Updated 26 Dec 2007

Do You Remember?

Some things have changed dramatically since we were in school and some things are still the same. For example, kids today have to sniff "Xerox" toner instead of "ditto ink". But then again, sayings like "Flush twice, it's a long way to the cafeteria!" are probably still on the bathroom stalls. See if you can relate to the memories below!

Do You Remember when Mark Conley ended up with a broken leg in Flag Football? How about kids who "tied" the tags so they were a lot harder to pull off? How about the kids who called it "fag" football?
Do You Remember being "scared" to be a freshman? I remember hearing stories like "DO NOT go near the elevator... seniors will take you in, and then beat the crap out of you repeatedly while going up and down the floors several times!"
Do You Remember the writing on the inside of bathroom stalls: "Flush twice, it's a long way to the cafeteria"!
Do You Remember when Gene Chambers popped a playground ball (in 6th grade gym) with his bare hands! How about the look on Mrs. Feedler's face!
Do You Remember when it was social suicide to wear white socks and/or white sneakers? Or worse, wearing two different socks! After speaking to a number of people from around the country, the "white socks = fag" thing at Minnechaug was definitely regional. A friend from San Diego (from the same era as us) says there was no such thing in that area. Ditto for the Seattle WA and Norfolk VA areas! The ONLY time it was acceptable to wear whie socks at Minnechaug was gym class, as that was where everyone had to wear the same thing...
Do You Remember "Lens" Diner (now "Horizons" restaurant), home of the "Squareburger"!
Do You Remember the PA announcements every morning, calling out people that had to report to Mr. Schencks office?
Do You Remember the thrill of hearing "No school in Hampden/Wilbraham" on the radio on the morning of a snowstorm? How about the misery (and finaly anger) of hearing every school BUT Minnechaug being cancelled during a snowstorm? In those days (before lawsuits became routine), school was canceled only when the snow was a real hazard...
Do You Remember the "intern" gym teacher, Mr. Pickeral (we called him "Pick")?
Do You Remember Mr. Nelligan's 7th grade science class, "Time, Space and Matter"? How about the homework problems called HDLs (for Home, Desk and Lab)?
Do You Remember Mr. Nelligan screaming "SIGNIFICANT FIGURES!!!" when people were carrying out math calculations to 4 and 5 decimal places when it should have been only to two places?
Do You Remember Mr. Koslowski having all of the student desks facing backwards in his classroom?
Do You Remember People "mooing" Mr. Koslowski?
Do You Remember Watching "Happy Days" on the TV in Mr. Sternberg's study hall sophomore year?
Do You Remember Mr. Tipaldi's Whale Watch trip during senior year?
Do You Remember Project Adventure?
Do You Remember the "hot lunch" boycott during 8th grade at Junior High? For reasons I can't recall, the kids were all pissed about some rule change (or something similar). In an amazing show of unity, all the kids passed the word and agreed to boycott the hot lunch (that's all there was in those days) one day, and it actually happened! The only two kids that went for lunch were the retarded kids (that was the term used by everyone in 1972, today of course it is pollitically incorrect). The lunch ladies were looking out in disbelief probably thinking "those damn brats... what the hell are we going to do with all this food..."
Do You Remember the "French and Spanish" supper during 8th grade (I think) put on by Mrs. Wagner and Mrs. Sager?
Do You Remember going to school in the dark in late 1973 when officials were "fooling around" with the switch from daylight to standard time?
Do You Remember when the undercover cop "Shane Bond" was a "member" of our class? As I recall she was posing as a student to learn about the drug activity at the school. Also, remember how pissed and betrayed some students felt when the story about the undercover operation was made public?
Do You Remember the Jukebox in the small cafeteria?
Do You Remember doing "squat thrusts" as a gym warm-up exercise? Also Jumping Jacks?
Do You Remember being "scared" after watching films of how much stronger Russia's military was than ours?
Do You Remember pounding the floor in Mr. Newsome's class (directly above Mr. Koslowski's room) to upset Mr. Koslowski?
Do You Remember the size of Mr. Andrichack's hands?
