LJ Idol Exhibit A - Topic 3 - We Drank from a Garden Hose
o/` "We were born to mothers who smoked and drank
Our cribs were covered in lead based paint
No child proof lids no seat belts in cars
Rode bikes with no helmets and still here we are, still here we are
We got daddy's belt when we misbehaved
Had three TV channels you got up to change
No video games and no satellite
All we had were friends and they were outside, playin' outside" o/`
-- "A Different World" performed by Bucky Covington
There came a time when getting a substitute teacher for this particular class became impossible. Faculty members and administrators simply declared a study hall for the period and hoped we wouldn't burn the whole school down.
We weren't the Second Chance or GED students (mostly composed of gang members from Tortilla Flats and their pregnant baby-mamas). We weren't the NJROTC, into which most of the school's disciplinary cases were channeled. We weren't even Industrial Arts, where all the gear heads who couldn't cut it in regular classes went to learn a trade.
No, we were far worse than any of these. The mere mention of us caused faculty, administrators, and sometimes even other students to cringe. If they could have gotten away with it, they would all probably have made some sort of warding sign.
We were the high school band.
The first substitute teacher they sent was a tiny flautist from the local orchestra named Miss Purdy. She had a high, chirping voice and an eternally cheerful demeanor which instantly made me want to see if she ever did anything but smile. Of course, we pulled the standard pranks: switching instruments and names, turning music upside down and then playing it, swiping the director's baton and then placing it in obvious but inappropriate places (including the lead percussionist's butt crack). The smile got tighter and her voice went up into a shrill determined pitch meant to be disciplinary. We ignored her and created a giant confetti parade by tossing our band folders in the air and scattering the music sheets. A tear stained the watered pink silk of her blouse. I'm not sure whether it was the tuba player getting up to take a 'nap' inside the grand piano or the baritone saxophonist's rude farting noises (which she cheerfully insisted happened because the horn had indigestion!) but Miss Purdy finally burst into tears and ran, wailing the whole way, in the direction of the attendance office. "Why don't they like me? Horrid, horrid children!"
The second substitute teacher was a male whose name I promptly forgot but he looked like he had borrowed his wardrobe out of the original props for The Music Man . I literally couldn't concentrate because the loud red and green plaid blotted out all else. Still, I might have made the effort if it weren't for the fact that he also wore a bright red bow tie, just the right shade to clash with the suit instead of blending in, and one of those silly outdated hats. He reminded me of a used car salesman. I hated used car salesmen. That's where we got the bright idea to pretend I was crazy. The majority of the band members continued their usual antics while Lisa, one of the percussionists who handled the smaller instruments such as wood blocks, drove a tambourine over my head. It ruined the instrument but made a rather nice jingling necklace or collar. Pleased, I began shaking my head, although not necessarily in time to the music, and barking my part.
I will give the man points for stamina; he ignored us and concentrated on the few students who were actually trying to perform in class normally.
I gave a loud whine and started to howl. Janine, the aforementioned baritone sax player, sighed and rolled her eyes. "All right, all right, hang on." I howled louder. "Hey, have you got a belt?" She asked the French horn player. Kenny obligingly stood up and whipped his leather belt off; doing so caused his jeans to cascade to the floor. He stood there, miming bewilderment, while the rest of the band laughed over the substitute's ineffectual shouts that we quit clowning around and play, damnit! Janine snapped the belt onto my tambourine collar and began walking me out of the classroom. I danced from foot to foot, still howling, and gave them a pretty convincing potty dance.
"What...the...HELL...is wrong with her?" the substitute asked.
Janine is only about five feet tall and has a sweet, round face. She's the kind of girl who could tell you that dog shit was a casserole and you'd believe her. "Why," she said, sounding surprised, "the poor thing is crazy. Can you see that? She plays all right but she thinks she's a dog." I obligingly got down on all fours, sniffed his pants cuffs, woofed, and in lieu of actually being able to hike my leg, grabbed a water bottle and emptied it on his polished shoes.
About then, the principal poked his head into the classroom. I think he intended to ask how things were going but, seeing the situation we'd created, decided discretion was the better part of valor. He fled and the irate substitute followed, screaming, "I am out of here! You can't pay me enough to teach these demented monsters!"
Our final substitute wasn't a real substitute and he was hardest to get rid of. The principal, Mr. Nelson, had a bit of music background and decided he would see if he could go where no substitute had gone before. We knew our usual tricks wouldn't work and so we baffled him with perfect behavior until...
