Miss Drew was a great English teacher. She was knowledgeable and had great teaching skills. She was soft-spoken and had smiley personality. She was easy to get along with and, for the boys, almost easy to look at. Great body, great. The only drawback was her eyes. She had two of them and they were in the right places. The flaw was that one was pointed to the right even if the other one wasn’t.

You could never be certain whether or not she was looking at you or the birds outside. You’d be afraid to pass a note because she might be looking right at you. You’d take a chance and pass the note on only to have her tell you to stand up and read it aloud. Truth is, it was creepy.

Creepy was the prevailing description for Mr. Gregory, another English teacher. In a day when gay meant jolly, he wasn’t. But he indisputably was gay. To conceal this fact, he’d treat the girls better than the boys, though his heart wasn’t in it. No girl ever got less than a C. No pretty girl ever got less than a B. A stacked cheerleader had her A no matter what.

One of the guys wrote an English report on it, disguising the name, making the indictment and authenticating it. He wasn’t one of Mr. Gregory’s students and he didn’t name Gregory as such, but got suspended for it anyway.

“If I’d a been a pretty girl, I’d a got away with it”, he complained.

“If you’d been an ugly girl you’d a got away with it. Whanna know something? You’d be an ugly girl”, one friend said.

“You’re an ugly boy”, one of the girls told him. “I don’t mean just your looks either.”

Mr. Emory was ugly on the inside. He wasn’t an English teacher but he was married to one. A lot of people were convinced he was a homo but he wasn’t. He was just a pompous, haughty pretentious ass. He was a stickler for detail. One misspelled word got the whole report crossed out with red ink. That meant you not only had to correct the misspelling but rewrite the whole report. Mrs. Emory was nice as nice could be but everyone who had Mr. Emory hated her on principle.

The principal was an ex-WWII Marine who never got over that mentality. He didn’t ask a student a question so much as he bellowed it out. Getting called down to his office was a traumatic experience even if all he wanted was to bellow out that he’d like you to serve on some student activity committee.

He was the one who instituted the three finger rule. If a teacher couldn’t put three fingers between your eyebrow and your hairline, your hair was too long. That was fine if the teacher was Miss Stillman. She was just a wee little thing. If it was Mr. Carloski, the football coach and guidance counselor, you’d have to have your hairline in the back of your head.

“My God, my eyebrow, I only have one, is the same as my hairline”, one guy said. He was right too. He looked like he had escaped from the gorilla compound at the zoo.

The principal also decided that if you couldn’t get your pants off without removing your shoes, the pants were too tight. If a girl couldn’t kneel and have her dress touch the floor, it was too short. If your sweater had buttons, it was okay. If not, you had to wear a shirt under it. The buttons on the shirt didn’t have to be buttoned since they didn’t show .

His rules finally led to a student sit-down. All his bellowing didn’t get them to return to their classes. His warning of suspension fell on deaf ears. Finally, he called the police. He called the police of a small town. The cop who got there, Patrolman Henry Culver, was the father of one of the sittees. Yet, being as this was a small town, it was still a major crime.

“Okay, what do you want me to do about this? You’re the principal”, Culver said.

“I want you to make them return to their classes! Why else would I call you?”, the principal bellowed.

“I really can’t order them to do that. That’s not exactly a crime.”

“They’re sitting in the hallways, disobeying me! What breed of cop are you!?”, the principal bellowed.

That was two mistakes rolled into one. First, he bellowed at Culver. Culver hadn’t been bellowed at since his Marine days during WWII. He didn’t like it then and didn’t like it now. Secondly, his esteem as a cop was being challenged. He didn’t like that any better.

“Oh. Well, I can’t make them return to class. That’s a school thing. Here’s what I can do. Kids! Listen up! Sitting in the hallways like this is illegal. You either have to return to class or, ready? Either go back to class or leave the school. Your choice.”

Of course, this was a long time ago. These were the good old days the boomers are always talking about.