Do You Remember the Junior High shop teacher named Mr. Disco?
Do You Remember being served "mystery meat" at lunch?
Do You Remember Mr. Rafferty at the Wilbraham Junior High?
Do You Remember how cool it was to be able to buy "soft serve" ice cream at school during lunch?
Do You Remember the black and white video tape machines they had in school? They had to be threaded up manually and the picture wasn't too good...
Do You Remember getting stuck with someone you hated during square dancing in gym? How about getting stuck with someone who had clammy hands? Cindy Brehaut did one day, she uttered something like "Ill, Clammy Hands!" and rapidly tried to wipe her hands on her jeans to get the "clamminess" off!
Do You Remember people knocking textbooks out of your hands in Junior High? Papers and books would go everywhere, and kids would have to try and pick things up while being laughed at and among feet, legs, etc.
Do You Remember not being able to swim in the pool because a rival school smashed the windows in the pool area?
Do You Remember the jelly-like "goo" that was on the bottom of the deep end of the pool?
Do You Remember the time when there was a "terd" waiting to greet people in the boys shower at Minnechaug?
Do You Remember Mr. Whalen giving the "no peeing in the pool" lecture?
Do You Remember the "traffic jams" that always existed at the intersection of D and J halls?
Do You Remember When the only channels most people could get on TV were 3, 8, 22, 40 and 57?
Do You Remember having to use a slide rule in chemistry class?
Do You Remember Mrs. Salamon screaming "ARE YOU CRAZY!!!" when someone ignited a propane gas jet in her homeroom (resulting in a virtual flame thrower)?
Do You Remember Standing outside freezing because of bomb scares in the middle of winter?
Do You Remember getting a "rush" from sniffing the blue ink on papers freshly printed from the ditto machine?
Do You Remember when milk was 2 cents per carton in first grade?
Do You Remember the horrible smell in the locker room?
Do You Remember hating to have to take a "dump" at school because (a) the bathroom was filthy (b) people often tried to open or shake the stall door and/or threw things into the stall or (c) you forgot to check beforehand to see if there was any toilet paper left?
Do You Remember Tim Rymasz calling (6th grade) teacher Mrs. Spolzino "Spizzer-Whizzer"?
Do You Remember Algebra class when Tim Rymasz said "Mr. Salk, you've got pigeon shit on your window!"
Do You Remember the day Mr. Marshall's fly was wide open as he attempted to teach 7th grade social studies class? Everyone was laughing hysterically but nobody would tell him why. Finally Laurie Buoniconti said "your fly - FIX IT!"
Do You Remember the "racial segregation" of blue eyed vs. brown eyed students during 7th grade social studies? The experiment ended up in a "race riot"... the kids were out of control, yelling and throwing stuff between Mr. Marshall's and Mrs. Boyce's classrooms. Mrs. Boyce tried to calm things down by closing the moveable wall between the rooms. Somehow she got her leg caught in the moving wall! She was screaming in pain and it was difficult to hear her above all of our yelling.
Do You Remember people making out in "dark corners" and "hidden hallways"?
Do You Remember How popular the show Kung Fu was in Junior High? Inspired by the show, Mike Schmidt decided to make some Shirakens (sharp, star shaped weapons for throwing at victims) in metal shop. As he was sharpening the edges of one, he slipped and put a severe gash in his hand! He went up to Mr. Disco, blood dripping profusely from his hand, and said "I need to go to the nurse!" The next day Mr. Ullery's proclamation came over the PA system: "no making shirakens in metal shop"!
Do You Remember Chemistry teacher Mrs. Towne repeatedly saying "A mole is a number!
Do You Remember Being one of the few "poor" kids who had to wear Sears "toughskins" when almost everyone else had Levi's?
Do You Remember Being screamed at by Mom for coming home with a rip in your brand new school clothes!
Do You Remember Being screamed at by Mom for ruining your brand new school clothes because you "forgot" to change out of them after school?
Do You Remember (for the guys) a doctor having his hand on your privates and being told to "cough" while getting a school physical?
