Gail Skroback Hennessey

Mrs. Portulaca Purpilopilis and the Purple Adventure Goggles

Portulaca Purpilopilis pulled her 2004 purple Dodge Conversion Van into the parking lot of Alfalfa Elementary School and quickly found a parking spot. Gathering up her purple backpack from the passenger seat of the van, Portulaca gave herself a quick check in the rear view mirror. Her lilac colored hair was gathered up in a bun held together with a purple hair clasp. A few strands hung down the side of her face gently resting on her purple and lilac three balled hanging earrings. "My, my," whispered Portulaca,"another day, another school for me to substitute teach. I can't wait to meet my young dears for today. The sub register said I'd be teaching in a 5th grade social studies class. One of my favorite grades! I just adore the subject of history!"

Portulaca stepped out of the her van, just missing a muddy puddle from a storm that had occurred the night before. Her purple high top Keds sneakers with lilac laces were her favorite which Portulaca had just specially ordered from her favorite internet shopping site,Purple Potpourri Pavilion. As she carried her stuffed-to-the-brim backpack, she hurriedly made her way to the entrance of Alfalfa Elementary School, straightening her lilac skirt with matching lilac sweater. With her bangled bracelet that matched her earrings, and her purple eyeglasses with a purple tint,one could easily see that purple was her favorite color. "You can never have too much purple in one's day," thought Portulaca.

"Good day, dear," said Portulaca, as she entered Alfalfa Elementary School's Main Office. "I am Mrs. Portulaca Purpilopilis and I am the substitute for a Ms. Deepalowski." The school secretary quickly took a gander at the woman before her and before she could speak, Portulaca pointed out the obvious. "Yes, yes, dear, I certainly do like the color purple. With a name like Purpilopilis, I guess I didn't have much of a choice, now did I, dear?"

"Mrs. Purpilopilis, here are Ms. Deepalowski's lesson plans and her room key. You will find her room down the hall to the left. Room number 125. If you should need anything, please let me know. My name is Miss Murplelani. And, a brilliant welcome to Alfalfa Elementary School."

"Why, thank you, my dear,thank you very much, but I am most sure, I will be absolutely and positively fine,"responded Portulaca. And, with a wave of her hand and a "cheerio", Portulaca was out the door and trekking down the hall to the classroom.

"My, my", exclaimed Portulaca, as she surveyed the lesson plans that Ms. Deepalowski had left for the day. "Let's see, she wants me to give out these two worksheets on Alexander Graham Bell, and have the students work in pairs to complete the fill in the blanks and crossword puzzle. Then, she wants me to administer a quick comprehension review quiz. Hmmmmm." Portulaca noticed that the papers were color coded. Orange, her most unfavorite color was the fill in the blank. Yellow, a happy color thought Portulaca , was for the crossword puzzle with pale blue, the review quiz. "My, my, this just won't do. It most certainly won't do at all!"sighed Portulaca.

Reaching for her bursting purple backpack,slumped over a spare chair, Portulaca, stuck her hand inside and pulled out a pair of her favorite substitute possessions, her adventurer goggles. She had just enough for each student to have a pair of the purple goggles with gold trim. She also pulled out a black remote control device which was an important feature for her adventurer goggles.

A buzzer echoed through the hallway announcing the start of the school day. The students, who had gathered around their lockers, began to usher themselves into the quiet classroom. First inside, a young man, named Ernest, who yelled back to the others waiting to get into the room,"Hey, we've got a sub today. Mrs. Deepalowski isn't here today! And,wait until you see what our sub looks like!"

With interest peeked a tad, students proceeded to lug their social studies books and notebooks to their desks and mingled around, whispering and giggling at the sight of their substitute, Mrs. Purpilopilis.

With a strong and assertive bellow, Portulaca, said,"Sit down, students." Her gaze and her voice told the students that they'd better do as she said. "Good Morning, students, my name is Mrs. Purpilopilis, but you can call me, Mrs. P. And, yes, dears, purple is my favorite color."

"Did you know that at one time the color purple was the color of kings? It was very expensive to own so most people couldn't afford to purchase it. You, see, the color was obtained from a small sea creature called the murex. An ancient people called the Phoenicians squeezed a few drops of a yellowish liquid from its gland. When exposed to air and sun, the liquid turned a bluish-red coloring and was applied to fabric. Amazingly, it took 10,000 murex snails to dye just one purple cloak. And, the workers, why they had permanently stained purple hands! Not,that there would be anything wrong with purple hands, in my way of thinking," Portulaca chuckled. "One more tidbit of information on the color purple. These early people got their name from the Greeks who called the traders of the unique colored dye, Phoenicians, meaning "purple-red people." Portulaca smiled as she saw that the students seemed impressed with the information she had just shared with them,adding,"Do any of you like the color purple, too?" A few hands popped into the air.