"The score says fortissimo." Mr. Nelson directed his comments at Fred, the percussionist who manned our big copper bottomed timpanis. "Louder, please."
We tried that part of the piece three times but still couldn't satisfy him; after all, it had been written for an orchestra rather than a band and the adaptation was for a band twice our size. Aggravated, Fred got up on one of the plastic chairs and, mallet held high, drove it as hard as he could into the largest and loudest of the timpanis. Timpanis are expensive and ours, because of their age, required the more traditional animal hides in order to be played properly. Fred was also our star quarterback that year. He hit that drum head as though he were John Elway at the Super Bowl and this hit depended on him scoring the winning point. This wasn't football, so he didn't score but he did disappear. The skin parted readily and Fred, carried by the momentum of the mallet, went in right after it. All we could see of him were two blue jean clad legs kicking angrily at the side of the drum. Mr. Nelson didn't even help him out. "I hope you all rot in hell, you little bastards," he said and walked off muttering about the cost of the repairs.
Naturally we didn't wonder much about being barred from the state marching competition even though we had qualified. After some bargaining and the assurance that each band member would have a pair of parental supervisors, the school agreed to let us go. We stayed at a Marriott in Denver and there we managed to play the coup de grace of pranks. They had, as an extra precaution, split up the band so that the boys were housed on one floor and the girls on another with parents in rooms at either end of the two blocks. The school officials ought to have realized that if we drove substitutes crazy, our parents were going to be no match whatsoever. Before the end of the evening, most of the parents, the band director, and his wife were all at the bar drinking something a lot stronger than beer.
I know that the prank got pulled off because it was my room Troy came into through the window. Those are Janine's underthings and I took the picture. Tracy, our representative to the Chieftain (the school paper), submitted it to the press. What I don't know is how it got pulled off.
We were on the fifth floor aqnd the boys were on the sixth. Using the fire escape would have triggered an alarm. I'm supposed to believe he scaled the cement ridges decorating the facade of the building in order to reach our window ledge?
In any case, he didn't exit that way. We sneaked him down the hall to the elevator and sent him back up to his room that way...and that photo helped get him elected as our head boy and valedictorian.
Our cribs were covered in lead based paint
No child proof lids no seat belts in cars
Rode bikes with no helmets and still here we are, still here we are
We got daddy's belt when we misbehaved
Had three TV channels you got up to change
No video games and no satellite
All we had were friends and they were outside, playin' outside" o/`
-- "A Different World" performed by Bucky Covington
There came a time when getting a substitute teacher for this particular class became impossible. Faculty members and administrators simply declared a study hall for the period and hoped we wouldn't burn the whole school down.
We weren't the Second Chance or GED students (mostly composed of gang members from Tortilla Flats and their pregnant baby-mamas). We weren't the NJROTC, into which most of the school's disciplinary cases were channeled. We weren't even Industrial Arts, where all the gear heads who couldn't cut it in regular classes went to learn a trade.
No, we were far worse than any of these. The mere mention of us caused faculty, administrators, and sometimes even other students to cringe. If they could have gotten away with it, they would all probably have made some sort of warding sign.
We were the high school band.
The first substitute teacher they sent was a tiny flautist from the local orchestra named Miss Purdy. She had a high, chirping voice and an eternally cheerful demeanor which instantly made me want to see if she ever did anything but smile. Of course, we pulled the standard pranks: switching instruments and names, turning music upside down and then playing it, swiping the director's baton and then placing it in obvious but inappropriate places (including the lead percussionist's butt crack). The smile got tighter and her voice went up into a shrill determined pitch meant to be disciplinary. We ignored her and created a giant confetti parade by tossing our band folders in the air and scattering the music sheets. A tear stained the watered pink silk of her blouse. I'm not sure whether it was the tuba player getting up to take a 'nap' inside the grand piano or the baritone saxophonist's rude farting noises (which she cheerfully insisted happened because the horn had indigestion!) but Miss Purdy finally burst into tears and ran, wailing the whole way, in the direction of the attendance office. "Why don't they like me? Horrid, horrid children!"