Do You Remember the "fits" that art teacher Mrs. Moore often had at Memorial School?
Do You Remember the absolute fit Mr. Donaldson had when he found out that the sound effects on Joe Roberts' English class horror movie tape assignment were made by torturing the family cats! He stopped the recorder and exclaimed " Those are REAL CATS?!?"
Do You Remember For those familiar with model rockets: Do you remember when Tim Rymasz was fooling around and accidentally set off an Estes "D" rocket engine inside his bedroom!?! It caught several rockets and his desk on fire, and he had to put the rockets out by throwing them in the toilet! The house was filled with sulphur smoke; he had to open all the windows (in wintertime!) to clear the air before his parents came home and found out!!!
Do You Remember art class freshmen year when Rich Harvey suddenly stood up and whipped a ball of clay across the room? It hit the back wall with a loud "smack" and stuck there. He immediately sat back down and pretended like nothing abnormal happened (Mrs. Bichan never noticed it). A few months later, Mr. Van West noticed it and looked at it with a puzzled expression while probably thinking "How the hell did that get up there?"!
Do You Remember the cheers and clapping that always followed when someone accidentally spilled their lunch tray all over the floor while trying to carry it to a table?
Do You Remember how incredibly filthy the Junior High cafeteria chairs were? It was a task to find one without some kind of "goo" all over it! Often, you'd have to sit off to the side to avoid getting some kind of spooge on your clothes.
Do You Remember when a teacher told a student to look up a word in the dictionary that they didn't know how to spell? The classic comeback was always "How can I look up a word if I don't know how to spell it?"
Do You Remember The positively filthy dishes, pots and utensils in Junior High home economics? There was enough grease on those items to open up a new oil company! If the health depratment ever saw that place they'd have shut it down on the spot!
Do You Remember when Paul Worthington slipped and fell out of the school bus? When questioned "are you OK???" by the bus driver he replied "I'm not hurt... but I feel like an asshole!"
Do You Remember being called "floods" if you wore pants that were too short?
Do You Remember Mrs. Lynch's archery class when someone turned around and shot an arrow at another gym class on the other side of the field? Mr. Whalen came over from that other class and was very pissed! Also, kids would shoot arrows far into the woods when the teacher (Miss Lynch) wasn't looking...
Do You Remember when the first calculators came out in the early 70's? A four function unit that had to be plugged into a wall outlet cost around $250 (that was A LOT of $$ back then)!!!
Do You Remember Senior year physics when we could finally use calculators in class because everyone (finally) had one?
Do You Remember during one of Mr. Nelligan's science tests when Ed Garibian asked (fairly loudly) "What's the answer to number 3?"
Do You Remember the disgusting food we cooked up in Junior High home economics? We put the muffins on the windowsill (2nd floor) and "accidentally" knocked them out so we wouldn't have to eat them!
Do You Remember forgetting and wearing "long johns" on the day you had to wear gym shorts?
Do You Remember your locker combination?
Do You Remember Biology class when people had to prick themselves to get a blood sample for analysis? Some people found it easier to rip scabs off existing wounds and squeezing to get blood!
Do You Remember Snack break (9:39-9:49) being cancelled due to some moron(s) causing repeated trouble?
Do You Remember the "circus" that resulted on rainy days when 3 or 4 gym classes were crammed into a single gymnasium?
Do You Remember the "co-ed" wresting class? Some girls ended up in wrestling due to some Arena Scheduling conflicts. What a sight to see two girls wrestling! To the disappointment of some guys, the teacher told the guys that they were not allowed to wrestle with the girls...
Do You Remember when some Class of 78 kids went on WHYN for "amateur" night? I have a tape of this show somewhere...
Do You Remember the "Safety Patrol" in Pines school?
Do You Remember the lunch monitors in Junior High? We had nicknames for all of them... the tall one we called "Gazelle", and another was called "Spotlight" due to her shiny reflective forehead!
Do You Remember Mr. Barnes (Memorial School) saying "I have an 'E' in my name to separate me from all the cow barnes..."
