Monday, January 16, 2006

"I Got Plenty of Nothin'...

...and nothin's plenty for me!" Oh, the horror that was my middle
school music class! We had to sing show tunes for an entire year.
The King and I, Showboat, Oklahoma, State Fair, Porgy and Bess,
The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, Carousel, you name it,
we sung it. That might be why our music teacher mysteriously sat
on a tack one day.

I remember that day well. She was wearing her half-red, half-royal-
blue polyster dress. That really wasn't hard to remember. She wore
that dress every day we saw her: Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was
like that Seinfeld, when Jerry doesn't know if his girlfriend "Lois"
has a closetful of identical dresses, or if she wears the same one
every time they go out. Some little brat ran up and put that tack,
stolen from the bulletin board, on her piano bench just before she
sat down. You'd think that would have taught her to angle that
piano so she could see us while she played, but noooooo.

The worst part of it was that she didn't even feel the tack. What's
up with that? When she stood up, it was stuck in the back of her
dress. That was the most attention she had gotten from the class
all year. We watched closely to see how long it would cling, and
if she would sit on it again. An even bigger question was: what
was she doing teaching us backwoods hillbilly young 'uns to
sing show tunes?
Did she think we were all prepping to be future
contestants on Jeopardy? We had no clue what we were singing.
But to this day, when I see Oklahoma, or State Fair, on TMC or
some such channel, I have to watch a few minutes and sing along.
Imagine my family's horror every spring when The Sound of Music
is on network TV.

Rumor amongst the kids was that 'Janice', our music teacher, and
'Nadine', the music teacher at our other middle school across town,
were "funny". I was in 7th grade, and did not know what this meant.
I didn't think Janice was very funny. She would starve if she tried
to take her comedy act on the road. The act that consisted of
frowning and yelling, "Stop that, or you're going to the office!"
Janice and Nadine were both butt-ugly, even by middle-school-
music-teacher standards. I think the rumor came about because
they shared a house. We only saw Nadine if she was on duty at the
other school when we went there for basketball games. She always
wore a black dress. Maybe they were just thrifty.

The other excitement that year was when Melinda got caught
reading "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex*
But Were Afraid to Ask" in Language class. Dumba$$. She
had a homemade book cover over it, such as the type that were
popular back then, a Peter Max design or something, and sat
at her desk with it propped up, reading away. I might add that
the book had made its rounds through the students before we
arrived in that afternoon class. Mainly, we looked at the pictures.
Artist's renderings, not photographs. When I think back, they
remind me of Will Farrell and Rachel Dratch as the 'Lovaaahs'
on Saturday Night Live. Anyhoo, our language teacher, who
was a neighbor of mine, walked around the room, up and down
the aisles, as we were reading silently. She stopped by Melinda,
and said, "Let me have that." She took it to her desk and glanced
through it. Melinda had to stay after class. I don't know what
happened. They probably made her parents come in and get
the book. Duh! Where did they think SHE got it?

And my last memory from those murky middle school years?
(Not only am I SO PRETTY, I am also SO OLD.) Our algebra
teacher bet us all a soda that by the time we graduated, the whole
United States would be using the metric system...on road signs,
car speedometers, cookbooks, etc. Many of us discussed going
back to claim our soda after we graduated, but I don't know of
anyone who actually did.

And there you have it, another post about nothing. Maybe I can
steal something from Rebecca's blog for tomorrow.

6 Comments:

Blogger Rebecca said...

Hi Hillbilly Mom,
Don't go stealing anything from me. Or Beclakia will declared Double War Bonus Round on you, then you will be in Jeopardy.
HooRoo
Rebecca

8:28 PM  
Blogger JustLinda said...

Hey, I'm full of nothin' ... I can play this game all day long.

My favorite middle school memories were getting caught with notes. One time, Lisa sent a note to Peggy that started out "Hey, girl, what's shakin' besides those big tits of yours?"

I got caught with a note that talked about makin' out with Mike Schwab in Warren Holloway's treehouse but I somehow convinced Sister Rita that it was "just a dream". HA! The note was covered with cute little swimming spermies (which coincided nicely with the unit we ever covering in Science... unit, get it? Unit? Gawd, I'm funny but could not have pulled that joke off back then. Pulled off, get it? Pulled off?

I gotta stop 'cause I'm killin' myself here.

Rumor has it Sister Morris (yes, that really was her name) is still alive and patroling the school yard. Can you imagine?

9:25 PM  
Blogger Hillbilly Mom said...

Bec,
It's your blog and I'll steal if I want to...I'm just full of songs today.

I'm good at Jeopardy. I work best when the pressure is on. I'm not afraid of your Double War Bonus Round. I watched 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' tonight, and I have some new hillbilly warfare tactics up my sleeve, alongside my tatooed arm.


Linda,
People tell me I'm full of something else.

We had a middle school kid who had to work at his dad's gas station. His girlfriend asked him if he was coming to her house after school, and he said, "Just as soon as I'm done pumping Ethel."

The middle school science teacher across the hall from me found a note last year. It was supposedly a "dream." The girl said she dreamed she was sitting on one of the 8th grade boys, 'riding him like a chair'. We're still trying to figure that one out.

9:55 PM  
Blogger LanternLight said...

Confession is good for the soul so they say.

I had a crush on my high school music teacher. She had the most beautiful accent for a septic.

She left and went off to teach at a private school. Sadly, I heard many years later, that she died from cancer. :-(

9:58 PM  
Blogger Queen Of Cheese said...

About the only thing I remember from band was that the high school boys always put rags with paint-thinner on them in the big drum so it wouldn't make too much noise in the room. Little did I realize they were really just huffing the fumes everytime they hit the drum.

8:07 AM  
Blogger Hillbilly Mom said...

Lantern,
That's OK. I had a crush on my band teacher. He invited me to his house for dinner. All right...I was band president. He invited all of the officers to have dinner with him and his wife. I spent the evening scheming how to get rid of her and the other students. My plot involved his giant Weimaraner hound.

Mrs.
I spent my time sneaking pieces of ripped up notes out of my band folder that I shared with a 9th grader. Later, in secrecy, in my bedroom, I put them back together. My 7th grade eyes were amazed at the sexcapades of the freshman class.

4:25 PM  

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