High school memories

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

When I started school in '49 at the tender age of five ,I clearly remember lining up in the school yard in classes and marching into school ,directly to our class room...I can't remember his name but I'm sure he was ex-military,teacher..
Brush cut ,high and white..ram rod straight and could bark at kids across the yard and make them pee them selves from fright...patrolled around the yard while waiting for the enter bell with a wooden pointer under his arm,much the same way as the RSM carries his pace stick..
The method of disciplining kids that he caught unaware by coming up behind them,would have him in jail today..He would grab a pinch of hair ,high on the offenders neck and give it a jerk upward..
He could hang knots on your head faster than you could rub them...with his one center knuckle..he would bring tears to the eyes of kids that were friggin' around,with a quick snap of his fingers to the center of ones forehead..much like one would flick a booger or a fly...one sees stars and tears come to the eye..
I'm sure he was a great teacher,but I know he was a disciplinarian from the old school..
It's too bad that kind of discipline has gone out with modern "Political Correctness"...If we had that man today ,and a million more like him ,running our schools,we would never have a problem with our kids on the street..or any where else..

Later in high school we had a teacher that came from Cape Breton..His whole family worked the coal mines for generations and he told us his story ..He too worked the coal mines after high school..the first in his family to do so..
He saved enough money to go to University and get a teaching degree..and escaped the coal mines forever...Taught us English..He was a huge man..Had to be 6'6" if he wqas an inch..when he stood at the front of the class and read from what ever play we were studying that day,you could only see the odd corner of the book sticking out from his monstrous hands..
IN the late fifties and early 60's we all wore black leather jackets ,of course and although I didn't witness it ,heard that my brother ,a few grades ahead of me was friggin' around in his English class and annoying MR.Big...well sir,..That man covered the distance between them in about two step and had my brother by the shirt/leather jacket/front and pulled him out of his desk and slammed him into the wall...They say my brother had at least three feet clearance between his feet and the floor as he listened to Mr.Bigs voice on full volume,just inches from his face,telling him how he will act in HIS ENGLISH classes...

These educators are gone now...and we are the worst for it...bless the hard men that survived the war and came home to teach us the difference between right and wrong...
Our Veterans..
Bless 'em all..