Excerpts from TLATD

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Excerpts from TLATD

Chapter 5-Montville in the Early 1960’s

Montville in French translates to “mount city.” There are hills everywhere. This is great except in winter. The parts of the town in the lowland by the Thames River have a lot less snow and ice than the hilly areas. Driving to work was truly an adventure. That brings us to our own local town official. Russ Beetham was our First Selectman and was re-elected for eighteen years in a row. He wanted our town’s tax rate to match the school’s low per-pupil cost. At that, he achieved his goal. Well, almost. There was a nearby town, Waterford, which had a lower tax rate. The reason was that the Millstone Atomic Power Plant was the town’s tax benefactor. Residents may have glowed in the dark and set off Geiger counters in the next county, but their tax rate was really low. Back to the roads: it was alleged that Montville had a time tested plan for snow removal. It was called spring. One wag joked that the Montville plan for widening the antiquated roads was to paint a smaller yellow line down the middle. Sand was on the endangered species list. It was rumored that on more than one occasion a town truck could be seen sanding the area after the accident had already happened!

Chapter 6-Montville Indians

We were the Montville Indians. This was before it became unpopular to have stereotypical Indian mascots whipping our athletes and student body into a frenzy. Our local tribe is the Mohegans. You may have heard of them. James Fenimore Cooper certainly did. He wrote the classic “Last of the Mohicans” in 1826 but he must have had some firewater in him at the time. His “Mohican” seems to be a mixture of two related tribes: Mahican (New York) and Mohegan (Montville/Norwich area). Our local Mohegans were an old and proud tribe that strived to preserve their ancient heritage and ways. This legacy was preserved by two Native American icons, Chief Harold Tantaquidgeon and his sister, Mohegan Medicine Woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon who passed away in 2005 at age 106. If you were a scout or elementary school student in Montville, you have probably been to the Tantaquidgeon Indian Museum on the top of the hill off Route 32. They were both skilled storytellers and always kept the attention of even our most restless youth. They were born teachers. A few years ago, the Montville School System asked the tribe directly if they had any problem with the school’s nickname: Montville Indians. They said that they were proud of the relationship and had no problem with the name and symbol being used by the school and athletic teams.

    We had a bright, young energetic substitute teacher who was actually teaching a lesson on Colonial America. I say “actually teaching” because it was rare in later years for subs to do anything other than seat work. For years and years, Montville paid their substitute teachers less than anyone in the area. What a surprise. This sub was really getting into it, painting a picture of massive discontent between colonists and the some of the local tribes. Then he made a fatal error…as he loudly proclaimed “And the Indians really got screwed by the colonists”
    GASP!!
    You can imagine a student or two in that class that went home that day and was asked by his or her parents, “What did you learn today in school?” Remember this was the mid 60’s when parents and children actually ate meals together and sometimes even had conversations during the meal.
     The student’s reply was “something about our people getting screwed by the colonists.”
    The next day the sub was called into the superintendent’s office. The super was livid, “You don’t EVER say that the Indians in Montville were “screwed!” This begged the question whether it was okay to talk about the screwing Native Americans received in other parts of the state, region, or entire country. One thing was perfectly clear; WE did not screw any Indians in Montville. And if we did, we certainly wouldn’t put it in our lesson plan. You can bet your Walam Olam on it.

                               Chapter 7-My First Year at Montville

  Schools in the early sixties were quite different from those in the anti-war, sex, drugs, and rock & roll, late sixties. Montville was no exception. When I arrived at Montville, I was surprised to learn that this public school had a strictly enforced dress code. Ties and dress pants for the boys; dresses or skirt and blouses for the girls were the uniform of the day. And if a guy “forgot” his tie, he was sent to the office. There the assistant principal selected the most horrendous cravat that he could find in his collection. Some were so bad that even Goodwill would refuse them as a donation. Any female with a skirt that was deemed too short, and thus a potential distraction, was sent to the Dean of Girls’ office. There the offender was told to squat down while the dean, using some ancient mathematical formula involving tangent and cosines, measured the distance from girl’s hem to the floor. Calculations complete, the young lady either heard a “get to class, girl” or the dreaded “I’ve just called your folks to come get you and see that you are dressed properly.” We had very few repeat offenders.

