As a high school junior, our whole school met on the first day of school for an assembly. Not that assemblies were unusual, but this one was very special. Boy, they brought out the top guns, that is, the Superintendent and the Principal. Normally, the first day is boring. You go from one class to the other and in each class everyone has to stand up and say their name and what they did over the summer vacation. Boring, after all, we knew everyone else.
You see, in a school that graduates about thirty per year, how could you not know everyone else. Well, this year we started out with this big assembly in the gym. Of course they welcomed us back, but what they felt compelled to tell us was concerning our librarian.
The Super stands up there and tells us to really pay attention to what the Prince is about to tell us. He explained that it would likely mean the difference if someone lived or died. Whoa. That is huge. You bet I will pay attention in order to save a life. Again he gives us this big confidence builder of telling us that he knows most of us personally and that we will do the right thing in this life or death matter.
So after all the hype, the Prince get up and starts telling us that we have a new librarian. It seems she is small. The Prince says she will be the shortest and lightest person in the high school. I immediately imagined those runty little frosh. The Prince surely joked.
I soon learned that this new librarian has a heart issue that is so severe that she was not expected to live to see age ten or something. Oh, and there were other landmark ages mentioned as well that she surpassed. The bottom line was that all of us students needed to treat her with respect and not to stress her. If we did not adhere to this request, she could drop dead!
My memory is not perfect in this area, but over time we came to believe her heart was much stronger than the two big ones let us believe. We were very well behaved at first, but as our suspicion increase that we were sold a bill of good, we grew courage to treat her like anyone else. She seemed to like being treated as a normal teacher even though she was about eighty pounds, and less than five feet tall(short).
The most fascinating thing about her was her Morse Minor car. It was so small that four of us guys could pick it up and turn it around. Most days we would do something with her car, like moving it somewhere. We learned that her car was the same length as the distance between a power pole and the pump building. You guessed it. We did not mind waiting till she emerged after school to find her car trapped. I suppose we had a rather amused look on our faces as we offered to help her. Boy, she was such a great sport.
We kept coming up with better and better ways to mess with her car. One day, the four of us recruited two more guys and carried the Minor all the way around to the front of Verndale High School and carried it up the front steps and lowered it down crosswise in front of the double doors.
We quickly left the area as nonchalantly as possible. As we arrived at our first class after lunch period, we were directed to the gym for an assembly. Everyone was visiting and carrying on with our little groups or cliques. Then the Prince got up front and said the assembly would begin as soon as some pranksters dealt with a certain issue. No more was said, Promise. But, everyone in the whole school turned and looked directly at us. There were chuckles and whistles from all over the assembled students.
Okay, we got up and returned the Minor to it's original parking spot. When we were filing back into the assembly, the Prince returned to the podium and announced assembly over. Whoa. what does that mean?
That was the one and only mention of this matter. No one was sore. No one got disciplined. I wish for more of this common sense management in life today.
You see, in a school that graduates about thirty per year, how could you not know everyone else. Well, this year we started out with this big assembly in the gym. Of course they welcomed us back, but what they felt compelled to tell us was concerning our librarian.
The Super stands up there and tells us to really pay attention to what the Prince is about to tell us. He explained that it would likely mean the difference if someone lived or died. Whoa. That is huge. You bet I will pay attention in order to save a life. Again he gives us this big confidence builder of telling us that he knows most of us personally and that we will do the right thing in this life or death matter.
So after all the hype, the Prince get up and starts telling us that we have a new librarian. It seems she is small. The Prince says she will be the shortest and lightest person in the high school. I immediately imagined those runty little frosh. The Prince surely joked.
I soon learned that this new librarian has a heart issue that is so severe that she was not expected to live to see age ten or something. Oh, and there were other landmark ages mentioned as well that she surpassed. The bottom line was that all of us students needed to treat her with respect and not to stress her. If we did not adhere to this request, she could drop dead!
My memory is not perfect in this area, but over time we came to believe her heart was much stronger than the two big ones let us believe. We were very well behaved at first, but as our suspicion increase that we were sold a bill of good, we grew courage to treat her like anyone else. She seemed to like being treated as a normal teacher even though she was about eighty pounds, and less than five feet tall(short).
The most fascinating thing about her was her Morse Minor car. It was so small that four of us guys could pick it up and turn it around. Most days we would do something with her car, like moving it somewhere. We learned that her car was the same length as the distance between a power pole and the pump building. You guessed it. We did not mind waiting till she emerged after school to find her car trapped. I suppose we had a rather amused look on our faces as we offered to help her. Boy, she was such a great sport.
We kept coming up with better and better ways to mess with her car. One day, the four of us recruited two more guys and carried the Minor all the way around to the front of Verndale High School and carried it up the front steps and lowered it down crosswise in front of the double doors.
We quickly left the area as nonchalantly as possible. As we arrived at our first class after lunch period, we were directed to the gym for an assembly. Everyone was visiting and carrying on with our little groups or cliques. Then the Prince got up front and said the assembly would begin as soon as some pranksters dealt with a certain issue. No more was said, Promise. But, everyone in the whole school turned and looked directly at us. There were chuckles and whistles from all over the assembled students.
Okay, we got up and returned the Minor to it's original parking spot. When we were filing back into the assembly, the Prince returned to the podium and announced assembly over. Whoa. what does that mean?
That was the one and only mention of this matter. No one was sore. No one got disciplined. I wish for more of this common sense management in life today.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'
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