SCHOOL AND ILLNESS

Today we are babysitting our eight year old granddaughter, Grace, because she was ill and throwing up. I have had lots of experience with this issue having attended public school, ( known germ factories) having had both my sons attend public schools for 12 years each, and having taught in the public schools for 30 years.  

As a child, I lived in a very poorly constructed and poorly sealed home where there were many flies and other creatures abiding with us.  We could not afford great health care and , for the most part, health care in the 40's and 50's certainly was not what it is today.  Consequently many of us went to school with the "Sniffles."  Those sniffles were frequently accompanied by fever and coughing, a very bad combination.  We had lots of cold but my mother insisted in sending us off to school.  The fact that she was, what at the time was called, a housewife may have had something to do with it.  I was involved so much in sports that I wanted to go to school and to practice.  With the exception of football, I enjoyed practice very much.  So off I went to contaminate other little runny nosed brats.  

I suppose that it would behoove us all to keep our children out of school when they are ill to try not to spread the germs around.  Many doctors have told me that colds and flu are not caused by cold weather other than getting chilled and lowering our resistance. We get colds and flu primarily because we stay inside in sealed buildings with other people who have the viruses, etc and have close contact to the germs. 

Having said that, my older son never missed a day of school from the beginning of the fourth grade through the day he graduated from Male Traditional High school.  There were days when I suggested that he stay home but he insisted on going and so he did.  He was recognized on his graduation for the feat.  My second son was not so bull headed about this. He missed probably less than most students but certainly was not recognized for perfect attendance. 

Brian may have taken after me a little in going to school when maybe we should have not.  I hated missing days as a teacher because I had to leave very detailed lesson plans. In fact, I left two sets of lesson plans in case the substitute had some specific training in the subject and wanted to teach, (that happened once in 30 years) and another if he or she wanted to babysit.  Consequently I would give desk assignments and then need to grade the darn thing when I returned.  If I were off one day, I had 150 assignments to grade, plus having to deal with the school principal and his/her assistants about any discipline problems that had come up, or because of bad classroom management by the sub.  I always left a copy of the roll , but in almost every case the sub would have the students sign a sheet of paper.  You would not believe how many students I had named Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, and Daisy or Daffy Duck. The sub day student I had the most, however was the ubiquitous Ben Dover. He attended almost all of my classes on sub days.  

Another reason that I often came to school as a teacher is that of being cheap, I didn't want to use all my sick days because I knew I got a payback when I retired and it raised the rate of my retirement rate.  We were allowed 10 sick days a year that would be carried over each year until retirement.  When I retired in 2000, even with staying home with a sick kid a few times a year, I had accumulated almost 200 sick days, and that gave me a much better yearly salary in retirement.  I had student often ask if I ever missed school and was a bit hurt when they were disappointed when I answered no.  I got the impression that they didn't like me.

One day I came to school feeling just fine but by the end of first period I was beginning to feel very queezy and began to throw up but very little at a time.  I would leave the room and take my trash can and throw up into the trash can.  When I tied the plastic insert and put in the large trash can in the hall, I was pleased to find that there were a number of other plastic trash can liners folded in the bottom of the can.  During the first period class, Principal, John Locke, announced we had enough teacher absences that there were not enough subs to cover them and if any teacher would like to earn some extra money they could cover some of these for extra pay so I did not have the neave to tell him I needed to go home.  

I threw up about twice a class and finally a group of my students told Mr Locke about and he made me go home and covered my classes.  They ratted me out.  It was a great thing that they did because I no sooner entered my house but I hastened to the bathroom and spent most of the rest of the afternoon and early evening bowing to the porcelain throne.  The next morning I felt fine and thanked Mr Locke for making me go home, and, since we did not have to call a sub it did not count against me as a sick day.  Boy, how cheap am I?  

The most amazing thing to me was that in thirty years of teaching, I had only one student throw up in my class and Cindy only did a little as was befitting her very small frame. I was truly blessed.  I also had a student, on a very hot day, faint in her desk and lean her head against my hip because I was standing next to her.  I was almost relieved that the heat was the reason because I didn't want to deal with another reason for her to do that.  At Manual I sent a kid to the bathroom and after he did not come back for a while sent another boy to check on him and he had passed out on the bathroom floor.  A bit inglorious, for sure but boths students were fine.

All-in-all I had a remarkable career with the best students anyone could ask for.  

Thanks you, folks.

Selling Beer at the Derby

In the spring of 1975, my mother-in-law suggested that I take a job at the Derby, selling beer.  Apparently, a number of people where she worked had done so the year before and had made a bunch of money.  It seems that they sold 12 oz. beer for 65 cents and often got the rest of the dollar in tips. Being a man who has had over 50 jobs from the age of 14 until now, I decided that it would be pretty cool and maybe an adventure.  It wasn't cool but it was certainly an adventure. 

