Spinning The Principal

By the time I got to 6th grade, Mr. Honey (pronounced Hone-ey) was not only the principal of Larkin Street School, but he was the 6th grade teacher as well.  I guess he figured all 6th graders at his school needed a special kick in the butt before entering Junior High School and he was just the man for that dubious distinction.  For the most part, I'd give him an A for being a good teacher, but an F for being a horrible, hardass principal. 

Our class was probably average sized for that time period.  There was roughly twenty of us to his one.   Class sizes had shrunk considerably a few year before when Dow Air Force Base was decommissioned.  Out of those 20 or so in my 6th grade class, today I can only remember a handful of people's names: Mike, Rod, Noreen, Margie, Sherry, Dana, Nancy, Bart, Junior, Carol, Cheryl and Colleen.  I guess that's a pretty big handful, isn't it? 

On many occasions Mr. Honey not only taught us the standard 6th grade curriculum, but he tried to prepare us for life as best he could. I remember him telling us that statistically speaking one of us wouldn't make it to adulthood. What? One of us would die?  His words, I'm sure, were said to make all of us a little more watchful of our own actions and the actions of others, however; I doubt his words were remembered by many after he spoke them.  After all, at that age, aren't we all invincible?  His words have definitely resonated in my head a few times along the way and for awhile I believed I was going to be that statistic.  But lo and behold not only did I fool myself, I fooled many others who had the same thought.

Sixth grade was definitely a year of spreading my wings and learning to think outside the box.  Until this point I was a good kid and a good student.  Sure, I was a little on the chatty side and my mouth seemed to always be described in detail in notes on my report cards.  I even earned the nickname "Gabby" when I was younger and thank God it didn't stick!  I had in many instances learned that clowning around and running my mouth was a good cover for what was really going on underneath.

Mr. Honey fell from my grace the day he suspended several of us from school because he knew all of us would have to face our parents as well.  Kids rarely use their brains when being mischievous especially kids with poor impulse control.  Planning things out is a learned behavior and comes with experience.  A bunch of us had decided to play spin the bottle after school with a glass milk bottle one of us had stolen from inside the school.  We selected a secluded corner of the schoolyard in back of the school for the spot to make our circle.  None of us gave a thought to teachers still being inside the school.  We all thought the spot we had selected was safe from any prying eyes.  In reality, I'm sure whatever teacher witnessed this spectacle was amused by what she saw, but such unruly actions had to be severely dealt with by administering a punishment that would keep us all from doing anything like that again. Suspension was what Mr. Honey selected and all that did for me was make me want to test authority all the more.

Addendum:  I can't count this as my first official kiss because I didn't get kissed because the game was rudely interrupted before that could happen. I hate when that happens! These are just some of the woes of being a clueless, numb as a stump 11 year old who got suspended from school for playing spin the bottle!

The Rock Psychosis

My family has a rock psychosis. Maybe I should call it a fetish to be more polite, but I've always called a spade a spade and in this case, a rock a rock.  I don't know exactly why, when or where it started, but my first recollection that something was amiss in the genepool was when I found out about my grandfather Ingalls' rock collection.  When my daughter was a young girl, my mother and step-father would take her to Maine whenever they went.  When she was about 8, she came back to Florida with tales of her great grandfather's rock collection.

He had asked her if she wanted to see his rock collection when they visited him.  What she was expecting to see was small samples of various types of rocks, so when he opened the dresser drawers in his bedroom that housed his rock collection she was surprised by what she saw.  All the drawers in the room were crammed full of rocks of all shapes and sizes that he had found on the ground wherever he went. None of them were colorful or in any way special except to him. She concluded her story by telling me that he must be crazy.  Although I did tell her it wasn't very nice to say that about anyone, in reality, she had hit the nail directly on the head. I was silently proud of my daughter for being so astute at such a young age.

As the fever grew and spread, my mother and my oldest brother developed the psychosis.  In the beginning, my mother would bring rocks home from Maine to use as doorstops or various other things.  I guess that was acceptable, but when I went to Maine one year and used the car she kept there to use during her extended stays, I found rocks in the trunk and under the front seat. All I could do was shake my head when I made the discovery.  As my mother started her collection my oldest brother started building stone walls on his property at the same time. Everyone was quite impressed by all he had done. His stone walls were beautiful! Everyone knows it takes a certain eye to be able to look at a rock elsewhere and know it's just the right shape and size to go in a certain spot in the wall you've been building.  I think the fever really took hold of him when he skillfully lined the ditches in front of his property with rocks.  It looked wonderful, but unfortunately, he was forced to remove all his ditch work due to some county ordinance. Unfortunately, Big Brother was apparently watching my big brother!  I prefer to think it was probably some jealous neighbor who had rock envy who ratted him out and not some county official riding around looking for ordinance violations.

   

Old Lady With Sagging Breasts

BLOTUS

I was selective in which rocks I hauled back to Florida.  They all had to come from a loved one's yard so each one would have good mojo in them.  It was like bringing a part of that person back with me.  My rocks found a new home in my flower garden. Florida is rather barren where rocks are concerned, so I have to get my "rock fix" while traveling.  After strategically stacking my rocks and closely scrutinizing the structure I had built, I dubbed it "Old Lady With Sagging Breasts".

When my daughter and her husband went to Europe last year, I forbid her to buy any gifts for me while she was traveling. I told her to pick up some rocks from the ground for me from the places they went. When she came back, she presented me with a jar full of rocks that had been bagged and tagged. I laughed and told her that the Pope had probably peed on the one from the Vatican. She assured me that she had washed all the rocks before putting them into baggies. When she had visited Berlin many years ago, I asked her to bring me back a piece of the Berlin Wall. Of course, she did as I asked and I think that may be my favorite rock/piece of concrete or whatever material the Berlin Wall was made from.

As my "large" rock collection grew, I decided to disassemble "Old Lady With Sagging Breasts" and replace it with a larger statue. I had no particular idea in my head when I sat on the ground and built a new statue. My daughter says it looks like a gorilla. Initially, before I attached a penis to it, I said it reminded me of Angelina Jolie (it must have been the lips) [lol]. My youngest son said it reminds him of an alien. What do you think? He ultimately was given the name BLOTUS.