Do You Remember when Nate Twining always used to ask "Mr. Salk, can I go uri-NATE?"
Do You Remember when Mr. Silva used to get pissed because someone was doing something stupid?
Do You Remember When kids at Memorial School used to call Mr. Olbrych "Mr. Old Brick"?
Do You Remember the "nature walk" in Mr. Ruscio's class (Memorial School)? Rob Alger (dressed in spotless white pants) tried to jump over a small stream and slipped and fell into the mud upon landing. The white pants were white no more, and Mr. Ruscio was having a fit!
Do You Remember "field day" at Pines and Memorial School?
Do You Remember Mr. Hines giving the "cup" lecture in 7th grade gym?
Do You Remember "skip" days?
Do You Remember when Pete Chapin busted a window in D hall? Instead of using the handle to open the window he administered a powerful blow to the center of the glass!
Do You Remember how everyone "hated" Minnechaug until Ludlow painted graffiti on our school one day?
Do You Remember people fooling around with the kilns in art class? They would heat items to high temperatures and then toss them in cold water to make cool sounds!
Do You Remember not wanting to drink out of the water fountains because kids would spit all over the part where the water came out? Often there was a slime-like goo that was oozing around the base where the water came out. God only knows what kind of biological party was brewing in that mucus!
Do You Remember being allowed a 1 second "drink" at the water fountain after gym class? If you were near the start of the line the water was very warm and offered little refreshment. And, if you stayed at the fountain for one second too long, the teacher would start yelling?
Do You Remember the mad scramble to retrieve golf balls in gym class? The slowest runners would be stuck going out for balls in the woods!
Do You Remember when we had to play "blindfolded" soccer in gym class? People were getting severely kicked "left and right" during that game!
Do You Remember the food fights in the cafeteria? In the aftermath, it was not uncommon to see girls combing mashed potatoes and corn out of their hair!
Do You Remember making home made gunpowder in Mr. Nelligan's science class?
Do You Remember the general chaos that ensued when a substitute teacher was in?
Do You Remember the "characteristic smell" of the cafeteria?
Do You Remember when Stephen Bennett looked like a monster (due to severe cuts and bruises) after falling face first (and landing on some rocks) out of a tree fort in 4rth grade?
Do You Remember the incredible fit Mrs. Baker (6th grade Spanish teacher) had one day? We were making some kind of art type decorations using contruction paper, glue and glitter. As is typical when a group of 12 year old kids get together, things got out of control and horseplay started. Glitter was getting spilled all over the place, and Mrs. Baker (standing there with her hands on her hips) started going ballistic!!!
Do You Remember Mr. Koslowski? Mike Schmidt took a brand new (i.e. extremely sharp) X-axto knife and sliced a page out of his math textbook. Eventually, the class got up to that part of the book. Mike said "My book doesn't have that page!" Mr. Koslowski didn't believe it and came over to Mike's desk. He just about ripped the binding open trying to spread the pages to look for evidence of the torn out page! Moral? If you want to do a "surgical" job at removing pages from a book, use a brand new X-acto knife!
Do You Remember having to pretend that we were DJ's broadcasting music and news in Mrs. Allison's music class in 7th grade? Fred Messier said "Our first song is 'The Last Song' by Edward Bear..." Joe Roberts and Mark Phillips (both very shy) teamed up for this. To avoid speaking as much as possible, we played LONG songs (George Harrison, "Isn't it a Pity", 7 minutes and 10 seconds long)! When the song ended, several kids said FINALLY!. Mrs. Allsion picked up on this strategy, and we got a grade of "very good" (actually we sucked royally) when Fred and his partner got an "Excellent".
Do You Remember the absolute fit that Mr. Nelligan had when trying to make us figure out the mass of the Earth in science class? Most of the kids were clueless...
Do You Remember having to do "SRA" in Pines School? SRA stood for "Student Reading Association" or something like that. There were various colored cards with stories and questions that had to be answered. The color of the cards represented the difficulty level of the assignment. Kids who made it to "green" were "brains". These vintage SRA sets now typically sell for well over $100 on eBay today!
