Maria Ballantyne

Written by Rick Archer
May 2005

Sometimes a very small act of kindness can have a very large effect. 

This is the story of how a coincidental meeting in 1968 between myself at age 17 and Mrs. Maria Ballantyne, the mother of illustrious Ballantyne clan at my high school, help to rescue to me from a very serious depression, took a huge chip off my shoulder, and literally changed my attitude about a lot of things involving my privileged classmates.

Background About Saint Johns

Saint John's School is a college preparatory school located in the wealthy River Oaks area of Houston. It is known as the strongest academic school in the city. My experience of the school is that it definitely deserves this reputation. If you are a parent with a very smart kid on your hands, St. John's is definitely the place to send him or her.  People compliment me all the time on my writing ability. If you think I write well, thank you, but let me add I owe a great deal of credit to my English teachers at Saint John's. They not only gave me a lot of encouragement to write, but also trained me in all the do's and don'ts that make the difference between sloppy writing and polished writing.

Every time I write a story, I always remember in particular my English teacher Mr. Richardson yelling at me in mock anger, "Archer, you ignorant fool, you can't start a sentence with the word 'but'!"   And I would laugh at his insult and reply back, "But why not, Mr. Richardson?" 

When I was nine, my parents were fighting constantly. Trying to save their marriage, they consulted Dr. Mendel, a noted psychiatrist. One day he took a look at me too. I was having trouble in school. I was bored out of my mind and received the lowest marks possible for discipline. After some testing to confirm his hunch, he said I was a gifted child who desperately needed a challenge. He suggested they put me into St. John's which was where his two boys went.

Thank goodness my parents took his advice. To this day I credit my marvelous education as the great miracle of my life. My education has opened many doors throughout my career. For example, my excellent grades at St. John's paid off in a college scholarship to another prestigious school, Johns Hopkins University.

But it wasn't just the education I received that makes me so grateful to my alma mater. Without my knowing it, there were several men and women who also looked out for me. I never realized at the time that I posed as much of a discipline challenge as any student in the whole school. For example, I was constantly in trouble with my hatred of authority!  I was always defying the rules by being out of uniform or wearing my hair too long or questioning why this or that rule should be respected. 

This dislike for authority eventually got me kicked out of graduate school several years further down the road, but that's another story. The point is that the Graduate School faculty saw me as a distinct problem and got rid of me while the St. John's faculty decided instead to handle me with wisdom and great patience.

Many times when they could have thrown the book at me, they showed restraint and compassion instead. Many of my classmates received harsh treatment at times, but for some reason I was always given a second chance. Obviously the administrators who watched over me had the talent to sense exactly what kind of discipline different students needed.

It wasn't until I became an adult that I became mature enough to recognize the secret guidance I received throughout my nine years at St. John's. Any lion tamer would smile at the work they did at handling a tough, lonely, angry kid who resented authority with a passion. Somehow they must have seen I worth taking a chance on. 

What most outsiders probably don't realize is that St. John's not only has an excellent faculty, it also has some very talented administrators running the school. I would like to thank five men in particular - Headmasters Alan Chidsey and EK Salls, Athletic Director Skip Lee, and two beloved English teachers Ed Curran and Ben Weems - for keeping their watchful eye on me.

I will always be grateful for their help in keeping me on the right path.

Rick Archer
 

Fast Forward to 2005

-----Original Message-----
From: tmattern
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 1:04 PM
To: dance@ssqq.com
Subject: Intermediate Salsa

Rick,

Dana Ballantyne and myself enrolled in the Intermediate Salsa class on Tuesday nights April 26th - May 17th. We made it to the first class but missed last week and looks like we won't make it this week as well. Is there any way we can have credit towards another class...maybe even a crash course? We really would like to take something as a couple if you have anything like that. What do you suggest?

Thanks,
Terri Mattern


---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Rick Archer
Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 17:38:21 -0500

Hello Terri Mattern,

I am guessing the "Dana Ballantyne" of whom you speak is the same Dana Ballantyne I went to high school with at St. John's here in Houston. His first name is so unusual I can't imagine it would be anyone else (although please excuse me if I am wrong).

Please be sure to tell him hello for me. I don't think he knew me very well; Dana was two years ahead of me in school. I recall his tremendous athletic ability on the SJS football field and his great determination.

I have a favor to ask. The unusual coincidence of your email has unlocked a memory from my childhood that I haven't thought about in many a year. I have a deeply personal story to share with Dana. I will also share it with you in hopes that you will pass it on to Dana.
...........

The Chance Meeting 1968

For the most part, I have had a great life. I am happily married, I have a great kid, and I love my job. However things weren't always this good. In particular my childhood was very tough. A chance meeting with Dana's mother came at a time when things were probably at the lowest point of all during my Senior year in high school. At the time this unexpected encounter gave me a huge lift.