I was told to get in line for the infield with my work pass and that I had to be there by 7:00  AM.  Good, I thought, I am an early riser anyway and this way I would beat the crowd.  That was my first mistake.  I did not consider that this was the 100th anniversary of of the first running and they expected 100,000 people in the infield alone and the line was already six wide and 200 feet long when I arrived. Princess Margaret, of Great Britain, was going to be in attendance and there were all kinds of security including a number of blokes with british accents.  I was not carrying anything such as a bag and showed them my pass for the job of brew pourer and yet they searched me for booze and patted me down and asked me if I were bringing in any.  I laughed and reminded them that I was there to serve alcohol.  They didn't laugh.  Once in I finally found the tent where I was supposed to report, the man in charge said proudly that they had increased the size of the cups to 16 ounces and were now charging 95 cents per beer.  He said it was a service to the customer that they would not have to stand in long lines as often and the the increase in price was fair to all.  

I'll admit that 5.9 cents per ounce is not much worse than 5.4 cents per ounce but to me it looked like I would have less volume of customers and that the tips were going to be a whooping 5 cents per beer and I was sure that some would not even do that, especially the relative young ones.  I decided, at that point that I would require ID's from everyone who looked and acted like they were under 40, and I did.  That made the lines longer to no ones pleasure, except a little bit, mine.

This turned out to be the job from Hell.  Not only was I stuck all day in a beer booth pouring draft beer, but I had no way to get to the bathrooms.  My hand were sticky to the point of sticking together and the Sun was hot and uncomfortable. As predicted, there were more than 100,000 people in the infield with an average age of about 30, meaning that I ID'd a lot.  The bathrooms had line like the great wall of China and the women were using both men and women's facilities because the wait was hours for the women.  practically every inch of the ground was covered with human flesh, often doing what human flesh should have been doing in the privacy of ones bedroom.  I never ventured out of the booth after about 1PM and did not go to the bathroom until the races ended at about seven, I never saw a horse but I wagered early on the winning ticket which paid about 2-1.  I still have the ticket somewhere.   I was miserable all day long and had I been older and more secure, I would have quit and waded through the human refuge and gone home. But I had made a commitment, so, there I was. 

Other inconveniences include:

A weight lifter ordered a beer I reached for his dollar and he jerked it back and walked off through the crowd with the beer.  I'm not stupid and after that I took and tilled the money, first.  His fellow weight lifters were not so happy about that. Then they began hanging around the stand and after someone payed and got their beer, they would snatch it away and drink it.  One man complained to the security people, but when they saw the weight lifters, they dismissed it with "boys will be boys" and walked away.  That was an invitation for mischief and things got no better.  

A young man climbed the 40 foot flagpole and mooned the Princess and was handcuffed to my beer stand  until the could get a car ready to take him away. He could barely stand up, so I don't how he got up and down that flagpole. The biggest insult of all, one of my students, a tall blonde, scandinavian beauty named Lisa, sincerely thought that I would sell her a beer, knowing that she was 16 years old. I told her to try somewhere else At the end of the day, the final insult was a demand that I hand over all my tip money and they would send it back if the amount of beer I sold at my stand was correct for the money that I collected.  I then said that ,with what little tips I had, I was going to keep it and if things didn't turn out right to let me know I would sent them the money. YEAH, RIGHT. Believe it or not I got my pay in the mail.

I decided I just wanted to only teach.

The Senior-Faculty Softball Game

For a very long time, Seneca had a senior-faculty softball game, open to males and females near the end of each year.  Eventually, that duty fell to me to run it.  It was an opportunity to send them off with the memories of a good time and comradery with their former teachers.  It sounds all touchy-feely but it was always very serious on both sides.  I was always a bit taken aback by how much the teachers really wanted to win.  As it turned out, until the day that I transferred to Manual, the teachers never lost while I was organizing it.

Knowing that the students were younger, faster and with better reflexes, this seems, at least superficially, to be a strange thing.  But after analysis, maybe not.  Although the teachers are slower and maybe without all the athletic skills of their past, they are still stronger and many are coaches in some capacity.  We could for the most part hit the ball farther.  The other issues that favored the teachers is that we understood our handicaps and played smarter for that reason.  We always threw to the cutoff player, we did not play to be heroes but to win.  Three, we always played on the softball field with it's shorter fences.  and, four, Not all teacher wanted to play.  Those who did were usually former athletes and many of them softball and baseball player, some, including me, still playing in softball leagues around the city.