Do You Remember When Mrs. Wagner brought in stuff to make Tacos in 7th grade Spanish class? This was to make us more "in tune" with the food of people from Spain. When John Bugbee (who was assigned the name "Paco" in class) would not eat his taco, Mrs. Wagner kept saying the ridiculous statement "Paco, Eat your Taco!" "Paco, Eat your Taco!"
Do You Remember when Mr. Donaldson (7th and 8th grade) used to call Joe Roberts "Rocket Roberts" because all he would do in class is talk about model rockets?
Do You Remember The recess monitor Mrs. McDiamond at Memorial School? How about Mrs. Pameoli? (spelling may be wrong)
Do You Remember When Mr. Nelligan dropped an apple (that had been soaking in liquid nitrogen or something) on the floor and it shattered like glass? The kids were so amazed...
Do You Remember the incredibly elementary sentences we had to read when first learning to do so? "Dot and Jim". "See Dot." "See Jim." "See Spot." "See Jim run." "See Spot run." Even back then I can remember thinking to myself "this is retarded!"
Do You Remember the dorky stuff we had to say in Spanish class? "Esta es mi amigo Paco" (this is my friend Paco). What kid talks like that? We often had to pretend we were in a conversation with friends. "Did you hear about Paco? The poor boy had an automobile accident." No normal teenager would talk like that. The more likely translation: "Did you hear about Paco? The incompetent moron cracked up his car!"
Do You Remember Elementary school when after lunch there was a ritual of "popping lunch bags" to see who could create the loudest "boom!"? The lunch monitors of course had a big fit when this happened!
Do You Remember More dorky stuff from Spanish class. We had to "pretend" we were ordering food in a restaurant in Spain. The menu item we wanted was always "not available" that day, so we always had to settle for the old standby "Aroz con Polo" (chicken with rice)?
Do You Remember The Art teacher Mrs. Moore at Memorial School? Most kids agreed she was a bit unstable. She nearly went into a hysterical breakdown one day when someone slammed a cabinet door too hard and busted the hinges. She whaled out "Oooooooooohhhhhhh NoooOOOOOooo..... you broke the dooooooOOOOOOOOooooooor!!!"
Do You Remember The fits that went on during Arena Scheduling? If you were in one of the classes that went into the "arena" early, you pretty much got everything you wanted for classes. On the other hand, if you were one of the last, almost nothing "good" was left. Some kids (girls) were crying, guys were pissed and threatening to dump a table over!
Do You Remember Square dancing in gym? Remember getting stuck with a partner you did not like? How about a partner with "clammy" hands? On the bright side, remember how very cool it was to get a partner that you secretly admired?
Do You Remember "Yellow" and "Red" bus tickets? If you were only misbehaving mildly or it was a first offense, you could get a "yellow" ticket. But, do something real bad, and you got the dreaded "red" ticket. If I recall, this meant being banned from the bus for a few days!
Do You Remember The semi annual "locker cleanouts" that were held at Memorial School? I remember Mr. Zych having a major fit because some lockers were found to have brown bag lunches that were months old! It's a wonder the place did not have rats...
Do You Remember In grade school, when the classes were escorted to other rooms, the teachers always calling out "single file, single file...".
Do You Remember Throwing things at school buses? One person (who shall remain anonymous, and it's not me!) got caught by the cops for throwing snowballs at school buses. The person was written up for throwing a missile at a school bus!
Do You Remember Being able to wander around freely during "open campus"?
Do You Remember Mr. Eakins doing a live audio demo of the Doppler effect? He would walk across the front of the room pretending to be a locomotive, making an "EEEEEEEE- Ohhhhhhhh" sound as he passed the mid point of the desk.
Do You Remember Throwing up in school and how horribly embarrassing it was? I remember throwing up once at Pines School. It was lunch recess, I had just eaten (among other things) some chocolate ice cream. I was out in the playground and felt kind of sick, like I was going to upchuck at any second. Suddenly, I bent over and did puke! Immediately after I stood up quickly and discretely looked around to see if anyone had witnessed this event. Apparently no one had, so I quickly moved away from the pool of evidence and made like nothing happened. I was more concerned about not being spotted as "the kid that puked" than the miserable residual aftertaste!