The second substitute teacher was a male whose name I promptly forgot but he looked like he had borrowed his wardrobe out of the original props for The Music Man . I literally couldn't concentrate because the loud red and green plaid blotted out all else. Still, I might have made the effort if it weren't for the fact that he also wore a bright red bow tie, just the right shade to clash with the suit instead of blending in, and one of those silly outdated hats. He reminded me of a used car salesman. I hated used car salesmen. That's where we got the bright idea to pretend I was crazy. The majority of the band members continued their usual antics while Lisa, one of the percussionists who handled the smaller instruments such as wood blocks, drove a tambourine over my head. It ruined the instrument but made a rather nice jingling necklace or collar. Pleased, I began shaking my head, although not necessarily in time to the music, and barking my part.
I will give the man points for stamina; he ignored us and concentrated on the few students who were actually trying to perform in class normally.
I gave a loud whine and started to howl. Janine, the aforementioned baritone sax player, sighed and rolled her eyes. "All right, all right, hang on." I howled louder. "Hey, have you got a belt?" She asked the French horn player. Kenny obligingly stood up and whipped his leather belt off; doing so caused his jeans to cascade to the floor. He stood there, miming bewilderment, while the rest of the band laughed over the substitute's ineffectual shouts that we quit clowning around and play, damnit! Janine snapped the belt onto my tambourine collar and began walking me out of the classroom. I danced from foot to foot, still howling, and gave them a pretty convincing potty dance.
"What...the...HELL...is wrong with her?" the substitute asked.
Janine is only about five feet tall and has a sweet, round face. She's the kind of girl who could tell you that dog shit was a casserole and you'd believe her. "Why," she said, sounding surprised, "the poor thing is crazy. Can you see that? She plays all right but she thinks she's a dog." I obligingly got down on all fours, sniffed his pants cuffs, woofed, and in lieu of actually being able to hike my leg, grabbed a water bottle and emptied it on his polished shoes.
About then, the principal poked his head into the classroom. I think he intended to ask how things were going but, seeing the situation we'd created, decided discretion was the better part of valor. He fled and the irate substitute followed, screaming, "I am out of here! You can't pay me enough to teach these demented monsters!"
Our final substitute wasn't a real substitute and he was hardest to get rid of. The principal, Mr. Nelson, had a bit of music background and decided he would see if he could go where no substitute had gone before. We knew our usual tricks wouldn't work and so we baffled him with perfect behavior until...
"The score says fortissimo." Mr. Nelson directed his comments at Fred, the percussionist who manned our big copper bottomed timpanis. "Louder, please."
We tried that part of the piece three times but still couldn't satisfy him; after all, it had been written for an orchestra rather than a band and the adaptation was for a band twice our size. Aggravated, Fred got up on one of the plastic chairs and, mallet held high, drove it as hard as he could into the largest and loudest of the timpanis. Timpanis are expensive and ours, because of their age, required the more traditional animal hides in order to be played properly. Fred was also our star quarterback that year. He hit that drum head as though he were John Elway at the Super Bowl and this hit depended on him scoring the winning point. This wasn't football, so he didn't score but he did disappear. The skin parted readily and Fred, carried by the momentum of the mallet, went in right after it. All we could see of him were two blue jean clad legs kicking angrily at the side of the drum. Mr. Nelson didn't even help him out. "I hope you all rot in hell, you little bastards," he said and walked off muttering about the cost of the repairs.
Naturally we didn't wonder much about being barred from the state marching competition even though we had qualified. After some bargaining and the assurance that each band member would have a pair of parental supervisors, the school agreed to let us go. We stayed at a Marriott in Denver and there we managed to play the coup de grace of pranks. They had, as an extra precaution, split up the band so that the boys were housed on one floor and the girls on another with parents in rooms at either end of the two blocks. The school officials ought to have realized that if we drove substitutes crazy, our parents were going to be no match whatsoever. Before the end of the evening, most of the parents, the band director, and his wife were all at the bar drinking something a lot stronger than beer.
I know that the prank got pulled off because it was my room Troy came into through the window. Those are Janine's underthings and I took the picture. Tracy, our representative to the Chieftain (the school paper), submitted it to the press. What I don't know is how it got pulled off.
We were on the fifth floor aqnd the boys were on the sixth. Using the fire escape would have triggered an alarm. I'm supposed to believe he scaled the cement ridges decorating the facade of the building in order to reach our window ledge?
In any case, he didn't exit that way. We sneaked him down the hall to the elevator and sent him back up to his room that way...and that photo helped get him elected as our head boy and valedictorian.