The seniors, on the other hand had 30-40 people sign up laboring under the illusion that they were ten feet tall and bulletproof.  They thought they could beat the world all in one softball game.  Consequently, the teachers were always had 15-16 competent players and the teams was passably good at all times.  We also had many large, strong men who could easily hit the ball over the fences, only two hundred feet away.  I placed them in the batting order every two or three hitters.  That way, we never had to run full out very often. There were a number of boys on the senior team that could do the same, but most were baseball player who had not played softball much.  There is a big difference in hitting a baseball and a softball pitched underhanded and with an arch of up to 12 feet.

There were a number of funny things happen in these games. but the two that comes to mind was a collision at home plate  and one that made a big splash.  We had a catcher who was a frequent substitute and thus considered by all to be a faculty member.  A dynamically sensuous and beautiful girl with adult female proportions was  on base and in an attempt to score she ran over the catcher and land on top of him.  After that he seemed to be in a daze the rest of the game and was not quite as good as he was before.

One year, we were playing on the "back" softball field that sat next to a branch of Beargrass Creek.  There was a young man at Seneca, who was considered a suave young man, always beautifully dressed with the best clothes he could buy.  His hair was always perfect and his manners always the best.  He was watching the game from behind the backstop when a ball was Fouled over the backstop heading for the creek.  The young man of note ran backwards and jumped to catch the ball.  The creek level was about 7-8 feet below the playing surface  From the third base position all I saw was him disappear over the edge and then a huge splash of water appeared.  He climbed out unhurt but very embarrassed and not looking quite so neat.

Even though the seniors never won, they were always good sports and each year the next class came in with the hope of defeating the always successful faculty.  I had a great job.

STICKS AND CLUBS

Teenagers can be very clever and quick witted.  I was walking through the cafeteria at Seneca after school one day and the field hockey team was meeting.  Being known a a big tease, I had to make a comment.  I asked them why no one had ever come up with a better name for the piece of equipment called a stick.  A girl looked up with a slight grin, knowing I was the golf coach, and asked, "And what is it they call that thing you hit golf balls with?"  The answer, as you know, is a club.  Great comback, I laughed out loud.

I had picked quite a few pounds over the years and a bit of a pot belly and jokingly said in class one day, I know there's a six pack under there somewhere.  A student retorted with, "Why do you need a six pack, you a have a perfectly good keg."

A fellow teacher was writing names of study hall student who would like to use the library and not wanting to admit that he could not remember a girls last names asked her to spell it.  With a straight face she, said "J-O-N-E-S.  the jig was up.

What a fun job.

Bubbleheads

There was a time in my career, before I transferred from Seneca to Manual, that I affectionately and, to a degree teasingly derisively, called my Advanced Program student bubbleheads.  If I remember correctly, there was no protest.  So I decided to do the same thing the next day with the same result.  As it turned out, they liked the tag and wore it like a badge of honor. That habit continued until 1987 when I transfered and died there. 

I asked a girl why no one reacted to the term and she said it was because it was me.  No one ever thought that it was said with anything but endearment.  Hmmm.  I probable teased the AP kids more than others.  They seemed to be more secure than others and were not threatened very much by my banter, which is exactly how I liked it.  

I will say one thing for bubbleheads, however.  They cheated more than any other group of students I ever taught.  I'm not exactly sure why but it may have something to do with the high expectations of parents, teachers and administrators.  Even friends got caught up in it.  Many of these kids were fighting and scrapping for scholarship money to college, they took every step they could, took every test possible such as PSAT,  AP tests, signing up for Governor's scholar positions, etc. that have possible scholarship money attached.  

My son Jeff got two full scholarships to U of Louisville because he was a Governor's scholar and a PSAT semi-finalist.  Fortunately GPA didn't count for this. Jeff was always around 3.0 just enough to stay in the AP program.  One of the smartest kids I have known. Both of my sons went to college on scholarships.  Both were on their respective high schools quick recall teams along with other highly motivated, and fiercely competitive kids.  My son, Brian, was the captain of his team at Male and a member of a very good Murray State University team.

All this competitiveness brought with it the desire to succeed at all cost and I think it included cheating.  Being caught, however had some serious consequences.  In my class, cheaters received a zero on the test and an "F" in conduct for the grading period, their parents got a phone call.  The students worried very little about the conduct grade because it did not affect their GPA.  Some parents made it important, however, and thus there was some stigma attached.

