Pearl’s Harbor
The high stakes state test, known as the End Of Course Test, was given a month before the end of the courses. Now students pretty much figure that school is over. Teachers, who bore the burden of testing, and all the threats and humiliation that went with it, also figure that school is over. So, we’ve entered the entertainment phase of the school year. I especially admire Mr. Halpern. Halpern is having his kids write movie reviews. On his desk is a stack of DVD’s like two feet high.
Which reminds me of “Pearl’s Harbor”. A couple of years ago, I was teaching history. I got to World War II, and remembered seeing a tape on Pearl Harbor. Right after I found the tape, I passed Mr. North’s room. It was just a few minutes until the next class. So North asks me if I’d like to check the tape, see if it’s the right one, see if it needs to be rewound and like that. He’s got a TV, with the VCR bit, right inside his room. His kids just finished a tape on The Depression. So I say OK, and he slides in the tape.
It’s porn. And I don’t mean some Saturday night Showtime a little T & A light porn. I mean “money shot” porn. I just flung my body across the TV screen, trying to hide it from the kids. North didn’t bother with the eject button. He just ripped the tape out of the machine, and to hell with the ripped fingernails. He made a show of publicly throwing the tape away, although I don’t think any of the kids saw it.
Which lead us to the best part of this escapade. Which of our colleagues made it? Our guess is that someone taped some porn, then taped “Pearl Harbor” over it, accidentally leaving a small section of porn still on the tape. My best guess was the Austins, a married couple that retired a few years ago. But, if the truth be known, it could have been any of us.
Speaking of sex, then there was the workshop with Margaret. The workshop was at the beginning of the year, and was, as is usual with academic workshops, inane.
So, in the last half-hour, we’re asked to make circles, and “Discuss a time when you were given instructions that were very frustrating.” Someone, at the next table, is discussing assembling a Christmas present. Someone, in my group, asks if anyone has a quaalude. Finally, Margaret says, in her deeply British accent, “Well, I’ll start. Last night, I couldn’t figure out whether the instructions called for batteries, or if I need a cord for my new vibrator. It was very frustrating.”
_____