When I was growing up, the Ballantyne family was the most famous family in the whole school. There were many talented individuals at Saint John's, but no "family" could rival the Ballantynes. They were quite frankly our answer
to the Kennedys. Seven different children achieved tremendous success in academics, athletics, and leadership - Michael, Dana, Katina, Christie, Marina, George, and Lisa. They were smart and confident and excelled in one school activity after another. The Ballantynes were always being named captain of this or prefect of that because each one of them was down to earth and thoughtful. In a nutshell, they were all great kids!  And I sure that every one of the children will tell you he or she owes it all to the greatest parents imaginable.

I have first hand knowledge of this because one day in high school I had the privilege to meet their mother. That was the day I discovered how a great parent operates!

Mrs. Ballantyne had a reputation at my high school as an effective and maybe even "forceful" go-getter. From afar I saw her at St. John's all the time participating in many different activities. She was deeply involved in each of her children's careers at the school and was rumored to be very controlling at times. This may be true, but my direct experience of her was that she possessed great warmth. One day she went far out of her way to be kind and attentive to someone who was without a doubt the poorest child and kept the lowest profile of anyone in the entire school. Our chance meeting in early 1968 left a profound impression on me.

I will tell anyone who asks that my nine years at St. John's has been the single most important factor in my entire life. Not only did I receive the finest education imaginable, I am convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that several members of the faculty kept a close eye on me throughout my time there. And sometimes they acted in my behalf far beyond the call of duty.

I constantly hovered on the brink of self-destruction at St. John's. I am not proud to admit in my Senior year I was so desperate that on a couple of occasions I cheated on exams. I was fully capable of doing the work, but my self-esteem was down and I decided to take a short cut. One day someone noticed and reported it. Rather than throw the book at me, a fellow student was sent to counsel me. He didn't accuse me of anything. He simply said he wanted me to realize I was a great student and he couldn't IMAGINE someone of my talent would ever need to cheat.

What charm! What utter bullshit.  But it worked. I never cheated again. Instead of leaving the place in disgrace, I was allowed to graduate with honors in the top five in my class.

Another time I was caught with about three hundred dollars worth of St. John's sports equipment in my car. How was I caught? I parked my car every day in front of the athletic building and the basketballs, etc., were seen laying there in the back seat in plain sight. You might speculate I wanted to be caught. In my mind, I was just "borrowing" the stuff. I was brought before a counsel of the four most important administrators in the school.

This time I expected serious punishment. I certainly deserved!  Rather than throw the book at me, they asked me to return the clothes and basketballs and not to do this again. There was NO punishment. Again I learned my lesson and did not repeat my mistakes.

My point is that the faculty at Saint John's was silently taking care of a deeply troubled kid without letting me know they had their eye on me. I was deeply resentful of all authority. I would have exploded at harsh discipline. They must have sensed this. By using their soft touch first, they handled me perfectly. I am so grateful to that school. They knew I was having a tough time at home, so they stepped in and gave me a sanctuary. Indeed using indirect guidance, several faculty and administrators practically raised me and I never even realized it at the time.

I was only able to attend SJS by means of a generous full scholarship that was extended to me throughout high school. This is another reason I am deeply grateful to St. Johns. However I could see that if I intended to go to college, I would have to do it on my own. So in order to save money for college, I got a job sacking groceries three days a week after school and all day on Saturdays. Starting in the spring of my Sophomore year, I kept this job for two and a half years. It was the same store where I had once been caught shop-lifting candy in the Eighth Grade. The manager remembered this incident and knew he was taking a big chance on me. I was smart, but I was troubled. As you can see, I was teetering on the edge of being a juvenile delinquent, but a lot of decent people showed up at the right time to keep pushing me back on the right track.

One of those decent people was Mrs. Ballantyne.

One day in the spring of my Senior year by chance Mrs. Ballantyne came grocery shopping at my store. My Weingarten's store on Alabama Street in the Montrose area was nowhere near her River Oaks home next to Allen Parkway. This was the first time I had ever seen her there. I recognized her, but I didn't think she had a clue who I was. I was in the same grade as Dana's younger sister Katina. However we had never spoken before although she may have seen me in passing over the years at the school. I made a point to sack her groceries myself and then take Mrs. Ballantyne's groceries to her car. As we sent to the car I said nothing. With all the problems I had at home, I was pretty shy in those days and preferred to stay invisible. After I finished putting the groceries in her car, I was prepared to leave when I realized Mrs. Ballantyne was studying me carefully. She took note of my khaki pants and white shirt - the SJS uniform of the day - and was curious to know if I went to SJS. Imagine her surprise when she found out her hunch was correct!  Talk about "what is wrong with this picture?"!!

