Mr. Dee, one of the senior English teachers, told us, 'If you've seen it or heard it before, don't use it.' This became one of my all time favorite guides. I read an article on Billy Crystal several years ago, and he said that Rob Reiner had given him a desk plaque that he keeps on his coffee table, and it says, almost word for word, the same thing.
So let me get this straight. Mr. Dee heard it or saw it, then he used it in your class? And Rob Reiner saw it and he used it on Billy Crystal, who used it on the auther of an article on him? And now you're using it too?
Mind if I use that?
Just kidding Larry. Don't pay any attention to me. I'm just bein' a smart ass. LOL
Sheesh! What we hard-working committee members have to put up with.
What I was HOPING for by starting the new subject was that others would contribute stuff that they'd learned in high school, and not necessarily life changing, serious stuff. It could be something as mundane as, 'I learned that Noxema didn't really help my zits; it made them worse.' Actually, I didn't learn that in high school. But sure wish I had.
Poor Rispoli. We both lived through the 'Tortures of the Noxema Days'. If being shy did not kill me, Noxema made me hide even more. I figured it out in a month or so. Sorry we had to live through this.
I learned from Mr. D to never start a sentence with 'I'. Anyone remember Buffalo Bowl in Mr. D's class? He would toss us nickels for correct answers! I also learned that Mr. Wells could talk longer than anyone I knew on one breath of air. It just fascinated me. I did not learn any chemistry very well.
Nice subtle bit of humor there, Paulette. And not in the least banal or trite.
I also learned in D's class that Sandy Pizzo had as much hair on his stomach as on his head. He lifted his t-shirt one day before class and told Rispoli that it was his fallback for attracting girls if his face failed to do the trick. (There's an alliteration in that sentence.)
I remember our 'Steady Study Buddies' that Mr. D assigned everyone in the class, for us to sit next to each day. Mine was Jim Goullaud. I also remember he said a person cannot have two different thoughts at exactly the same time. Paulette, I remember you were in my class.
Mr. D put a fear in me about chewing gum, to this day i do not chew gum in public. I never had to put it on my nose like so many others who got caught in his class chewing would have to do. They would have it on their nose the whole period!
Who was it that put the vodka in mr. d's water glass? i think it was jim goulaud. Mr.d took a drink of it and did not even make a face, much to all our disappointment.
Mr. Dee was the first adult in my life who asked me what I thought. I'd turned in an assignment that was too banal, too trite, too pedestrian, too plebian, and he told me to stay after class. He asked what I'd been thinking when I wrote it, and I sort of sputtered out something. He then forcefully told me that I shouldn't be writing something to please him -- 'What do you think? Tell me what you think!' It stunned me. No one had ever said that to me before. After twelve years of trying to please teachers, though, I was still too stuck to pull it off, and got a D.
mr. D taught me one very important lesson in life. Think for yourself.
I also had Mr. De. I copied my sisters term paper from 1966 and got a
B+ I was diffiently thinking of somthing else at the time
Larry, thanks for the facebook invite but I wasn't sure what to do with the link. sorry facebook is one of those things I never got around to exploring. I'm glad you remembered me, even all the way back to 4th grade. It's pretty cool that all our memories actually work well enough to remember our childhoods. Anyway, thanks, maybe some day i'll figure facebook out.
Mr. D assigned Moby Dick over Christmas vacation. Read and write a report. Tom Whatley, Bob Hicks and I came up with a truely brillant idea. We would each read 1/3 of the book and collectively write the report. Didn,t work. Mr. D sniffed this grand scheme out in about a nano secoud and gave us all a D. According to Mr. D, the D was for dumb.
