The Irony of “Boy, what you doin’ bothering this nice lady?”
Denver Moore reports, “another one (white boy), dark-haired and kinda weasel-looking put one hand on his saddle and pushed back his hat with the other. ‘ Boy what you doin botherin this nice lady?” It is sardonic for the white lads to clinch that the speaker is upsetting the lady, yet he is honourably facilitating a repair of her tyre. The sardonic query is traced to bigotry, seeing that Moore is black. For the white lads, black is identical to inferiority. Had the Moore been white, they would not have distrusted or ostracized him.
“He was stupid enough”
Miss Poe asserts, “Ronnie will not be participating in recess today. Because he was stupid enough to bring his Dixie cup to the classroom instead of the nurse’s office.” Miss Poe’s judgement of Ron’s apparent stupidity is ironic. Ron affirms, “And as I grew older, I wished I could send her (Miss Poe) a message that I wasn’t stupid. I hadn’t thought of her in years, though, until a gorgeous day in June 1978 when I cruised down North Main Street in Fort Worth in my Mercedes convertible, and security waved me through the gate onto the private tarmac at Meacham Airfield like a rockstar. It would have been perfect if I could have had Miss Poe, a couple of old girlfriends - Lana and Rita Gail, maybe - and what the heck, my whole 1963 Haltom High graduating class, line up parade-style so they could all see how I’d rise above my lower-middle-class upbringing. Looking back, I’m surprised I made it to the airfield that day.” Had Miss Poe been perfect vis-à-vis her diagnosis of Hall’s aptitude, then Hall would not have surpassed his Middle-class grade to accomplish the rank of outstanding “rock star.” If Hall were downright dull, he would have trusted Miss Poe’s pronouncement about his privation of acumen which would encumber him from pursuing actualization in his entire lifespan. The ironic ending of a boy who was deemed stupid by a teacher who should have mentored him indicates that committing errors is not equivalent to being irreversibly unintelligent.
