Everything Is Beautiful

My 6th grade English teacher, Mr. W., was a big bullet-headed guy, very white-skinned, with dark thick-rimmed glasses. I remember his chin was like a bulb that stuck out below his lower lip, leaving a deep shadow between the two. Unknown to his students, his degree was from a Baptist seminary. He left the next year (1971) to become an evangelical minister.

The song "Everything Is Beautiful" was a number-one hit in May 1970. Some time the next fall in my English class, Mr. W. went on a tear about how everyone was NOT beautiful. I know for sure he said "hippies aren't beautiful," but I suspect he also said "communists aren't beautiful" and maybe even "black people" or an even worse word for black people.

I base my inference about the inclusion of communists on the fact that, when I told my mother about what the teacher had said, she responded angrily, "What kind of John Bircher do they have teaching at that school?"

It seems less likely that he would have been stupid enough to include black people in his rant, though I've had that in my memory ever since. I remember the hippies the most, though, so maybe I have confabulated the even worse slur. You'd think I'd remember that most clearly, if it had happened. And that I would remember my mother reacting to that as well.

I think part of the reason I recall this at all is because I had no idea what a John Bircher was, and asked my mother about it. Maybe I looked it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica as well. Welcome to the Cold War. (I wonder if the encyclopedia mentioned the Koch brothers' father?)

I'm sure Mr. W. never listened to the full song closely. He just caught the parts about god not caring about the length of your hair or the color of your skin. He seems to have missed this part:

There is none so blind as he who will not see.
We must not close our minds; we must let our thoughts be free.
For every hour that passes by, we know the world gets a little bit older.
It's time to realize that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

I'm sure he was much happier after he went off to preach to people who agreed with him, instead of to a room full of sixth graders whose parents complained about his narrow-mindedness.

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Everything Is Beautiful

[Children's choir singing]

Jesus loves the little children,
All the little children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

[Ray Stevens sings]

Everything is beautiful in its own way.
Like the starry summer night, or a snow-covered winter's day.
And everybody's beautiful in their own way.
Under God's heaven, the world's gonna find the way.

There is none so blind as he who will not see.
We must not close our minds; we must let our thoughts be free.
For every hour that passes by, we know the world gets a little bit older.
It's time to realize that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

And everything is beautiful in its own way.
Like the starry summer night, or a snow-covered winter's day.
Oh, sing it children!
Everybody's beautiful in their own way.
Under God's heaven, the world's gonna find the way.

We shouldn't care about the length of his hair, or the color of his skin.
Don't worry about what shows from without, but the love that lives within.
And we're gonna get it all together now; everything gonna work out fine.
Just take a little time to look on the good side my friend,
And straighten it out in your mind.

And everything is beautiful in it's own way.
Like the starry summer night, or a snow-covered winter's day.
Ah, sing it children!
Everybody's beautiful in their own way,
Under God's heaven the world's gonna find a way.
One more time!
Everything is beautiful in it's own way.
Like the starry summer night, or a snow-covered winter's day...