having a good time. When I swung Ariel around on his string and he got away from me, they laughed even harder. But I suddenly felt accepted, and that moment helped me to trust my own creativity and imagination, as well as my ability to connect with others in my class who had seemed more distant before that day.
My gift from Ms. Bristow was her making it feel okay—safe, even—to take a chance as long as it’s done with dedication and attention. There’s learning, and then there’s learning with your mind stretched all over the place because someone you trust says “Go ahead. What’s the most exciting thing you can come up with all by yourself? Do it.”
From that day on, I mostly did go ahead and do it, and sometimes got in a lot of trouble for it. What seemed the best path one day sometimes changed, and then changed again as I grew to better understand myself. When I met with resistance, negativity, or even anger from people in positions of authority who tried to tell me I should do things other than what I believed I had to do, I learned not to let them deter me, even when it got scary, or when they told me I would fail.
I like to imagine that if Ms. Bristow had been present when I ran into some of those people, she’d have told them to cut it out and help instead, or get out of the way. I keep her steady, supportive manner in my head, and her smile in my memory.
Hi again Terry. I've just now read your lovely story about you and Mr. Dale (so close to the name of my math tutor, Mrs. Daly. Not important but kind of interesting). What a wonderful piece, and it made me cry too, but also I laughed out loud in a couple of places, especially where you wrote your editor cried and you didn't think the writing was that bad--that's just damn hilarious! And you keep coming up with such gems of comic timing, like I said before. Such a pleasure to read, as always, and it again lifted my (rather volatile) spirits, so thank you! And yes I feel certain that with more time you'd have gotten to the top of the class!!
Thank you Terry. I'll have a look soon! (I'm busy screaming at my computer at the moment.)