As I was belatedly putting away my Mother’s christmas ornaments this morning I was thinking about how strange it is that I’ve developed a reputation for being something of a hell raiser. I don’t think I’m a whit different inside than I was back in my school days. Back then I was a bit of a goody-two-shoes.
I still remember the most daring thing I did all through-out high school that violated school policy. As a senior I let myself get badgered into taking a fake hall pass into Mrs. Beech’s classroom to give to Barb Shelhorn. It was spring so I almost got through four years of high school without a misdemeanor but I let Jim Robinson harangue me into it. I was minding my own business, probably in a study hall, when he handed me a pink hall pass with Barb’s name and some forged adult’s signature. He asked me to go to Beech’s class, knock on the door and say I had a pass for Barb. Mrs. Beech looked at me hard when I did this but let me come into her class to give Barb the pass. Barb left with me and met Jim in the hallway.
It was not exactly Ferris Beuhler’s Day Off. Sample Dialogue: “Oh, I’m sorry. I can’t come to the door right now. I’m afraid that in my weakened condition, I could take a nasty spill down the stairs and subject myself to further school absences.” But today I’m rather more enamored of Ferris at least compared to the stifling of creativity by orthodoxy.
Ah, but pardon me. I must go out an buy the latest copy of Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised. It’s in its 11th edition. I did like to sing “I fought the law but the law won” by the Bobby Fuller Four but I’m still not a rebel. It was a horrible song and so damned singable.
