The last week of classes at East Newton High School usually did not see much education taking place, at least not in the early 1970s when I was a student there.
It was senior week back in those days and unless a senior had work to complete before graduation, he or she could take the week off.
That made it particularly fun during the last week of the 1972-73 school year when I was a junior at East Newton and was mostly taking classes that were filled with seniors.
Several of the students, mostly juniors, had concocted a plan to avoid not only work, but class. We devised a series of excuses to use on the teachers, with some of us telling a teacher that another teacher wanted us to help with some project in her class and others telling that teacher they were needed in his class.
Then we all met up in the small driver's education room in the corner of the library. That was where some of our more musically inclined students had stashed their guitars planning on having a jam session every hour they could get away with it. Since it was the last week of the school year, not much was going on in the library, so no one was paying any attention and you could barely hear what was going on in the driver's ed room.
My second hour class was sociology taught by Mr. Russell Wilkie. Mr. Wilkie was a nice man, but was always deadly serious and often seemed ill at ease in front of a class. Once a year, he let his "wild side" show, doing a brief, unexpected imitation of Elvis. The time for that imitation had passed a few weeks earlier, so Mr. Wilkie was back to being all business.
Since there were only three people left in the class that day, including me and Richard Taylor, the young man who later became the leader of our group Natural Disaster, Mr. Wilkie decided it was an excellent time to do some paperwork, make copies,and take care of grades in a front office and when Richard and I asked if we could help another teacher, he gladly gave us permission, and the other person in the room, and after 43 years I can't remember who it was, tagged along with us as we made a beeline toward the driver's ed room.
I didn't play guitar, so I listened as Richard, Bill Lemaster, Raymond Lambert, and others who did played whatever songs came to mind.
After four decades, I can't remember which songs were played that day, except for one. Richard and Raymond were singing Simon and Garfunkel's 1968 song, "The Boxer," and were doing a great job on it, when the door to the driver's ed room flew open and Mr. Wilkie entered.
The music stopped. Mr. Wilkie stood there and we were all envisioning a trip to Principal Don Johnston's office. "Boys," he said, then he paused for what seemed to be minutes, then added, "That sounded pretty good." He clapped his hand, made a dancing motion, and walked out of the room.
We spent most of that day going in and out of the driver's ed room, depending on which teachers we could fool into letting us roam the halls. Looking back, I am almost certain we didn't put anything over on any of them.
The wonderful thing about songs is that they make up the soundtrack of our lives. We always associate certain songs with certain memories. Every time I hear "The Boxer," I remember Mr. Wilkie and that driver's ed room jam session.
(Answer to today's trivia question. Each song is connected in some way to Paul Simon. Simon and Garfunkel hit the charts for the first time in 1957 as Tom and Jerry with the Everly Brothers imitation, "Hey School Girl," reaching number 49. Paul made it back to the charts in 1961, writing "Motorcycle," which barely cracked the Billboard Hot 100 at 99. Edie Brickell, who sings "Good Times" is Mrs. Paul Simon, while Paul is one of the classic collection of musical giants who combined to make the fundraising hit "We Are the World" in 1985.)
1 comment:
Great story
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