Do You Remember Another puking incident: The setting was Mr. Newsom's (Junior High) social studies class. During the morning lecture, a kid (who shall remain anonymous, and it's not me!) sitting a few desks away from me suddenly turned to the side and puked without warning! The puke shot out sideways and made a disgusting splattering sound as it hit the floor. Most kids were speechless, some (those adjacent to the scene) were totally grossed out. Mr. Newsom looked a the situation, paused for a moment and then said "You better go see the nurse!"
Do You Remember One more gross event: The setting was the Pines School cafeteria, Thomas Allen, myself and a few other kids were sitting near the back of the cafeteria. Thomas was eating some chocolate cake and at the same time drinking some milk. Someone said something funny, and suddenly Thomas lurched violently forward, and this disgusting chocolate milk like puree came shooting out of his nostrils! I remember looking at the mess on the table and almost involuntary puking as a result of it!
Do You Remember The last days of the school year when books were turned in and there was not a whole lot going on (except partying)?
Do You Remember In very early grades at Pine School when the lunches were already set at the table for the kids? I guess the kitchen staff figured it was less work than cleaning up the mess from the inevitable spillage that would occur if the kids had to carry the food themselves.
Do You Remember "Pig piles" at recess in grade school? Kids would push someone down, and then other kids would run and jump on pile! Some kids at the bottom nearly had the life crushed out of them! Scott Morris was one such kid and trying to scream, his eyes bulging and mouth wide open, but with no sound coming out!
Do You Remember Some of the chaos that resulted when grade school classes were held outdoors? I remember one class at Memorial School where the kids had to collect nature samples from the woods behind the school. Many kids were out of control, including myself. I was into geology back then, and always on the lookout for rock samples that had a particular crystal structure. I found a rock that looked like it might be the right kind, but after a closer look the rock was not what I wanted, so I casually underhand heaved it into the woods (it was about the size of a tennis ball). Mrs. Hazelmier saw me do this, and had a coronary fit. She said something like "Are you crazy? You could give someone a concussion with a rock like that!!!" In retrospect, someone would be lucky to come away with only a concussion from a rock like that had they been hit! Luckily, the rock did not hit anyone (most of the kids were out of the woods by then anyway). I don't recall too many "nature walks" after that!
Do You Remember Accidentally breaking school property? I remember trying to hang my coat up (1st grade) in Pines School and the damn thing kept coming off the hook. Angered, I took the coat and jammed it on the hook with my full strength and then I heard a loud "PING"... the metal hook broke! Anger instantly turned to fear... what if someone saw me? Surely no one would pass up such an opportunity to report me to the teacher! I then had to try and make like nothing happened so that I did not end up in the principal's office!
Do You Remember Mr. Nelligan's science class? Linda Welsh and Lisa Vignealt (I think) were working on an experiment that involved heating some copper compound in a crucible. For reasons unknown their apparatus collapsed, with the accompanying sound of breaking glass. The crucible was lying there on the bench on its side, the bottom busted out, and the copper compound contents were spilled all over the place. Lisa and Linda were standing there with "now what" looks on their faces. The crashing noise caught the attention of Mr. Nelligan. He then came over, and when he caught sight of busted crucible, broken glass and tangled apparatus, he grabbed hold of his head with both hands as if to keep it from popping off. He was so angry he could not talk!!!!
Do You Remember Miss Lynch getting smacked in the throat with a tennis ball in indoor gym? _______ was fooling around and turned around and whipped a tennis ball. Not intending to do so, it hit Miss Lynch square in the throat on the other side of the gym. She collapsed in tears, a number of girls in the class came to her aid, while ______ (probably scared out his mind) tried to disappear into the crowd... Despite being a wild kid, I think deep down he knew he had done something that he really did not intend to do. (he's a good kid today).
