Homeroom - part 2

One thing that kind of took me by surprise in Tyler, Texas back in 1970 was what a huge deal cheerleading was... Yeah - the whole "Texas cheerleader" thing didn't really get much national attention until 1991 when a junior high cheerleader's mother tried to hire a hitman to kill one of her daughter's rivals. Yes - they take cheerleading pretty seriously down there :-)

But it was an especially big deal in Tyler because of the Tyler Junior College "Apache Belles". They were nationally known, having performed during halftime at a number of college bowl games and professional sporting events, including the 1967 NFL championship game (and later Superbowl VI.) So it should come as no surprise that the lifelong ambition of a number of my (female) classmates was to be an Apache Belle... I really don't know what my point is - other than I thought it was all a bit weird... But at least they had ambitions :-)

And back to homeroom:

My English teacher was in her late 30's with short wavy black hair, a big nose and what I call "clown makeup" - too colorful and too much of it :-)
She had been "up north" once (where the yankees live) and she frequently told tales about what a strange and mysterious place it was. Very few of my fellow classmates had ever been north of the Mason-Dixon line so they were always spellbound:
"Ah went inta a restarahnt and ordered a haimburger and it tweren't nothin but a tahny paice a meat on a bun. No pickles or tahmaitah or lettuce or nothin! I couldn't bahlieve it!!!"
As usual, I was secretly amused :-)

I remember that she made us memorize bible verses... I had to do 1 Corinthians 13 - the "faith, hope and charity (love)" bit. I thought about complaining (separation of church and state) but it was actually a rather interesting passage so I didn't really mind...

There were (of course) times when I just couldn't resist showing off. One day the teacher had some paperwork to catch up on so she handed out a Shakespeare themed crossword puzzle to keep us busy... It took me about 10 minutes to finish it and I sat there for another 5 or so trying to decide what to do next - I finally decided to go up to her desk and ask. Her initial annoyance at being interrupted changed to stunned disbelief when I showed her the completed puzzled. She sat there for a few seconds regaining her composure before handing me a second (harder) puzzle. That one took me about 20 minutes. I turned that one in and she didn't have any more puzzles so she told me to just act busy for the rest of the period... BTW: The teacher's pet / class genius finished the first puzzle about the same time I turned in the second one. Only about 5 or so other students managed to complete it before the end of class...

Aside: I did keep very close tabs on my grades. I knew exactly what the grading formula was for each class and kept track of my progress in my notebook. John Tyler High was a bit tough because "citizenship" was worth a full grade point in each class. So - due to my bad attitude and lack of class participation I had to maintain almost a B average on my academic work to get an overall C... I didn't think that was very fair...
But I managed to maintain my low grades through a combination of not turning in homework and refusing to make up tests from the days I was absent...

For some reason that seemed to aggravate most of my teachers. But it was worth the effort:
The last week of school they posted the final rankings and I was the median student out of a graduating class of ~570. I have to admit that there was a certain amount of luck involved but still - I was overjoyed at having absolutely nailed my objective :-)
Yeah - I almost told the other kids gathered around the billboard why I was so excited but then it occurred to me that most of them didn't know what a median was anyway... I could just imagine them saying "Y'all mean a hahway divahder?" :-)

I suppose I should give the English teacher credit for caring (not many teachers did)... She was constantly inquiring about the "health problems" that caused me to miss so much school (mom always wrote me a sick note when I skipped)... And she frequently lectured me about wasting my God given talents - but that was only because (like most teacher) she thought "hard work" was the same thing as "accomplishment"... Seriously - if you can ace the test without cracking a book what exactly is the point of doing the homework?

It's not like I was incapable of working hard... I just didn't give a darn :-)