Aramis - The Agent Orange of Middle School

If you've ever been a teacher of 5th and 6th grade boys, you have likely been on the receiving end of something little short of a chemical warfare attack. You may be suffering its after effects to this day.As puberty strikes boys between the ages of 11 and 13, for some inexplicable reason, their little bodies express this sudden effluence of testosterone by making their feet go bad. Bad is, perhaps, a wholly inadequate word for what happens within the confines of a 6th grade boy's tennis shoes.

The military is always experimenting with doomsday weaponry; I feel they have missed something by not collecting and testing middle school boys' sweaty sneakers from their school lockers. The smell coming from a roomful of sixth grade boys in the throes of pubescent is quite over-whelming. Imagine being a teacher trapped in that classroom, day after day, unable to leave. And unlike factory workers, garbage men and sewer staff, middle-school teachers are not required by OSHA or even allowed by the school board to wear surgical masks soaked in disinfectant, to wrap their faces in a wet bandanna or to break out a war surplus gas mask. School authorities, of course, fear that to do such a thing on the part of the teacher would be to damage the self-esteem of the precious snowflakes we are raising them to be.

It was actually better back in my day because Keene Public School had no air-conditioning. Mrs. Webb, my sixth grade teacher God rest her soul, used to open all the windows in the classroom and turn the big stand fans, that we had back in those prehistoric times, so that they would face outward. She sometimes did this in the wintertime. I remember my pencil once iced up during a math class.

During WWII middle school teachers often held extended gas mask drills ostensibly so that the children could "get used to breathing in the things". Shropshire sixth grade teacher Dudley Ramsbottom actually made a formal proposal to his school board to make the masks standard equipment in grades 5 through 8 classrooms. Sadly, nothing ever came of his excellent idea, much to the disappointment of middle school teachers throughout England who had rather enjoyed the brief respite from the combined fumes of strong cheap cologne and really bad feet afforded by the drills.

The worst part of it is that, what with the surge of youthful hormones suddenly bringing the presence of girls to the attention of these budding young Lotharios, they are suddenly struck with the idea that some sort of masculine scent would be appropriate at this juncture. The human nose is strangely immune to scents emanating from its own body. It is perhaps this biological self-defense method which seems to protect the boys from the pungent fumes rising from below their school desks. This scent-dampening effect may be the reason boys are drawn to cologne scents strong enough to peel paint off the walls of the classroom. These guys are not even trying to mask the smell of their sneakers. They are blissfully unaware of it. 

Now imagine yourself a teacher facing a roomful of adolescent boys, their shoes giving off toxic fumes and their necks emitting an array of powerful scents from the most pungent colognes they can buy with their paper route money. In my day, the favored scent seemed to be Aramis.  There were other less powerful knockoffs that were tried, but for the recently sexually awakened 12 year old male, there is nothing quite like Aramis. It makes little girls swoon and teachers cry.

It's a wonder Aramis didn't use that as a slogan in their commercials!  Just looking at a picture of the bottle still makes my eyes water.

Tom King © 2016

Over the Garden Wall - My Debut Role as a Troll

Keene Public School's 1964 Production of "Over the Garden Wall"

It was 1964 and I was about to make my first appearance as an actor in a musical. The 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grades were staging Keene Public School's musical production of "Over the Garden Wall", a play based loosely on Mother Goose stories and rhymes.

This picture takes me back. I can't identify everybody, but I do know a few of them.

The farmer types on the far left are Barney McClure (my cousin) and Elaine Ferguson as "Jack and Jill". Famous future Dentist, John Barroso is sitting on a ladder behind them starring as "The Sun". The first butterfly on the left is Amma Sue Johnson. Behind her to the right are the Washington brothers, Manuel and Phillip. Continuing right are Patsy Marshall and Wanda Davis (the first girl I ever had a date - it was a disaster, don't ask). The bluebird was, I think, David Carver. And last but not least in this rogues gallery is the white-beared dude dressed all in black - Tom King my own self, as Mother Goose's hit troll. My character abruptly enters stage right and threatens to abduct Jack and Jill and take them to a dark cave. I think they needed to end the play and couldn't figure out how since it didn't have much in the way of a plot. So the writer apparently decide, "I know. Let's send in a troll!"