Do You Remember Occasionally seeing someone falling down the staircases between J-K and M hall? What a site to see a body falling down, limbs flailing, books and papers sailing in every direction! And then they'd have to get up and make like everythign was cool, even though they knew that everyone witnessed the person making a complete fool of themselves!
Do You Remember The principal Mrs. Strauss at Pines School?
Do You Remember The book sales they would have at Pines School? Some of the teachers (Mrs. Frangie for one) were having a fit because kids were buying books like "Dennis the Menace" instead of something more educational!
Do You Remember Playing "Kill the guy with the ball"! (I bet that would go over big today... some schools have banned dodgeball!)
Do You Remember The song "Afternoon Delight" by Starland Vocal Band (May 1976) being nearly banned because it was too suggestive? Compared to today's music that song is below G rated!
Do You Remember Mr. Tipaldi's freshman English class? We had to read various books for assignments. Ann McGranaghan came into class one day and her paperback book ("Dibbs: In Search of Self") was torn clean in half! She explained to Mr. Tipaldi that she did not do it, someone else (some strong guy) must have. Mr. Tipaldi looked at the shredded book and after a short pause looked at Ann and said "I guess he didn't like the book"!
Do You Remember Hating to have to do "book reports"? How many times kids made up the story because they did not want to read the book? One time I had to do a book report on "House of the Seven Gables". It was so boring (to me at the time) that I could not finish it. So, I made up the ending and put my fake ending in a book report! I was praying that Mr. Donaldson was not familiar with this book. I got a good grade on it so he must never had read this book! (got away with one... funny however this is one of the few book reports I can remember details about 40+ years later!)
Do You Remember Talking about the future in class? I remember Leslie Lindsay saying "If all goes as planned, I'll be 40 in the year 2000!" (where the hell does the time go???)
Do You Remember Having arm wrestling contests in Junior High? Joe Roberts was able to beat quite a few of the kids at this. However, John Hoffman kept saying "arm wrestle Sharon Usher!" I was reluctant to do so, as it was pretty well known that Sharon was quite strong and I was not at all confident that I could beat her! Luckily the match never occurred... losing to a girl would have meant total humiliation in Junior High!
Do You Remember In grade school when the teacher would say "Put on your thinking caps", and everyone would pretend to put on some invisible hat? (did this really make anyone think better?)
Do You Remember (for the guys) the coming of the spring season? What a great time of year... many of the girls would start wearing more provocative and revealing clothing... it's a wonder any (academic) studying got done in May and June!
Do You Remember In Junior High school, Mr. Newsome's classroom was directly above Mr. Koslowski's room. Before classes officially started (and when Mr. Newsome was out of the room), kids would pound the floor with their feet to create noise to aggravate Mr. Koslowski in the room below. One day this got out of hand... kids were relentlessly pounding the floor with their feet (the floor resonated with a strong low frequency vibration). Gary Jarvie (a big kid) then got up onto the top of a desk and jumped off! Just as he did this the teacher from the next room came in and saw him land with a tremendous "boom" resulting! The racket down below must have been quite significant because Mr. koslowski came up to see what the "problem" was!!!
Do You Remember In another floor pounding incident... Joe Roberts and Mike Schmidt were pounding the floor with Mr. Newsome present at the other end of the room. We thought we were being inconspicuous enough, however Mr. Newsome suddenly blurted out "STOP POUNDING THE FLOOR!!!"
Do You Remember Having to do "current events" on Friday in social studies (junior high)? Mr. Newsome would get ticked off when people brought in newspaper articles about accidents. He would say "Yeah, we feel sorry for the family who's Winnebago careened off a cliff resulting in all those deaths... but that is not a current event!" He would have a fit when someone got up anyway and read another accident report! He wanted things like Watergate... Vietnam... China relations... etc.
Do You Remember Playing floor hockey in gym? We were in the big gym playing floor hockey one day. The ball was cornered in a tight area, and kids were trying like crazy to get it out. In the process, wildly thrashing hockey sticks were hitting people in the shins. Bob Moynihan said "Watch that stick!" as he got hit a few times. The thrashing continued to escalate, and he yelled out (in a rather pissed tone) "WATCH THAT $%^#*&@! STICK!"
