"TAKE THEM MATCHES OUTTA YER MOUTHS!"

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"OR ELSE!"
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Did we hear that right? What sounded like a serious ultimatum  was coming from the mouth
of that lady up front. Levi and I just sat there, at our adjoining desks, calmly minding our own business and chewing on our matchsticks!  And we DID hear her, unfortunately.

Little (Levi was 185 lbs. and I was 6'3" tall) innocent 10th graders--sophomores-- we were in Miss
C.'s English class. Maybe that fact gave Miss C. the idea that she had control over us! Not so--it was a free country. And...we meant no harm.

We never thought to get a psychiatrist's opinion on the match-chewing thing...why we never even knew we were...uh...sick. Not until Miss C. made a big deal out of it! You see, there may be some kind of a hidden truth here: Anything is okay until someone says it's not. Anyway, matches weren't mentioned in the Ten Commandments. (So there, Miss C.)

Personally, reflecting on it,  I think there were a number of reasons for the match chewing!
One was: we were wild and wooly guys, all growed up. (sic). Another is : we looked mean,
chewing on those matches. Well, I know Levi did, anyway. Also it showed that we didn't give
a hoot about anything, and if you got in our way, or ticked us off, we had the match and we could go get a five cent John Ruskin cigar and light that sucker right there in front of you! 

My readers,to show you what we were facing and the abuse we were getting, just help me experiment a moment. Please say in a mean, direct, way---"Take them matches outta yer mouth!" Pretty good. Now, try it louder, meaner.... Half-way shout it: "TAKE THEM MATCHES OUTTA YER MOUTH...! That's it, that's it---you've got it! That's what WE had to deal with!

May I digress here to tell you that, at our age we were noticing the girls a little bit...well okay, we were noticing them A LOT! It so happened that Miss C.was pretty young and also pretty, period. She also had this rather odd, unusual, but fascinating hairdo. Now I know that guys are inadequate and poor women's-hairdo-describers  but I'll try. Say you part you hair right down the middle, and kind of arrange it in strips, and wind those strips round and round your ears, and pin it up somehow.THAT was Miss C's hairdo. (How'd I do?)

I have heard it said that little children often get a crush on their schoolteachers. I think that happened to Levi and me. "Us" (sic) little guys got a crush on Miss C. and we chewed up matches like you wouldn't believe. After a while they tasted bad and little pieces of wood got stuck in our throats, so we were no good at Mr. Barton's Boys' Chorus after lunch, unless we ate a sticky Snickers, to clear out the shavings.

Oh, but I digress. Don't you feel that at some point in young people's lives, they have to assert themselves? That's what we did, Levi and I! We wanted to find out the "OR ELSE!" thing. Next day we came chewing our matches!  The "or else" was a trip to the principal's office. I can't remember who he was. Maybe Levi can.

You know, neither can I remember what happened down at his office. Maybe he chewed on a match with us and talked about his high school days....,or maybe we did fifty pushups....maybe we had to sing the school song through ten times. Guess I'll just ask Levi.

We never chewed another match in Miss C.'s tenth grade English class. We learned a lot in spite of ourselves. I write a little bit, and you ought to read Levi's writing. He is amazing.

So you see why we love old CHS!  There was never a dull moment in that GREAT SCHOOL!

And Miss C., wherever you are, we love you too!

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BY MIL
10/17/12
(Writers's Note, 1/1/13---This post was written earlier, and since then I have had time to research the name of the CHS Principal to whom we were taken. It was our "friend" from Junior High School days., Mr. Dave St. Clair.  He was my Current Events teacher in the seventh grade.)

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