Sightings by B.J. Hollars Page B

knowledge of Manifest Destiny, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and in particular, my analysis of the painting Dad kept in his den, the one called
American Progress.
    â€œBasically it’s got this giant woman walking west with a book in her hand,” I described to the class. “And all around her, families are in wagons and on horses, and they’re all moving west, too. But the thing that most people don’t see, the thing that my dad had to point out to me, was that the white woman is stringing telegraph wire as she walks. It’s supposed to represent progress, I think, like the spread of progress to the west.”
    With that, quite regrettably, I’d piqued Mrs. Powell’s interest and proved my father a credible source.
    â€œMax, do you suppose your dad would be willing to speak to our class?” she asked one day after the bell rang. I knew the answer –
Yes! Certainly! Where do I sign up?
– but I shrugged and said he was usually pretty busy managing the line at the tire factory. “He works a lot of hours,” I explained. “And this is their busy season. Tire season.”
    â€œTire season, of course,” she winked. “Well, maybe we’ll try him all the same, see if we can’t get lucky.”
    Mrs. Powell must have sensed my hesitation because she didn’t ask me to deliver the letter directly. Instead, it arrived in the mail (making it more difficult to intercept), and Dad, who rarely received anything that wasn’t a bill or a renewal request for
American West Quarterly,
made a grand production over the letter.
    â€œWell what do we have here?” he called, extracting a rarely used letter opener from his desk and tearing the top off the envelope. He began reading it aloud, and from where I sat next to my sister on the couch, I could just make out his delighted facial expressions through the doorway to the den.
    â€œHey Maxy,” he called to me. “You know any Cynthia Powell?”
    â€œSocial studies teacher.”
    I kept my focus on the television.
    â€œSays here,” he cleared his throat, “that she’s selected
me
to give a presentation over at your school next week.”
    â€œJust a small talk, I think, Dad. And not for the whole school, just our class.”
    â€œMmhmm. A presentation. Some kind of speech, it says here. On the perils of westward expansion.”
    â€œMaybe for like ten or fifteen minutes.”
    â€œMmhmm. Well, I do know quite a bit about perils.”
    I glanced over to catch him drawing his finger blindly along the calendar. “Well let’s see if I’ve got any openings . . .”
    A few minutes later, I overheard him and Mom discussing it in the kitchen.
    â€œI don’t know, Amy. I’d have to take off work,” Dad said, ho-humming around for Mom’s permission. “It’s just that I’ve been selected and all, and I’d hate to deprive the youth of America from such a valuable learning opportunity . . .”
    â€œJust . . . try not to embarrass him,” Mom whispered. “He’s your son. Twenty minutes tops, okay? Tops.”
    He said sure, sure, of course, twenty minutes. A twenty-five minute presentation would be just about right. Maybe thirty, he assured, but not a minute more.

    I didn’t tell anyone he was coming. Maybe, I thought, the class wouldn’t even recognize him beneath his cotton smock.
    I entered Mrs. Powell’s classroom a few minutes early, and though he hadn’t yet arrived, I could sense a kind of father-son-impending-doom in progress.
    The others wandered in, slid into desks, anxiously awaiting the “surprise guest” Mrs. Powell had promoted throughout the week.
    â€œAs you all know,” Mrs. Powell began, clasping her hands together, “today is a very special day for us. So special, in fact, that we’ve brought back a man who lived over one hundred and fifty years ago!” She waited for an