Do You Remember The first time you heard the song "Playground in my Mind" by Clint Holmes? John Levesque did... in the boys locker room in junior high, he said "When I heard that song come on the radio I almost puked up the McDonalds hamburger I was eating at the time!"
Do You Remember The day at Minnechaug when we had three bomb scares in one day!
Do You Remember In grade school when Joe Roberts slammed a music book closed after the lesson? The teacher was royally pissed and said "OPEN THAT BOOK BACK UP AND CLOSE IT PROPERLY!"
Do You Remember When teachers had to give lectures about copying stuff? Often, we were assigned to report on some topic. Some kids would simply copy (verbatim) the write-up right out of the encyclopedia! Teachers got quite pissed when this was the case!
Do You Remember Having to do oral book reports?
Do You Remember Tim Rymasz driving his parent's Lincoln Continental? He floored it, however the gas pedal became jammed down when he tried to let up on the gas! He jammed on the breaks, but the powerful 460 cubic inch engine was fighting wildly! Smoke was POURING out of the brakes by the time he got the car to stop!
Do You Remember The cafeteria food that kids called "gravy train"? It was supposed to be hamburg and gravy, but it sure looked a lot like the famous dog food!
Do You Remember Having to cover books (either with brown paper bags or commercially available covers) within the first few days of school? How about when they got all beat up? Teachers would be hownding kids to get those book covers replaced!
Do You Remember At Memorial School, coming into class on Monday and finding your desk internals in total disarray? Saturday religion classes in the same classrooms, and the teachers would have little control of what the kids were doing when they weren't looking!
Do You Remember Positioning yourself in a strategic place in the hallway to see someone you secretly admired walk by (hoping of course that the person would notice you and say "hi!")?
Do You Remember Mr. Sternberg chewing out the class in biology? There was some kind of genetic experiment going on with fruit flies, and someone was careless and either lost important notes (or never took them). As a result, the mulit-day experiment was basically botched. Mr. Sternberg was quite pissed, started lecturing the class, cuminating the lecture with "you RUINED the Experiment!!!"
Do You Remember The times we got to go to school at night to so that teachers, students and parents could meet? Mr. Koslowski really pissed off one parent as I recall. I was standing nearby while a parent was talking to Mr. Koslowski about their son not being able to understand things in class. The conversation became a little more intense, then Mr. Koslowski said (fairly loudy in his nasal voice) "Well, your son has a problem!" The parent looked like they were ready to punch Mr. Koslowski in the face!
Do You Remember More dorky stuff from Spanish class? We had to talk like we were with friends talking about various "kid" things. For example, one conversation went something like this: "Did you here about Paco? The poor boy had an automobile accident; he hit is head." Partial translation to Spanish: "El chico pobrecito tovu accidente del coche."
Do You Remember Pop Tarts? Pete Chapin and I looked at the vitamin content of a typical Pop Tart and concluded that one would need to eat 60 Pop Tarts per day to guarantee a minimum intake of 100% of all vitamins in Pop Tarts. Both of us would have been well served had we also taken a class on the basics of proper nutrition. An average Pop Tart is about 150 calories, and eating 60 of them a day (assuming one did not get sick) would result in a daily caloric intake of 9000 calories (about 4 times the normal amount for a normal person)!
Do You Remember The art of picking up girls? A friend of mine had some things to learn about flattery. There was an otherwise decent looking chick walking by in D hall and her fingernails were painted black. My friend said to her "Are they (your fingernails) rotting?" She shot a dirty look... I don't think that was the best of lines to use if getting a date was the objective!!!
Do You Remember Kids who would memeorize the value of pi out to dozens of decimal places? Some of them would walk around saying "3.1415926525.......". The parents were probably swearing "Damn kid can memorize some stupid number out to 65 decimal places but he can't remember to bring the damn trash out!"
Do You Remember When someone was acting retarded? One typical response was "It's OK, he just got released from Monson State!" ("Monson State" refered to the now defunct Monson State Hospital)
Do You Remember your memory here!!!

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