Do you have any memories of the time in school? Whether it was at the high school or in kindergarten one thing that will live forever are our memories. Sharing those memories here might be great fun. For me it might be painful due to the fact I did a lot of stuff I should have had better since than to do.

One of my first tastes of discipline in the classroom was when I was in kindergarten at First Baptist Church. When we misbehaved in our early days of formal education it was custom to make you stand in a corner or somewhere to let you think about what you had done. I had been put in the corner in the class and it never worked out. I would end up causing more of a disruption than what I had originally gotten in trouble for. On one occasion I was put right outside the class. A circle was drawn by the teacher using her toe on the floor. I was told not to move from this spot, and right next to where I was standing there was a beautiful plant. After the teacher left and went back to the class I decided the plant needed some pruning. So I started pulling the little green things off and “ripping there little heads off”. This went on for some time and proved to be entertaining. I would pluck the little green thing off, rip it and toss it in the corner. As I was doing this my eye started itching, so I scratched it, and that is when the excitement started. The little green things were hot peppers and I had pulled nearly every one off the plant. The itching turned to pain and tears. I started rubbing and the more I rubbed the more I screamed. By the time my Dad was contacted and he got there it took all that three teachers could do to hold me down. They rushed me to Dr McGill’s and he washed my eyes for what seemed like a half of a day. This was my first recollection of many encounters of the long arm of the law in the classroom. It was a painful experience but when I think about it there is always a smile that follows.

Do you have any stories to share? Please do…

I remember Todd Gatts had that old, beat up Volkswagen Beetle, he never locked it. A group of us would  constantly pop the brake and move it somewhere else. Behind the school, down the road, a different parking lot. I remember him wandering around lost several times trying to find it.

Frank Small (?) the scary custodian, had some paint crew come in the summer before our senior year to spruce up the place. Did he not remind any of you of the sadistic guard from the movie "Midnight Express"? For whatever reason they painted a big Mickey Mouse head outside the door to the art room, Diane Harper's room. She HATED it. I asked her if she wanted me to fix it up for her, she said 'Yes," so I got some black paint and painted a mustache on him and painted his eyes black. A couple of other people helped, but I'll keep their names out of this. The paint ran off the eyes like Tammy Faye Baker after a good cry. Mrs. Harper even got into the act and helped paint. Frank grilled everyone coming in and out of the room that day trying to find out who did it, but no one fessed up to messing up his Mickey Mouse. He always stopped me in the hall and said "I know you did it." and I, of course, said "What?...." He had the crew come back and repaint it. When the annual staff was staging pictures of the school staff for the yearbook, I chose for Frank and facilities staff to be posed in front of the Mickey Mouse painting.

More as I remember.