also thought that Jews worshipped Jesus.
Despite her abundant ignorance, Quinn viewed herself as a superstar, more of an executive than a mere instructor. She spent a lot of time in the principal’s office when she should have been teaching.
Quinn demanded that the parents of the kids in our class chip in to buy her an expensive Wollensak tape recorder that was seldom used in the classroom. Parents also felt obligated to give her much more lavish Christmas gifts than they gave to other teachers.
On the first day of school, Quinn was out of our classroom for about an hour. The kids were bored. The only book in the room was a dictionary, so kids started flipping pages, looking for dirty words. Someone found “stinkbug,” and started laughing.
The page was bookmarked and the book was passed around the room. When Quinn came back, she found about 30 kids giggling hysterically. No one would admit to discovering the bug, so we were all made to stand on the “baby line” for punishment before entering school in the morning.
The classroom was divided into groups of five children, each commanded by an 11-year-old future commissar.
In order to address our Most Exalted Comrade Teacher, we had to ask permission from our Highly Revered Group Leader.
If she or he wasn’t a friend, a kid could have wet pants before getting permission to ask Quinn for permission to go to the boys’ room or girls’ room to urinate.
Normal teachers gave spelling tests to encourage children to learn to spell. Quinn gave spelling tests to build group loyalty and destroy friendships.
She wasn’t satisfied with our learning to spell new words each week; we had to memorize them in alphabetical order. On quiz day, each group had to recite and spell the new words. The first child did the first word, the second child did the second word and so on.
But if anyone said a word out of order—even if it was spelled correctly—the whole group failed.
A child who goofed up in class was often beaten up after class.
Chapter 14
My one cool teacher
The way he explained it, one day while sitting at his drafting table, he looked out of the window and saw a plane flying by. He was suddenly stunned, suffering with paralysis of the pencil. He realized that if he specified the wrong size screw, a plane could crash and hundreds might die.
He changed career paths, becoming an excellent high school physics teacher. He was dignified, scholarly and extremely knowledgeable. Mr. Hodge seemed overqualified, perhaps more suited to be a professor, not just a high school teacher.
His class was difficult, but he was fair; and if he was not liked by all of his students, Mr. Hodge was respected. He’s one of the few teachers in this book who gets a “Mr.” before his last name. I didn’t think about it. It happened automatically.
In addition to teaching physics, Mr. Hodge was advisor to the philosophy club, math club and chess club, and to the pompous and short-lived Committee for Research into Existential Metaphysics and Ethics.
Despite his often aloof demeanor, our class was not without laughs. He made coffee in a calorimeter and taught us to cook hot dogs by swinging them from a pendulum through the flame of a Bunsen burner.
One day a messenger came to our classroom from the principal’s office. He gave Mr. Hodge a square, flat package from the Columbia Record Club.
Mr. Hodge paused his lecture on the Brachistochrone curve to carefully slit open the container.
He removed, held up, and smiled at Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain, and carefully slid the empty package across the front counter until it fell off the end and precisely dropped into the wastebasket.
Stephanie Abeshouse, the one girl in our class, started frantically waving her hand, and said “Mr. Hodge, Mr. Hodge, your bill is in the package you threw away.”
Mr. Hodge calmly replied, “Do not worry, Miss Abeshouse. They will surely send me another.”
Cool.
Chapter 15
The last girl on Earth
(and hiding hard-ons and nipple hunting)
She and I attended Cotillion, a ballroom dancing school that also attempted to teach the social graces to young teenagers on Friday nights. One Friday night was also Halloween night, and Cotillion management wisely realized that the only way they could get 12-year-olds to forsake trick-or-treating for dancing school was to have a costume party with prizes.
For me, this was the second best reason to go to Cotillion. The best reason was to dance with the 18-year-old female dance instructors who had breasts and hips.
Halloween was my favorite holiday. I started preparing costumes in mid-summer and consistently won prizes for my efforts.
I don’t remember what I wore that year, but as I expected, I won “Best Boy,” and my peers applauded. My prize, unexpectedly, was not a trophy or even a big bag of candy.
I got to choose to dance with any girl I wanted to.
Conceited Sally assumed she was the leading candidate and, aware of my rock-bottom social status, she tried to hide behind some taller friends. She wasn’t completely hidden, however. I moved close to the microphone, looked at her and announced in a deep voice, “Don’t worry, Sally, I wouldn’t pick you if you were the last girl on earth!” There was thunderous applause, especially from the other girls.
Then, instead of skinny, flat-chested, conceited Sally, I picked Gloria, one of the 18-year-old instructors who had breasts and hips.
Gloria was much nicer than Sally and gave me a kiss on the lips to congratulate me, and then we did a slow Foxtrot in the spotlight. We danced much closer than normal for 12-year-olds, but probably normal for 18-year-olds.
I can still remember the Foxtrot steps from over 50 years ago: Forward. Sidestep. Back. Feet together. Slow. Cross that foot.
Gloria did a grind against me and gave me a woody.
It lasted for a long time and I didn’t dance close with the next girl because I might have been banished from Cotillion for being a pervert.
