I have had some memorable, fantastic, caring and inspiring teachers. And then there was Mr. N.
Mr. N was very short and his lack of height was exacerbated by the size of his head. He looked like a bobble doll that rode on a dashboard of a GTO. He lacked any teaching skills whatsoever.
I had the unfortunate luck to have Mr. N for both an English and a history class in two different semesters. He made no bones about the fact he just didn’t like us. He was humorless, uninspired, and uninspiring. And he wasn’t even retirement age.
It was in his class that I perfected my “married woman” signatures; writing “Mrs. Steve Stone”, “Mrs. Kristie Stone” over and over. It was also in his class that I selected my children’s names: twin boys would be named Kirk and Kyle….or maybe Keir. Keir Dullea had just made “David and Lisa” and seemed very exotic. Oddly, I never selected a daughter’s name. Prophetic perhaps. And thirty years later I named our son Keir.
In his English class Mr. N would write a weekly list of vocabulary words on the side blackboard. The only one that I remember was “buxom.” He droned on about Greek gods and goddesses while I stared out at the gym field wishing I could be out in the smog playing softball.
Once, our 8th grade class got together and agreed that everyone would shove their books off their desks at an appointed hour. Deliciously anticipating this prank, we pretended to be interested in whatever it was Mr. N was saying. When the time came, we slammed our books to the linoleum in unison. He was not amused. He just stood there rubbing his giant forehead. The only words I can ever remember him saying—while he rubbed the dolphin-esque brow were “Take your seat.”
In his history class, from which I remember absolutely nothing except my grade, things were no better. I missed two weeks of it because of very bad case of poison oak and got a D. Yep, a D in 8th grade social studies. And now I teach it. Granted, I got the grade up to a B by the end of the semester, but it was my first experience of having a grade on the “dark side.”
I hope Mr. N left teaching and got into something he liked. He did go on a bit about martial arts. Maybe he found solace somewhere in that field.
"Kristie Smithson, take yoah seat."
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