I’ve written about the 1970s before. For those of us growing up in the 70s, it was an interesting time. For some unknown reason, I recently found myself remembering and relating the following story to my wife. It was her suggestion that this is column worthy, so here goes… In my junior high and high school years, I attended a low-budget private school. There I received an excellent education, but as students our academic progress was perhaps not always made in the safest of circumstances.
I should preface this story with an explanation. To over generalize, our student body could be classed into two main groups. We had the regular normal kids (nerds, geeks, jocks, cheerleaders, motorheads, band kids, chess club members, etc.), and then we had another group of students that made up a significant por tion of our school population. We called these kids the loadies. Many of these students had been expelled from the public school system. As a private school, we needed all the tuition dollars that we could get, so our school accepted them, warts and all. We got used to cohabitating with this borderline criminal element. In some ways, they made school much more interesting.
Every semester we had the option of selecting one elective class. Selection was limited however. I remember only Spanish, art, and typing.
I liked art, but avoided it for most of my school career, in the interest of self-preservation. Art class was always full of the loadies. But a guy can only take so much Spanish and typing. In ninth-grade, I made the jump. Art class was a zoo. Almost anything could happen there. I well remember the day of blood. One of my fellow classmates, while working on some kind of clay sculpture project, in a gesture of wild abandon, decided to fling his putty knife across the room. I happened to be sitting across the room. My head met his knife, and thus we had the day of blood. I survived, and it made for a good story. But serious clean-up was involved.
The most memorable and recurring event ever to take place in art class involved Moses and his lighter. I should first mention that our art teacher, Mrs. Young, was not overly diligent. She was elderly (in her eighties - so her name did not fit) and perhaps not the best choice for supervision and instruction in art class when many present were aspiring felons. Mrs. Young had this habit of frequently stepping out of class and into the hall. We were never sure what she was doing out there, but I’m guessing she was servicing a nicotine addiction and probably just having a quick smoke. This was 1975.
The most dangerous character in the class was Moses. Moses was not his real name, that’s just what he called himself. We called him Moses as well. Moses was a smoker and a joker and a midnight toker (think Bender in The Breakfast Club).
Moses was in art class every day, kept a can of spray paint at hand, and always had his lighter ready. What happened most days in art class was breathtaking to see, and we watched and waited for it with both anticipation and trepidation. The moment that Mrs. Young would step out of the room, Moses would flick his lighter, clamp down on the spray button, and launch flame across the room. It was always thrilling! We would wait patiently for Mrs. Young to step outside. Some days she would pop out of the room more than once. The minute she closed the door, Moses would let the fire fly. We learned never to sit near Moses. We gave him a wide berth, with plenty of empty seats all around. Some kids would even stand at the back of the room rather than take a seat. Never once did Mrs. Young catch on. And we all lived.
Moses sure used a lot of paint cans that year, but Mrs. Young never seemed to notice.
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