"OK, students, Ms. Deepalowski, has left some worksheet for you to learn about a famous American named Alexander Graham Bell. Groans were released by the students with a couple chiming, "More worksheets, how boring! "Another muttered loud enough for Portulaca to hear,"Don't you just hate history? Why, do we have to learn this stuffy old subject, anyway?"

Portulaca turned to the girl named Uaska and said,"How can you say that? History is a glorious subject. Why, where would we be without it? The people of the past created the stepping stones for our very lives today. Did you know that the Egyptians invented bowling? Or, that the Chinese invented Kites and were the first to wear eyeglasses? I don't know about you, but I most certainly thank these people, and lots of others, for such ideas, we have today."

Turning her attention back to the lesson of the day, Portulaca asked,"Do any of you know anything about Alexander Graham Bell?" Portulaca's purple and lilac three balled hanging earrings swung like pendulums, as she searched the room, for someone to respond. "Share, with me, anything , anything at all, that you might already know about this famous man."

"He invented the telephone, I think the cell phone,"called out Ernest.

Looking at Ernest, Portulaca said sternly, "We don't call out, now do we? That is very impolite. You must raise your hand to be recognized in this classroom. Do I make myself clear, dear"?

"Mr. Bell, did invent the telephone but not the cell phone. That came many years later. Now, does anyone else know something about Mr. Bell?" No hands went up so Portulaca announced. "I have a special treat for you today. No worksheets. I brought along something very special for you to learn about Alexander Graham Bell. She proceeded to pull out the purple adventurer goggles with gold trim and passed them out to each of the students. "These adventurer goggles are very special. They are time traveling goggles."

"Yeah, right," said some of the students in unison. Time traveling goggles. There is no such thing".

"Oh,but you are so very wrong. That's what people living 50 years ago would have said about the internet or cell phones, or listening to music with tiny Ipods. These adventurer goggles are very much real and you will see for yourself in just a couple of minutes.

Portulaca explained that with her remote control she would first tune to the frequency to capture when Alexander Graham Bell was a young boy so they could see what type of kid the famous inventor was and then, she'd forward the time travel to the day when Bell tried out his new invention, the telephone. "Each pair of goggles has a built in receiver so you will be able to hear the sounds of the past.

One by one the skeptical students donned the purple adventurer goggles with the gold trim. At least,the substitute wasn't going to pass out the worksheets waiting for distribution on the front table.

"My nephew's prototype adventurer goggles are pretty amazing as you will soon see. They can capture snippets of history and its sounds. A young girl with blond curly hair and a tee shirt with a multi colored peace sign asked,"Mrs. P.,can we also see the future with these adventurer goggles?"

"But, of course not, dear. The future hasn't occurred yet, now has it, dear?"explained Mrs. Purpilopilis gently, "We can just see past events. OK, here we go...let's visit young Alexander Graham Bell." I will freeze the viewing from time to time to explain information or take your questions. Just press the tiny black button on the side of the goggles and a beep will let me know you have have something to say."Just don't touch the little black dial on the left side of the goggles, that's for dialing in frequencies of time," smiled Mrs.P. knowing that curiosity would most certainly cause one of the students to do just that since she gave the warning.

Using the control on the remote control, Mrs. P. tuned in the frequency and the past, in living color, began to come into focus from a purple cloudy mist. In moments, a clearer than HD television,came into view, and the students could observe a young Alexander with who Mrs. P. said was his brother, Melville.

"Dad and grandfather were speech teachers and I want to make a talking robot, Melville. Let's shape the head from this wax and, I found some rubber we can use for its tongue." Melville said that the robot needed to also have a nose, mouth and eyes. "Yes, let's cover this wire with some rubber for its lips." The boys found a tin tube for the windpipe and its vocal cords were made from sheets of tin. For lungs, the boys borrowed the family fire bellow, used to stoke the fire in the fireplace. When done, Melville worked the fire bellows as Alexander opened and shut the mouth of the robot. As he did this, the vibrating tin metal sounded like the word,"Ma, Ma".

"Cool, awesome. I want to try that," were some of the comments from the students wearing the adventurer goggles.

