Senior Year English My Year of Solitude
Maybe not the exact window, but this is close.
Part 1
As an administrator, I often work with kids who are very similar to the way I was when I was a middle/high school student. It’s uncanny. I hear words coming out of my mouth, that I know I heard as a student, but did not listen to.
I’ve grown up and am a contributing member of our society and 99% of the time have a positive impact on the world. I was deficient in good decisions making skills, lacked organization, was immature (maybe at times still am), and was a Goodtime Charley (Listen Here). My dad called me that.
I started early and never really matured at the same speed as everyone else. My immaturity is evident in the following story.
I was smart but lazy. Maybe too smart and too lazy. I would pace myself when doing work in class as to not finish to early and get assigned more of the same job I just finished. Why end something fast, teachers back then only gave you more work. It didn’t and still doesn’t make sense.
(Sidenote) It was a long day at school, and I can’t write about the events other than the great School Pictures fiasco of 2018, but that’s boring and old news. Everyone got their pictures, but for a moment it felt like there was going to be an Anchorman fight scene in the auditorium between the secretaries, the administration, and Life Touch. Not really, just a little misunderstanding.
Senior Year English.
Shawn is my best friend; Jimmy is my other best friend. We have been best friends since 1992. Imagine all of the typical best friend stuff and that is us. We go on a guy trip each year, and text almost daily. We also started a club at school and were the only three members, (Another hilarious story for another day), but you had to have six to become an official club.
The three of us ended up in the same English class for our Senior year. It is a dream come true until about day 10 or so of class. I don’t remember what happened that made her upset.
I do remember getting a new seat, and my parents got a call and email. It is 1996; the internet transition was in full swing. We had dial-up, and it sounded like this…
I got in trouble at home. A lot of trouble. My dad is pissed. My dad works at the High School I attended (Mountain View High School) in Orem, Utah. My mom is pissed. She is on the school board in Alpine School District, and yes they both know the principal very well.
My new seat is freaking ridiculous. Not awesome ridiculous, but freaking stupid. There are six rows of five chairs. Mrs. Bodily put me in the first row in the back seat with one empty place in front of me, next to me, and kitty-corner to me. She put me in solitude.
Sometimes when she passes out papers, I know she purposely forgets to pass enough down the row for me to get one. Once a week, I have to go up to the front of the room and grab one from her or off her desk. Stupid. Can you feel my angst in the situation?
It’s like I had leprosy or something. I’m not joking; it is pretty evil.
(Side Note) I saw Mrs. Bodily before she retired from teaching (She died a few years ago), and I shared one last gift for her. My parting shot was letting her know that I too was going to teach the youth of America the Art of Language. The look on her face was priceless.
“Seriously, what is the world coming to?” They are going to let you be the adult in a room full of 35-40 kids and teach them Literature?” “Let me die now.” She didn’t say that; it’s just what I think she was thinking. She was very gracious and kind. Back to the Year of Solitude.
At some point during the year, Mrs. Bodily gives us the assignment to create a silent monologue or to act something out in front of the class. I don’t do it. Well, I don’t have anything prepared.
Honestly, this is when I am at my best. And on this day I did not disappoint. I’m sure I disappointed her, cause she kicked me out of class. But I didn’t disappoint the rest of the class or my best friends who still share the following story.
And like most good stories. It has gotten better over time, but also ebbs and flows of truth and memory.
It is clear when she calls my name that I’m unprepared, or that I even had an idea of what the crap was going on. You see back in my chair, in solitude land, I made a new friend. My new best friend, the window, is always open and willing to let me look out at Mount Timpanogos and the old brick building known as the Orem Rec Center.
The window and I have some great times that year. I spend a lot of time looking out that window imagining what life would be like when I was out English class. That day I found out.
As I walk to the front of the room, my mind races back to the assignment, that wasn’t ever passed back to me by the teacher. The one I had to walk to the front of the room and ask for. I remember a few specifics; I can’t t talk, I can’t use props, and it has to be less than a minute.
I have an epiphany, no a theophany; God is going to save me. I told her I was ready and then moved to the front of the class.
I start to act out something in front of the other kids in class. Shawn and Jimmy know what is happening immediately and start smiling and then giggling, then others in the class join in. When the entire class is laughing hysterically, she, the teacher, figuratively sucker punches me.
Before I finish my masterpiece, Mrs. Bodily kicks me out of the class and tells me to go sit out in the hall. As I walk out of the room, I receive a momentous, no, thunderous standing ovation and flowers land at my feet as I walk to the hallway. I know Shawn and Jimmy loved it. And that’s all that mattered.
“What were you thinking?” She said. “We are not done.”
“Okay.” I sheepishly replied. “I know we aren’t.”
What was I thinking… I thought that I had just completed the most exceptional acting job in the history of Senior Year English class.
Here’s what I did.
I stood in front of the class, silent, and without props and I proceeded to (use your imagination here) open a door, then close the door, grab a newspaper, then drop my pants, sit on a toilet, read the paper, make grunting sounds, turn my face a bright red, be constipated, be really constipated, and then unload fecal matter into the toilet, (This is when I got kicked out). A masterpiece in more ways than one.
Part 2 tomorrow.