Here was a kid who each day attended the most prestigious college prep school in the city with the privileged children from Houston's wealthiest homes and then worked after school at a grocery store!  After I sacked their groceries, I would haul them to people's cars in hopes of a dime or a quarter tip to supplement a $1.25 hourly rate!

Her curiosity satisfied, Mrs. Ballantyne easily could have ignored me, but instead she began to ask me questions about myself. Right there in the middle of the parking lot she engaged me in a serious talk about my story and my experiences at the school.

First she wanted to understand how someone from a rich kid's school ended up with a job sacking groceries as well! I imagine this was the last place she expected to find a St. John's student!  I explained that I had gotten a job here at the end of my Sophomore year because money was so scarce at home. I proudly pointed to my used Volkswagen Beetle which I had bought and paid for myself as the fruit of my efforts.

She asked if money was that tight how my parents managed to send me to such an expensive school. After she discovered my scholarship status, she smiled and told me how impressed she was. Her compliments were like medicine for my wounded self-esteem at the time.

Then she found out I was an only child and that my parents were divorced. Further prodding revealed I rarely saw my father and that my mother was having trouble keeping a job.

Mrs. Ballantyne asked all kinds of questions which was fine by me because I appreciated her attention.  She noticed I was pretty tall. She asked me why I didn't play sports. After all, St. John's was a small school and needed every "able body".  She was sympathetic when I explained my blind left eye kept me out of football. Then I added I had made a decision to work after school rather than play on the basketball team. I was a very good basketball player and to this day it is still my single greatest regret from high school that I never went out for the basketball team. Isn't it odd that Mrs. Ballantyne is probably the only person I ever confessed my secret disappointment to? This woman found out more about me in twenty minutes than probably any other parent in the entire school!  She asked the right questions, she listened, and she seemed to care. And I needed someone to talk to.

She gave me a lot of encouragement which at the time meant a lot to me. In her I saw a warm side to the school I rarely saw from her status-conscious parental counterparts. Instead here was a woman with perhaps the highest prestige of any parent at my school showing a great deal of interest in perhaps the most invisible kid in the whole school. I was very grateful for her attention and deeply flattered that someone this important would take the time to talk to me.

But there is an even more remarkable angle to this story. The entire time we had been talking, there was an anger in me towards Mrs. Ballantyne that I could not dream of confronting her with. I blamed her for costing me a $4,000 college scholarship!

I had been nursing a pretty strong grudge towards the Ballantyne family for some time. Back in those days there something known as the Jesse H. Jones Scholarship that was given to one student a year from each school in the area to help with college. If memory serves I think it paid something like a $1,000 a year. I had known about that scholarship for some time and had been seriously counting on winning it. My financial situation was pathetic. My father who I saw four times a year had recently handed me $400. He told me it was going to be his one and only contribution towards my college education. My mother was so poor I was the one who had to pay the final St. John's book and meal bill just to graduate!  I needed that scholarship badly!

So you might imagine my disgust and disappointment in February 1968 when I discovered in the Houston Post that my classmate Katina from the mighty Ballantyne clan had been given that scholarship instead. "You gotta be kidding! How did this happen?" I wondered to myself.

Katina Ballantyen had always been a good student, but I was an excellent student.  I treated academics as my ticket out of town!   With this kind of motivation, it was no surprise I studied hard with the same intensity of a man looking for a way to escape a prison. For the past nine year, my grades had always been 5 to 10 points better than Katina's. I am not saying I was smarter, but I am certain I was more motivated! 

And when it came to "need", I could not imagine anyone in that entire school who needed the money more than I did!

I assumed the powerful Mrs. Ballantyne had pulled strings to steer the money her daughter's way.  I was pretty bitter. The rich get richer. But I didn't have the guts to say anything about it. Besides, this woman whom I had assumed was one of the high and mighty had turned out to be pretty nice. I was having second thoughts about my grudge already.

Imagine my shock when during our conversation Mrs. Ballantyne actually broached the subject of the scholarship!  I was stunned. Mrs. Ballantyne explained said that despite her family's obvious affluence, it would have been impossible to send SEVEN children to an expensive private school as well as private colleges without some kind of help. This was the first time I had ever considered the possibility that even rich people had to struggle to make ends meet. I have little doubt the Ballantyne political clout had something to do with Katina winning that scholarship, but Mrs. Ballantyne smiled and made a point to tell me not to worry about it. She reassured me that with the kind of grades I had made, financial aid would never be a problem for me.