Even a cheating incident brought me to respect a kid very much.  One of my present Fb friends eventually told me a story that I did not remember at all.  He missed a day and consequently missed a quiz, which he could make up.  I told him that I would give it to him the next day.  He got with his cheating group and they furnished him with the correct multiple choice answers, sans the questions.  The young man took the quiz the next day and got a ten percent.  He realized then that I had changed the quiz.  I confronted him and said that I knew he had cheated and offered to give him another make-up the next day.  He held to his guns that he had not cheated because he did not want to lose my respect for him.  So I said OK and he got the bad grade.  He told me that it totally change his feelings on cheating and he never cheated again and actually lost a couple of friends because he would not abet in cheating.  You just never know what effect you have on people.  I wonder, sometimes, how many children I affected negatively.  I hope, not many.

Many of you who are Fb friends with me know that I have very strong political opinions and don't mind telling what they are.  I tried very hard to not let them be known in the classroom.  I felt that it would adulterate the issues we studied and possibly discourage some student from being open and honest.

One of my Fb friends, a former student definitely disagreed with me on many things but we were civil in our talks.  He wrote that he never knew what my political leanings were while he was in my class and he said it was a tribute to me.  Occasionally I had an opinion on other things.

In the process of discussing technology, really not my strong point and computers, also not my strong point, and this was in the early days were Bill Gates required sellers to load only Microsoft program on the machines.  I had read, and my son, a Computer systems engineer, told me that there were better products out there and Gates was stifling progress.  This met with a lot of resistance by all the PC users (most of them were) and it became a little heated and I became frustrated and said very loudly, "DAMN."  This caused an immediate and awkward silence and surprised and disappointed looks.  I was presenting the History Student of the Year award that same day at the Senior Ring Ceremony and when I was introduced I got a big applause that went on for some time.  I remarked that after second period class this morning, I'm surprised that some of you didn't walk out when I was introduced.  That got even a bigger applause.  Such forgiving souls.

MARY AND THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG

Wow, it has been a while.  It is not my policy to use people's last name in a blog, especially one which might make one feel uncomfortable and certainly with people I really like.  I have a funny, but, alas, a bit embarrassing story of a student report in which the last name is important to the humor.  So I messaged this woman and asked her if she would mind if I publish this story and she graciously consented.  Mary Heitz is a super  fine, lady and she was a fantastic student with great intelligence and caring.  I adored her in the class room.

As you may know, I did not like to teach the acts of war but preferred to deal with causes and effects and historical importance, but a lot of student like studying the Civil War and to make that OK for both sides I assigned battle reports for student to present to the class and I tried to tie the whole thing together in some coherent form.

I had the student chose three battles that they would be interested in and I would assign the battles first come, first serve.  I shuffled the papers and gave the student the battle first listed unless that battle had already been taken.  I then assigned the next one on the list.  As it turned out, by sheer coincidence (something it took me awhile to have Mary believe) Mary got assigned the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia.  unfortunately, there was a hill above the city named Marye's Heights, which ,at first glance, looks to be pronounced the same as Mary's name.  It is actually pronounced Marie's heights, but no one knew that at the time, including me.

In the course of reporting, Mary said something to the effect, The Confederate Army was on top of Marye's Heights and the Union Army assaulted Marye's Heights a number of( maybe 10, I don't remember) times.  I immediately picked up on the similarities in the names but hoped that no one else would.  Of course, some one did very quickly and began to laugh.  After all, it was a funny coincidence.  Mary, trying to concentrate on her presentation, did not realize the situation and heard the laughter and repeated the name of the hill a few time to try to figure out what was so funny.

Unfortunately I found myself in a position that dictated that a teacher should not laugh but I couldn't help it. The more Mary repeated the name, the funnier it got to me and the students in the class.  I was once in the church choir and the guy next to me said something funny and I started laughing and couldn't stop in front of the entire congregation and eventually ended up crawling out of the choir.  This was the same for me.

I laughed so hard that my sides began to ache, I got tears in my eyes, all the while feeling much remorse for my action and incredible sympathy for Mary.  It is an incident I deeply regret and Mary was a trooper.

It actually get worse, here.  After Mary graduated and I was pretty sure that none of my student knew her I began telling the story to my student and other teachers and the day came when I really was sorry for that, also. A few years down the road I was sitting in the first faculty meeting of the year at Seneca High School. and the Principal said, "I would like to introduce the new teachers this year,  first, someone many of you will remember, Mary Heitz."

Oh, my, this is not good.  After the meeting I caught Mary in the hall and awkwardly explained that I had been telling the story.  that is all the farther I got and she said you told people about the Battle of Fredericksburg.  I tried to soothe her by saying I never expected her to return but, she was rightly upset and I was, rightly, humbled and rueful.

Again, Mary was the better person and accepted the situation like an adult and accepted my apology.  Mary became a very successful educator and administrator and I do truly thank her for her consideration about this blog.  And, Mary, I really didn't set you up, I was just ignorant.  The laughing, that is another thing.  I have no excuses.  Bless you.