Find story by Shel Silverstein "Like a myopic preying mantis"

Cafe Society
1

Shel Silverstein sung stuff like “Sahra Cynthia Sylvia Stout”

I have a recording of a taped live preformance, in which he tells a story. I can’t find the correct tape, and don’t know the title. Can you tell me the title and where to find it?

I’m looking for the Shel Silverstein story about the following.

Nostalgia
“Don’t get Miss Ulaylee L. Singultary next year, she’s a witch!”

…glasses on her nose, like a myopic preying mantis.

……earlier in the day, having hid same chalk thus forcing her to open the drawer, in which rested the awaiting serpent.

“Now class, the principle has asked me to remind you.”
“Has asked me….”
“Once again, one of you rapscallions has purloined my chalk…”

She opened the drawer paused, adjusted her glasses and said “Now class, the principle has asked me to once again remind you, that people residing in the semi tropic zone need to know the difference between the harmless King snake and the deadly Coral snake.”

“We all know that the Scarlet King snake is our friend, unlike it’s venomous cousin the Coral snake.”

“Red on black, friend of Jack”
“Black on yellow, kill a fellow.”
With that she reached into her desk and wrested the wriggling serpent into the air.
Staring right at Bender Snodgrass she said “Yellow on head, your dead.”

After that no one dared say anything bad about Miss Ulaylee L. Singultary, or Bender Snodgrass would stomp the “beep” out of them.

2

I think that part of your problem is that it is not Shel Silverstein who recorded that, but Gamble Rogers. I found the following on a Gamble Rogers tribute page
here :

Eulalah Singletary, the fearsome homeroom teacher, would no longer terrorize the seventh-graders. Eulalah was six and a half-feet tall, and, as one of her pupils reported, “loomed above us like a myopic praying mantis, with blue rinse in her white hair, chalk white skin, bloodless lips, little eyeballs like pen lights shining through a Missouri road map; she wore those Dr. Sholes lace-up pedicure pumps and silk print dresses from which trailed garlands of lilac water and talcum powder.” Ms. Singletary had declared an eternal recess.

Sorry I can’t point you to the correct story or CD recording, but this might get you pointed closer to the right direction. I’m not knowlegeable about Gamble Rogers, but I am familiar with most of the work of Shel Silverstein, and this story didn’t ring any bells.

3

I think you want “The Passion of Miss Eulalah Singleterry,” which is on a CD called Gamble Rogers Live.

4

The links are a promising sign. The text for Gamble Rogersisn’t a match, but it is the same story. I may never see a version matching the taped proformance. Now I have a correct spelling for her name, and I might be able to find the version I want.

Thanks to both of you.

5

I do like Gamble Rogers, he was a great singer. I’m finding most of my favorite artists are dead.