Blog 3559 – 08.02.2025

Inspired By A Tire

I began the first year of high school in September of 1964 at East Lake Junior High School. Back then, in Chattanooga, Tennessee at least, we had Junior High not Middle School between Elementary School and High School. Grades one through six was called elementary school. Seven through nine was called junior high. And ten through twelve was called high school. Oddly enough grade nine was still considered the freshman year of high school and those courses went toward the credits needed to get a high diploma.

I was “tapped” for the National Junior Honor Society at the end of the eighth grade and was told that I would be assigned to Mrs. Sorrels’ Honors English class for my last year of junior high/first year of high school. Some honor, Mrs. Sorrels had a reputation of actually throwing a student out of her class room window for some infraction of her very strict classroom etiquette rules. Most advanced students had Mrs. Sorrels all three years of their junior high experience, the first two years for what was called “block class” which consisted of English grammar, English literature, Social Studies, and Geography. It was a two hour period instead of the usual one.

The people who had Mrs. Sorrels in the seventh and eighth grades already had a large spiral notebook full of notes on the rules of English Grammar. I was a late bloomer and was only beginning to reach my academic potential in the eighth grade and had even won the History medal that year, one of my proudest accomplishments. Yet, I was still woefully lacking in mathematics and English grammar. I postponed the mathematical showdown by taking an easy math course called Business Math which with Algebra One and Algebra Two, in high school gave me a major in math.

But there was no getting around my weakness in English Grammar and English Literature for that matter. I knew that most all of Mrs. Sorrels’ honor students loved her and bragged on her as the best and most favorite teacher that they had ever had. Mine was then and still is Mr. Crane the Art teacher and Performance Arts coach.

I was starting off so far behind that most everyone including me thought I would fail, but failure was not allowed in Mrs. Sorrels’s class and she was determined to get the very best out of me even if it killed me. There were times I was in fear it just might. She sat me on the first row, right in front of her desk, within reach. Mrs. Sorrel never sent any of her students to the Principal’s office for disciplinary action she handle discipline personally and it was a most sacred duty to her. I can honestly credit her for three things: One, I learned more in her class than I ever did before or since in any other class; two, she sparked a love in me for the English language that I might never have discovered on my own; and three she never hit me.

My last year of High School at Chattanooga Central High I again found myself in an Honors English Class and I recall in one segment on creative writing that Mrs. Morgan, another great English teacher, gave the class a great piece of advice about writing and overcoming writer’s block. She said just start writing whatever comes to mind and trust that inspiration will come to you.

Yesterday, on my way to get some take-out to bring home for lunch I noticed the low tire pressure light was on in my pickup. The display showed the two tires on the passenger side to be low so I wondered if I had picked up a nail in both of those tires. After getting food and taking it home and having a meal, I headed to Discount Tire to have the tires checked out and repaired or replaced if necessary. I could see a nail in the middle of the tread on the front passer side tire and figure it could be plugged and patched, but I was not sure about the rear tire.

The sales/service tech told me they would check the tires and it would be about an hour. I walked to the Walmart next door and did a little shopping that took about a half hour to forty-five minutes. I had a brief conversation with a man sitting next to me in the waiting area and noticed a service technician pulling my truck up to the front door. I went outside and he gave me my keys and tire lock socket and told me that they had plugged and patched both tires and that I was good to go. As I was making sure that there was precisely thirty nine pounds of air in all four tires this morning I noticed that the front passenger side tire also had a new stem and sensor.

Those tires are full of air, that is what inspire literally means. From my two years of Latin in High School I recall some of the vocabulary and some of the grammar but mostly that many English words have their root in Latin and how the Latin prefixes modify the root word. Someday like tires all the air will leak out of us. We will expire or give up the ghost or the spirit (air) will leave our bodies. Till that day, I say that we should conspire (share the air) and try to inspire (add to those who might be a little low). Makes for a much smoother ride for all.

Just start writing or talking and to quote both a couple of great English teachers and also a Rabbi from Nazareth, “the words will be given you.” Inspirations always there. It is the air we breathe.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White