NON ILLEGITIMI
CARBORUNDUM!
(DON'T LET THE BASTARDS GRIND YOU DOWN)
CARBORUNDUM!
(DON'T LET THE BASTARDS GRIND YOU DOWN)
PRESENTING ACCOUNTS FROM MY LIFE
RELATED EPISODICALLY IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
with Some Passing Swipes at Liberal Lunacy
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My escapades were mild compared to some others. One favorite was to leave the cafeteria through the girls side door. A woman who taught German and had a reputation for being tough was the monitor. I’d sort of lose myself in a bunch of girls and, as we went by her station, made sure she saw me.
It always took a moment to register before the “Hey! You!” sounded. At that second I would take off down the corridor with the Frau in hot pursuit. Past middle age and pushing obese, she had no chance of catching me but give her credit for trying. She would soon abandon the chase, I got a big kick out of it as did any witnesses. Thinking back, it was kind of pointless but hey, get your kicks where you can.
Some kids were far more creative like Nick in Tin Shop. Most of the projects required soldering. If electric soldering irons had been developed, we didn’t have any. Our irons had to be heated in little gas burners on an asbestos covered bench along one wall, before asbestos was deemed to be evil. There was a shelf beneath the bench top with all sorts of stuff stored on it, including some empty coffee cans.
Nick would put his iron on the little burner and wait. As it grew hotter and hotter Nick, shielded by a group of boys, was quietly filling an empty can with urine, in the traditional manner. He was pissing into it. When the tool (the iron, not Nick’s) glowed cherry red, he’d plunge it into the can and everyone would vacate the area. By the time the stench, and it was potent, reached the teacher’s desk we were all across the room, innocently working away on our projects.
Before home room the Gobber would do his thing. Most kids would stand out in the corridor until the bell rang, socializing. The Gobber had perfected a technique whereby he’d gather a gob (hence his nickname) of saliva on the tip of his index finger. Then, with a slight and almost unnoticeable backhand flick of his wrist, send it arcing out into the corridor over the morning crowd to fall on an unsuspecting student. Those of us in the know would watch, stifling giggles, as confused kids would feel their heads and then look up to see if the roof leaked. When senior year rolled around he signed our yearbooks Gobber, with a teardrop for the ‘o’.
Larry the Mad Scientist once rigged up a cardboard box, about a foot square, with the spark coil from an old car, a small but powerful battery, and some wire. The coil and the battery went into the box. The wire came out of a hole and wound around and around the outside, about an inch apart, so it was impossible to touch the box without hitting the wire and getting a very scary but harmless shock.
Larry would leave his device on desks and we’d all watch as one kid or another would try to pick it up or push it aside. He even left it on teachers’ desks and the class would wait with bated breath for the teacher to get zapped. As far as I know, everyone took it in fun and he never got punished.
I don’t know if Mad Scientist Larry inspired him, but once a teacher made a similar device. He was having trouble with a neighbor’s dog urinating on his shrubs. The box, activated, was concealed among the greenery, and he watched and waited. Eventually the dog came by and did his thing. The shock, we were told, travelled up the stream and into the dog’s, well, thing. The shrubs were never watered in that way again.
There were many other examples of near insanity that brightened our days. The English teacher who insisted upon being called doctor was conditioned to brush the tacks off his chair before sitting. The gym teacher who signed everything with a cotton swab dipped in Mercurochrome and thought he was cool. The business teacher who let us call him by his first name. The biology teacher who gave me a detention for playing football. It was May, I had skipped her previous detention, and she had seen me at track practice, but what the hell.
All in all, high school was fun, especially after the sadistic nuns of Our Lady of Lourdes.
