Thursday, June 06, 2024

Dad, Tell Me About the Time…(26)

 Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Were you ever bullied in school? If so, what did you do?

Bullied is probably a strong word for what I went through. I was teased a lot. The teasing happened during elementary school and junior high but in High School I was mostly just ignored. I was never beaten up and of the three fights I actually got into, they were not with the popular guys and I won two of them.

Share a memory you have from your school days.

Didn’t I just talk about this? Oh well, let me come up with another story. My Biology teacher was mister Shaw and he loved me, and I loved him. I actually got a 100% in Biology 30 (that would be like AP Bio). He was the ultimate environmentalist (I was going to say “tree hugger”) and continually preached that to us. He was LDS but refused to toe the “culturally” expected line. He would only have two kids because to have more would eventually overpopulate the world. He loved horses because on a hiking trail their poop would eventually turn into a soft covering on the trail but hated cows because their “cow pies” would never be acceptable. He called roadkill “sail bunnies” because road kill was usually rabbits and in time they could be thrown like a frisbee. He hated California because it represented everything that he found hateful. Overpopulation, pollution (in those days LA was covered with continuous heavy brown smog) and people who were famous for ridiculous reasons such as movie stars and professional sports.

If anything was stupid or made no sense, he would call it “Micky Mouse”. For example, if someone gave a dumb answer to a question, he would say that it was a micky mouse answer. I had a hard time getting Mr Shaw out of my mind when we decided to move to California.

I remember one time when we were studying genetics, we had a couple of aquariums full of fruit flies in the classroom. Over time, several fruits flies escaped, and they were all over the classroom. He told us that fruit flies were clean and carried no diseases and if he caught anyone killing a fruit fly, he would dock points from their grades.

What was your best subject at school?

Apparently, it was biology. I got a final grade of 100%. I did get “A’s” in Chemistry and Physics as well though. I also got “A’s” in auto mechanics and drafting.

Just for comparison, the only “F” I ever got was in PE when we were doing wrestling. What a disgusting sport. I couldn’t stand the thought of grabbing onto some guy’s sweaty body. Ugh.

What was your least favorite subject in school?

After that last question you might think I would say PE, but I actually loved PE and being physical. I just hated wrestling. My least favorite subject was social studies. At the time we were only required to take one social studies class so that is all I took. As I’ve grown older, I have begun to love history and psychology and I feel I missed out on some good information. To be honest though, I wouldn’t have appreciated it in high school.

Did you participate in extra-curricular activities?

There weren’t any extra-curricular activities that I was interested in participating in. The year after I graduated, they started a biology club that I would have joined but it was a year too late for me.

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