And to make matters even more weird, I was a singing troll. I sang my threats to the children - ominously, as I had been told by Mrs. Webb, the fifth and sixth grade teacher and director of the play.

You'd never get a character like that troll in a children's play these days. Too creepy! I was like this really short pervert troll enforcer for Mother Goose. What's weirder, if you can believe it is that I can still sing the stupid song to this day.

I missed most of the play myself because I was hiding backstage in utter terror and praying to God for strength to go out there and sing in front of all those people (I was in 3rd grade and terribly shy). 
But I did it:

Naughty, naughty children
Go home and go do bed,
Or I will quickly take you
To caverns dark and dread.
Mother Goose is looking
For you every where.
So beware..............BEEEEEEEWAAAAAAAAAAARE!

See, I told you I still remembered the stupid song. I ought to. I sat in an oak tree for two days memorizing that song because I was so scared I'd forget the lines. I could do it better now, because I have a deeper voice. Sounded more like a Munchkin than a dangerous troll back in 3rd grade.

Later when I became a teacher, I remembered that moment of stage fright when doing school productions with my own students and tried to remember how traumatizing that first acting job was.

Two years later I played Pinocchio in our 6th grade play. Star of the show I was, what with being Mrs. Webb's favorite actor and all. It gave me a big head. Seriously, I have a head the size of a watermelon.

One of the miscellaneous children in the Pinocchio play was my childhood neighbor, Steve Wilhite, who had one big line - something about "Look there's a star!" He was supposed to point toward the back of the room as he said it. Steve argued with Mrs. Webb that we should hang a star back there because everyone would turn around and look for one.

She apparently didn't have a lot of faith in Steve's acting ability and told him dismissively, "No one's going to turn around and look for a star."

Steve's judgment was later vindicated during the actual production when he delivered his big line, pointed and EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE AUDIENCE TURNED AROUND TO LOOK FOR THE STAR (including Mrs. Webb and Mr. Pauly, the principal, who later was overheard to say, "They should have put a star back there on the wall or something.")! I don't know about Steve, but I'd have felt pretty good about my acting skills right at that moment.

Later I went on to play Merlin in a community theater production of Camelot and nearly got blown up by a special effect. I said an unfortunate word, which the microphone I was wearing picked up and delivered clearly to the audience. That word was NOT in the original Lehrner and Lowe script. The Cleburne Times Review entertainment writer who was there that night was overheard to say, "Was that in the script?"

It is the moment my wife likes to remind me of whenever I get the acting bug and start talking about doing community theater again.

Ah, well. At my age, one must be content with past glories.


© 2014 by Tom King

Ernie McQueen - A Teacher of Tenacity

An old schoolmate of mine passed away this past week.  A big (actually very big) good-humored guy, Ernie was one of my teachers in a way.  When Ernie was in 10th grade at Keene Public School I was in 7th.  I weighed about 95 pounds soppin' wet. Ernie weighed rather more.  We all had PE together and played flag football during September through December. Flag football at KPS was something of a contact sport which we played in those white PE uniforms that look like underwear - no pads, no helmets.

Following the mysterious reasoning of adolescent males, my quarterbacks decided that, since the skinny kid with the horn-rimmed glasses was useless for anything else, I should become a lineman.  Ernie always seemed to line up across from me whenever we played.  The teams were usually the same guys with a few exceptions. Being last chosen, I would always wind up on pretty much the same team every time - those destined to lose.  I never asked.  I just took up my place on the line.  During baseball season, it was deep right field where I couldn't do much harm. Ah, well....

Blocking Ernie was a challenge to say the least. He used to go over me like a freight train.  I'd throw myself at him with all I had and Ernie would swat me aside like a pesky fly and go clobber my quarterback.  When I was on defense, I could outmaneuver him so long as he didn't get a clean hit, but it took so long to get round him I seldom was able to get a hand on the quarterback or whoever had the ball. If Ernie did manage to get a solid block on me, however, I would wind up flat on my back in some sticker patch deep in my own backfield watching little birdies circle my addled brain.

Ernie once told me, "King, I admire your stubborness." I'm actually kind of proud of that. Ernie taught me a lot about tenacity that season.

© by Tom King