Marshall-University High School, c.1969. Minneapolis, MN.
Like most Minneapolis teenagers, I spent a longish six years in high school back in the late 60's and early 70's. I can't speak to the architecture of high schools today in the Mini-Apple, but fifty years ago they were all built along the lines of Sing Sing and Alcatraz as seen in old Warner Brothers movies -- grim and battleship grey, exuding a repressive effluvium that extinguished joie de vivre like mustard gas.
I entered the halls of Marshall-University High School each dreary morning, underneath a portal that read "ABANDON ALL HOPE AND CHEWING GUM YE WHO ENTER HERE." Hunkering down, I slogged from class to class in a miserable fug, dodging bullies and furtively ogling Nordic blondes. What was the purpose of attending algebra or print shop, when all I wanted to do in life was create spasms of nonsense like Jerry Lewis?
I resented the pushy hormones that transformed my pudgy child's body into an adolescent automaton, subject to imperative chemical innuendos over which I could exercise little, if any, control. I was a shambling sitcom cliche.
There were very few classes, or teachers, that I enjoyed during that time. Certainly one of the least prepossessing teachers I came in contact with was the choir teacher Mr. Sandusky.
For reasons that remain as mysterious as Dr. Watson's Giant Rat of Sumatra, I had to take either band or choir. Since my efforts on the violin were a farcical disaster while in grade school, I elected to try out my pipes instead.
The choir room reflected the faded glory of the Minneapolis Public Schools System. It was a large and airy space, with a knotty pine floor polished to a tacky glow; scuffing it with sneakers produced a piercing squeak akin to cartoon mice having their tails pulled off. The florescent lights high above on the stamped tin ceiling flickered dolefully, fitfully illuminating red plush folding choir seats that were faded to a tired pink and speckled with fossilized chewing gum.
Mr. Sandusky, a rolypoly specimen who looked like a Toby jug and nursed an incipient goiter on his neck, was known at as an "easy pass." One year away from retirement, he frankly no longer cared about teaching anything or attempted any sort of classroom discipline. He served out his time with the absolute minimum of effort by arbitrarily changing the emphasis from actual singing to mere 'music appreciation.' He put on choral records, something by Mozart or Gilbert & Sullivan, and then cradled his chin in his hands, elbows on his desk, with a faraway, dreamy look that slowly turned to catatonia as the hour proceeded and the students became more obstreperous by the minute.
Displaying their Slavic upbringing, many of the boys from 'Nordeast' Minneapolis played uproarious rounds of durak -- the Russian version of 'Go Fish.' Others used the janitor's tall wooden rod capped with a black iron hook to unlock and open the cathedral-like windows behind the choir seats for a smoke break. Still others were plugged in by earphone to KDWB on their transistor radios, listening to endless repetitions of 'Black is Black.'
I actually attempted to listen to the records Mr. Sandusky listlessly played. Despite his stultifying efforts to ruin my appreciation of vocal music, it was in his class that I fell in love with such heavenly whimsy as H.M.S. Pinafore and The Mikado. I gave my parents the screaming meemies by constantly strolling around the house singing "My Object All Sublime"
Not that I purposely tried to brown nose the man, but at the end of the school year I fully expected a good grade from him. Imagine, then, my chagrin when he gave me a measly B-minus! Deciding to beard the jackal in his den on the very last day of school, I strode into the choir room on that balmy June day -- only to find him gleefully shredding a yellowing copy of Carl Sandburg's "The American Songbag." His yellow face, fully animated for the first time in my experience, had the ghastly sheen of a pyromaniac let loose in a match factory. Luckily he never noticed my entrance, so I simply backed silently out of the choir room and fled down the hall.
I still have the feeling he spent his retirement as a creepy mime in Paris.
I entered the halls of Marshall-University High School each dreary morning, underneath a portal that read "ABANDON ALL HOPE AND CHEWING GUM YE WHO ENTER HERE." Hunkering down, I slogged from class to class in a miserable fug, dodging bullies and furtively ogling Nordic blondes. What was the purpose of attending algebra or print shop, when all I wanted to do in life was create spasms of nonsense like Jerry Lewis?
I resented the pushy hormones that transformed my pudgy child's body into an adolescent automaton, subject to imperative chemical innuendos over which I could exercise little, if any, control. I was a shambling sitcom cliche.
There were very few classes, or teachers, that I enjoyed during that time. Certainly one of the least prepossessing teachers I came in contact with was the choir teacher Mr. Sandusky.
For reasons that remain as mysterious as Dr. Watson's Giant Rat of Sumatra, I had to take either band or choir. Since my efforts on the violin were a farcical disaster while in grade school, I elected to try out my pipes instead.
The choir room reflected the faded glory of the Minneapolis Public Schools System. It was a large and airy space, with a knotty pine floor polished to a tacky glow; scuffing it with sneakers produced a piercing squeak akin to cartoon mice having their tails pulled off. The florescent lights high above on the stamped tin ceiling flickered dolefully, fitfully illuminating red plush folding choir seats that were faded to a tired pink and speckled with fossilized chewing gum.
Mr. Sandusky, a rolypoly specimen who looked like a Toby jug and nursed an incipient goiter on his neck, was known at as an "easy pass." One year away from retirement, he frankly no longer cared about teaching anything or attempted any sort of classroom discipline. He served out his time with the absolute minimum of effort by arbitrarily changing the emphasis from actual singing to mere 'music appreciation.' He put on choral records, something by Mozart or Gilbert & Sullivan, and then cradled his chin in his hands, elbows on his desk, with a faraway, dreamy look that slowly turned to catatonia as the hour proceeded and the students became more obstreperous by the minute.
Displaying their Slavic upbringing, many of the boys from 'Nordeast' Minneapolis played uproarious rounds of durak -- the Russian version of 'Go Fish.' Others used the janitor's tall wooden rod capped with a black iron hook to unlock and open the cathedral-like windows behind the choir seats for a smoke break. Still others were plugged in by earphone to KDWB on their transistor radios, listening to endless repetitions of 'Black is Black.'
I actually attempted to listen to the records Mr. Sandusky listlessly played. Despite his stultifying efforts to ruin my appreciation of vocal music, it was in his class that I fell in love with such heavenly whimsy as H.M.S. Pinafore and The Mikado. I gave my parents the screaming meemies by constantly strolling around the house singing "My Object All Sublime"
Not that I purposely tried to brown nose the man, but at the end of the school year I fully expected a good grade from him. Imagine, then, my chagrin when he gave me a measly B-minus! Deciding to beard the jackal in his den on the very last day of school, I strode into the choir room on that balmy June day -- only to find him gleefully shredding a yellowing copy of Carl Sandburg's "The American Songbag." His yellow face, fully animated for the first time in my experience, had the ghastly sheen of a pyromaniac let loose in a match factory. Luckily he never noticed my entrance, so I simply backed silently out of the choir room and fled down the hall.
I still have the feeling he spent his retirement as a creepy mime in Paris.
No comments:
Post a Comment