I trusted what she said. A huge worry was relieved. I had been sick with anxiety wondering how I was going to afford college. I couldn't talk to anyone about it, not even my own mother and certainly not anyone at the school.  I didn't want anyone to know how desperate I was.  For weeks now Day in/Day out I had brooded about how I would pay for college. Now I felt better.

After she left, I realized my grudge was gone. Mrs. Ballantyne had shown great respect by dealing with such a sensitive topic directly with me. I believed most people would have completely avoided the issue, but not her. Without a word from me, she had recognized I might have energy on her daughter's scholarship. Fortunately despite the potential awkwardness, she volunteered to bring up the subject. I was amazed at her ability to deal with things so directly! My wounds were magically healed.

And indeed her prediction was right about the money. Not long after our meeting I was accepted at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, complete with a full scholarship to college. Mrs. Ballantyne had the experience to predict a kid with my kind of grades at the kind of school I went to would never have to worry about money. But I didn't know that!  No one had ever taken the time to explain this simple fact to me before.

That chance meeting with Mrs. Ballantyne turned around my entire outlook at time.  As I write this story thirty years or so later, today is the first time in my life I have ever wondered if the meeting wasn't just "chance". I was in great pain and Mrs. Ballantyne's visit had perfect timing to it.

If it was a Dickens novel, we might scoff at the author's laziness at resorting to such an obvious coincidental meeting to further the plot. Was our encounter a chance meeting or did Mrs. Ballantyne deliberately seek me out?  I would be amazed even more if she planned the meeting, but I will probably never know.

Actually if you believe in Fate, that might be a better explanation.

What I do know is this encounter literally changed my life at the time. I responded the same way a kicked and wounded dog would to a kind soul offering food and a gentle touch. That is how important this event was to me at the time.

Later on I had several other chance meetings as well with Mrs. Ballantyne.  Each time Mrs. Ballantyne treated me just as attentively and kindly as she would her own children. I was certain her graciousness was no act, but rather her constant way of life.

.............
I once told this story to Dana's sister Marina, but I am writing it to you because I am certain Dana would enjoy hearing this interesting story about his mother as well. Her small, yet thoughtful act of kindness to a total nobody came at just the time when I was pretty discouraged. It was a Jimmy Stewart "Wonderful Life" moment - she saved a soul. It gave me a huge lift.

I will always remember Mrs. Ballantyne fondly for her kindness to me.

Rick Archer
 

-----Original Message-----
From: tmattern
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 8:57 AM
To: Rick Archer
Subject: Re: Permission to take Intermediate Salsa II in June at no charge dana ballantyne

Thank you Rick, for your heartfelt letter. I read all of it to Dana and forwarded it to him so he could print it off for his mother. I was touched. I haven't known Dana that long, but I had already come to the conclusion that his family is made up of "good people" and hearing your story just confirms that even more.

Terri

Footnote:

On August 24, 2005, I had lunch with Mrs. Ballantyne and her daughter Katina, my classmate at Saint Johns back in the 60s.  I had not seen Mrs. Ballantyne since another chance encounter back in the late 70s.

We met because one of Mrs. Ballantyne's granddaughters had accidentally come across this story on my website by doing a Google Search. One day out of the blue I got a call from Mrs. Ballantyne.  One thing led to another and I was invited to meet her for lunch.

Although Mrs. Ballantyne is now in her 80s, she is still as vivacious and feisty as ever.  It was easy for me to remember her as the powerful and persuasive leader of the St Johns Mother Guild forty years earlier. 

The majority of the dinner conversation was taken up with Katina and I catching up on each other's stories since high school.  But at the end of the meal, I asked Mrs. Ballantyne about the chance meeting in the parking lot 40 years earlier.

Mrs. Ballantyne said that she had always watched me.  Apparently I wasn't as invisible as I thought because she had always known I was in pain.  She said she had great empathy for me because she herself had led a very secluded and stressful life as a teenager.  My nine years as the outsider looking in at Saint Johns reminded her very much of her own difficulties growing up.

Her words took me very much by surprise. I had no idea she even knew I existed.  After all, that one conversation in the parking lot was the only time I ever spoke with her.  Now it was my turn. I confessed to Mrs. Ballantyne that I had often watched her too during my years at Saint Johns.  As a kid who was very lonely, I often watched her go about her business with a fascination. I allowed myself to fantasize how different my life at Saint Johns could have been if only I had had a mother like her.

As we parted, Mrs. Ballantyne said it was a pleasure to talk with me that day in 1968 and added that she was very flattered I remembered this moment with such clarity. 

Someday I am going to come across a kid that clearly needs a lift.  Perhaps I will know the child well or maybe just barely.  And when I get my opportunity, I hope a few kind words and suggestions of my own will have the same healing effect that Mrs. Ballantyne's conversation had with me many many years ago.