Mrs. P. tuned the frequency a bit into the future for the students to see another example of how young Alexander was fascinated with speech,due in large part to the fact that both his grandfather and dad were speech teachers and his mom was deaf. Just as she set the remote, she heard a loud, screeching "purp", "purp", "purp" emitting from a pair of adventurer goggles worn by a young boy named Murpf. At the same time, his goggles started blinking with teeny tiny purple lights. "Young man," bellowed Mrs. P, "didn't I tell you not to touch that black dial? Now, just where in history have you traveled off to, dear? Mrs. P looked at her remote and saw that Murpf had spun the dial a couple of times and had traveled back to ancient Rome and the Coliseum! Gladiators were about to face off in the arena, with a fight to the death. "Well, this just won't do for today's lesson on Alexander Graham Bell. I just knew someone would try playing around with the dial. I have now locked all of your goggles so that can't happen again. Now, back to Alexander Graham Bell. Students, you should be seeing Alexander and his skye terrier named 'Mr. Perd'." With heads moving from side to side, the students watched through their adventurer goggles as another time in history materialized. "Melvin, neighbors are coming by to see our talking dog!I think I will have Mr. Perd say,'Ow-ah-oo gamama'or 'how are you Grandma'?I learned that if I placed my hand on Mr Perd's mouth, I could work his growls and change its sounds so it sounds like he's talking."

Portulaca froze the adventurer goggles when a "beep","beep"went off. A young girl name Graceland(yes, her parents were fans of Elvis), asked,"Why was Alexander doing an Indian war dance, Mrs. P?"

"Why, dear, that is a very good question to ask! You see, as a boy, his family lived near an Indian reservation, and Alexander learned a lot from their culture. Later in life, when he'd get excited about something, he liked to do an imitation of an Indian war dance."

"This class is about to end and we really must get to the end of our lesson, the invention of the telephone, which made Mr. Bell famous,"announced Mrs. P as she dialed the frequency to another period in time. Mr. Thomas Watson and Mr. Bell came into view. They were in their twenties and had figured out a way to send sound waves over a single wire. They were working on sending vocal messages over a wire, too, to another location, on their electronic speech machine(the telephone to us)."Mr. Watson, you go into the other room and I will try and send a voice message to you."While the students watched the time event through their adventurer goggles, they saw Bell spill some acid onto his hand. He shouted near the device, "Watson, come here, I need you". Watson came running for he had heard Bell's words over their new device.

Portulaca turned off the frequency and powered down the adventurer goggles the students were still wearing. She added that although Bell was most famous as an inventor, especially for the invention of the telephone, he said that he'd most like to be remembered as a teacher of the deaf. Portulaca also shared with the students that Bell had some other achievements as well including inventing a metal detector, an echo sounding device to detect icebergs, using radium for cancer treatment, and inventing an electric probe for surgery(before the X Ray machine). "OK,dears, it's time for the blue review quiz which Ms. Deepalowski has asked you to complete. Think you know about Alexander Graham Bell?"

"And, dears, would you please take the crossword puzzle home and complete it for tomorrow?" The cheery smiles, faded, as Ernest called out,"You, mean we've got homework tonight?"

A few minutes later, the students exited the classroom and Portulaca gathered up her backpack and walked out the door. She stopped at the main office, turning in the keys where Miss Murplelani was standing by the door."How did things go, Mrs. Purpleopolus?"

"Just fine, dear, just fine", smiled Portulaca."Cheers to you and thank you for a perfectly glorious day." Miss Murplelani muttered to herself that Mrs. Purpleopolous was indeed a most unusual sub. She'd never heard a substitute before thank the school for a glorious day!

As Portulaca got into her purple Dodge Van, she wondered aloud,"Hmmm, wonder which school I'll end up on my next substitute teaching assignment? Grabbing the US map off the floor, Portulaca closed her eyes and pointed her purple painted index fingernail onto the map. A town called Happy Land,OK. Sounds like a perfectly glorious place for my next visit!"

Did you know:

When Alexander Graham Bell died, on August 2,1922, telephone service in the USA stopped for one minute in his honor.

The first way to greet someone on early telephones was not with hello but Ahoy, Ahoy.

Bell was once asked by a Japanese student if his machine could speak Japanese. He was told to try having another Japanese student on the other end and find out.

The telephone wasn't meet with immediate success. People thought it was just a useless toy, of no value. In fact, when Bell offered to sell his invention to Western Union, the company turned him down!