                             Chapter 8-Send in the Subs

Anyone who has taught for a few years knows that you occasionally have to sit on the sidelines due to illness or injury. Or sometimes you just need a "mental health day." And the most difficult, thankless job (alright, maybe other than school bus driver) is that of substitute teacher. Picture this: you are called to fill in for Mr. Lucas who come down with Double Beriberi. You are "fresh meat" to the young piranhas who can hardly wait to test and devour you. You don't know any of their names and they know that. Let the games begin!

You start with roll call. "Johnny Jones"

                "Here." Good start.
            "Bill Smith."
            "Here, Teach." And so on.

                Then you discover to your chagrin that you have had thirty "here's" but only have twenty-nine bodies in class. Unless Johnny or Bill, or one of their classmates is scizophrenic, we have a mathematical conundrum. Gotcha, Mr. Sub.

Chapter 14-The Big Tomato Strikes Again

Napoleon is often attributed with the famous quote “an army marches on its stomach.” Obviously Napoleon had never eaten in a high school cafeteria. Montville’s was run by a matronly Polish woman named Mrs. P. The menu would make the Tomato Growers of America, if there is indeed such an organization, proud. They found dozens of things to do with tomatoes. It was years later that Forrest Gump’s friend Bubba stole the idea when he said in the movie “You’ve got fried shrimp, boiled shrimp, shrimp casserole, etc.” You could substitute the word tomato and you had the cafeteria’s menu. The “big tomato” ruled. It would not have been that bad but teachers and students found out that the cafeteria was turning money back to the general fund at the end of the year. So much for being non-profit.

The school cafeteria is always the butt of many jokes and exaggerated stories. I know I was involved in many of them. I would walk into the cafeteria, see the tomato du jour, and exclaim in my deepest Andy of Amos and Andy fame voice: “What do we have here…DA BIG TOMATO!!” Students generally appreciated the routine; the cafeteria staff was less enthusiastic. It was a celebration of Lent for the entire 180 day school year.

Chapter 19-Staff Parties

We had teachers’ parties several times a year. They almost always started off tame with the focus on “shop talk.” You might hear a teacher say: “Oh that little Billy. He’s a big pain in the ass for such a small kid!”

A mentor teacher would halt this conversation by suggesting a magic elixir whose major ingredient approached, or better yet, surpassed ninety-proof. Oftentimes, this remedy had to be administered the entire evening. After a short period of time, the medicine would kick in and little Billy’s teacher would now blurt out: “Little Billy…who the hell is he? I’m off to see a guy named Jack Daniels.” Little Billy was now history.

On occasion there was an open bar at the party. This was the equivalent of throwing a sumo wrestler in the Piranha tank. Showtime was only an hour or two away. At one of these gatherings, two teachers of English got into an argument. In a flash, verbiage turned to fisticuffs as the two teachers squared off. The one round event was a bit unusual in that the combatants were of opposite genders. Mr. M slapped Mrs. S who then slugged the guy back. The audience agreed, at least those who were sober enough at the time to judge, that the lady was the winner. No split decision here. But it was entertaining none the less.

Chapter 28-Sports Shorts

Our faculty team let any teacher who wanted to play basketball join us, in practice, not in real games, of course. The starting five wanted to play the entire forty minutes. Our principal wanted some playing time in the big faculty-student game. He was short and overweight but it’s tough to tell the principal to sit on the bench. We knew his weakness. He was highly suggestive. We put him the game, and after two trips up and down the court, came over to him and said in a concerned tone: “Frank, you don’t look very well. God, you’re all red. You’re sweating like crazy. Is your heart Okay? Maybe you ought to go over to the bench and sit awhile.”

The principal wobbled over to the bench uncertain whether he should call for the paramedics. Now the starting five had more valuable playing time. Frank fancied himself as a dominating defensive player. He was on the Eastern Connecticut State College basketball team. He was many, many inches shorter than six feet. I was six foot, two. One day in the teachers’ room, he said “Lucas, I’d hold you to zip…no points.” And then he grabbed me and pushed me up against the wall demonstrating his defensive technique. Where was a referee when you needed one? Frank tried that defensive tactic on one of our players who was tough as nails and about his size. “Oh, you want to play THAT way, do you?” bellowed Bill the gym teacher. Bill dropped the ball and cross body blocked the principal into the bleachers. The game resumed in a much more civilized manner after that brief interlude.