by Buck

May 27, 2008

Upon reading Jeff’s update from Thursday, I’ve decided I’ll use my space at TheWVSR to relate some of my public education experiences. I’m going to leave out the names since somebody is liable to read this and drag Jeff into court. However, if anybody from Powell Valley High School in the 1980’s reads this update—they’ll be able to identify them from the stories alone.

There was a foreign language teacher who was “eccentric”. He rode a Harley to school—back in the day when Harleys were generally considered the transportation of thuggery and ex-cons. He was truly a “Road Warrior.” He also wrote on the board in EXTREMELY small print. Since he was half-blind he would have to hold his face so close to the blackboard, he often had chalk dust on his nose. 

He’s probably dead of white lung for all I know. He also had no clue about what was happening behind him. Several of us would have contests to see who could to the most push-ups before he turned around. We finally pushed the envelope and moved it to the most jumping jacks. This plan fully failed when two guys were caught—not by the teacher—but by our assistant principal who was also the football coach. He dragged the two culprits out the door and took them to the gym and forced them to do push-ups non-stop until the bell rang.

This same teacher once had to deal with an incident in which somebody blew up a rubber and it landed on his desk. He left the room and returned with PAPER TOWELS to pick up the penis-looking balloon so as not to touch it and carried it outside. 

I’ve written about the assistant principal before. He was a non-nonsense guy, a Marine drill instructor type. I remember pulling into the parking lot one morning to see him on the roof of the band room. The band and music rooms were in their own wing of the school and stood about 15-feet above the ground. He was looking down and writing something on a piece of paper. Turns out he was writing the names of all of the guys hiding behind the hedges and smoking. Once he had the list done, he JUMPED OFF THE ROOF and landed among the swirling den of smokers—grabbed two by the nap of the neck—and dragged them to the office. I failed to mention when he jumped, he also broke his ankle—but never even flinched.

My chemistry teacher was an oddball on the grandest of scales. I never understood the crazy fucker—who had all sorts of favorite students who would get great grades. The rest of us who didn’t happen to kiss his ass and ACT like we gave a shit about the class would get bad grades. I’m not sure he ever gave a test. However, he was pretty pissed when a buddy of mine opened a gas jet and lit a cigarette lighter trying to blow it up. The gas tanks outside supplying the jet were fortunately turned off. He told the guy to “go count the bricks in the gym.”

This same nutty teacher lived in town and was a constant target of toilet paper rolling. He once went out after a truly masterful job caused a white out on is lawn and set it all on fire. Another time, I observed him preparing his garden for planting. That night I returned and threw a full pound of beans into the garden. He had beans coming up everywhere all summer long.

I had an English teacher who walked over to the window during a test and had his glasses tumble off his face and fall out a second story window into a snow bank. A couple of guys offered to go find them—and of course spend the duration of the class period rummaging through the snow to find the glasses—that may or may not have been broken on impact.

Another English teacher was batshit crazy. She swore her room was haunted with a ghost. She had even named him Edgar. I’m not sure what that was all about. Although she was a little nutty—she was nice and everybody liked her. Occasionally you’d hear one of those heavy oak doors slam so hard it sounded like a pallet of pianos crashing onto a patio. She says, “There’s Edgar."

My government teacher in high school was also the baseball coach. During the spring, instead of studying the ins and outs of civics we were raking rocks off the baseball field during his class. No wonder nobody understands politics today.

My sixth-grade teacher was a nut job. He had a fiery temper and usually scared the hell out of everybody. He once became so angered by people talking he kicked a trashcan like Adam Venniteri. The can had a dent so deep it was shaped like a “K” and went flying across the room hitting three people. This whole wild episode was never reported by anybody—and nothing was ever said. Today—that would have resulted in at least a half-dozen lawsuits.

In 7th grade, President Reagan was shot. Our teacher turned on the TV and literally started LAUGHING as we watched the Secret Service guys shove The Gipper into a limo and whisk him away to the hospital. He even commented how he hoped he wouldn’t make it. Again—no complaints ever made and to my knowledge the whole thing was overlooked.

Once in second grade I was lined up with two other miscreants in the hallway to prepare for paddling. I’m not even sure what we did, but I can assure you I deserved to be there and whatever punishment was coming wasn’t enough. The lady who had lined us up was about the age of my grandmother. She knew she didn’t possess the power to make this count, so she farmed out her “wet work” to the burly male principal who was fresh back from Vietnam. He was using one of those paddles that came with a ball hooked to a rubber band, but was sans the accessory for the present task.

On his first swat across my ass that paddle broke in half and went flying down the hall, crashing off the wall and through the door of a classroom. I remember watching it happen as I looked back between my legs and saw it happen from an inverted perspective. The old man stood there holding the jagged handle of what was left—and much to his chagrin I wasn’t crying (I never gave them the satisfaction—although it hurt like hell). I don’t recall what happened next or if he finished up with the corporal punishment duties. I think that kind of broke the concentration and tension of the moment. 

That’s all I can think of now. 

Buck Out

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