When they said pull down, I threw up
What a day that was. We walked into a newly-built classroom, a new library four times the size of the other one, and our first male teacher. He seemed as tall as Zeus. Head as shiny as a new penny……….or, as shiny as my head now.
The overhead lights were lower, just begging for paper airplanes, or maybe even a bent paper clip. And those big windows facing the woods and the hill.
Our teacher, Mr. S, was a pretty nice guy. But when he was moody, look out below. The US Geologic Society could pick up his earthquakes.
We inherited a French teacher that year—an older woman who emigrated from France. The trouble began when she lead off the year by saying she did not want to speak English. This left her with 25 empty faces and blank eyes as she spoke incomprehensible gibberish. When she did speak English, her accent was too deep to be comprehended. When she was understood, her mispronunciations (tongue = ‘tong’, lips = ‘leeps’) produced guffaws and giggles, and we had to write ‘I will not laugh in French Class’ fifty times.
She came equipped with French Christmas recordings of carols and lyric sheets. Heaven forbid we would sing such things in music class. So we said words we didn’t understand, syllable by painful syllable. Someone asked if the carols were the same English words translated into French and she said of course. Even back then, we had an idea she lied through her European teeth. Once we reached middle school and high school, we learned her words had only the vaguest similarity to what we sang in this country. Coincidentally or not, she was gone a few years after we left.
An interesting footnote. She lived close to the high school’s athletic fields. In senior year, we played softball in gym. An inspired juvenile delinquent decided to drop his shorts and moon the batter, while the teacher pitched with his back to the outfield. Soon it became required. You stepped to the plate and beheld five or six sets of ass cheeks smiling at you. After a few weeks, we noticed a cop car parked between her house and the athletic fields. When spring came around, we were playing softball in another area. Geez, some people just have no sensayuma, ya know?