First Impressions, Part 1

Hoping, perhaps, to lighten the mood and offer a diversion from the disturbing events out of North County (Ferguson), let me share a couple stories from my first year at The Place.

You have to understand that Lemay was something of a culture shock for me. My parents may have been South City kids (Idaho and Osceola Avenues, Cleveland High graduates), I was not quite 5 when we moved from Nottingham to Webster Groves. My school districts had been Webster (8 years), Lah-de-dah-due (Ladue, 2 years) and 3 years of high school in Brussels, Belgium. College post-high school was more than the norm where I grew up, it was the default. Even when I left Hancock 37 years later, almost every graduating class had 5-10% of its graduates as the first in their family to finish high school.

My first Assistant Principal was Siegfried Messner. For some of you, that should be enough to send your mind careening down memory lane with your own stories. My first actual contact with the 5x5 bowling ball who moonlighted as a bar bouncer was one morning as I was headed up the stairs to the third floor of the West Wing. By contact I mean literal contact. A blur blasted past me on the left (I had properly used the “Up” staircase, Up the Down Staircase having been a recent bestseller). A couple seconds later, as I reached the top of the stairs, came a significantly larger blur brushing (fortunately) by me and launching itself in a flying tackle of the offending student. There followed a wrestling match. Lee Warren was otherwise occupied with his Wrestling at the Chase duties, apparently, but the outcome was quickly determined. I’m guessing Siegfried enjoyed a close to 200-pound weight advantage.

Later that year (or perhaps the next) a student offered a rather unflattering opinion of me (standing up to announce, “You're a J-off,” to which I calmly [and for those who knew me later, calmness was something of a gradually acquired attribute] replied, “And you're gone.”). It is a sign of how dramatically times have changed that the student took himself to the office and reported the exchange. Anyhow, the next morning Mr. Messner called me to the office.

“Come in here,” he said. “I want you to see this.” I entered the office to find the offending student (Yes, I do remember his name, no, I’m not going to tell you.) waiting inside, trembling.

“Bend over!” bellowed Siegfried. The student complied, grabbing a chair or desk with both hands. To be fair, students were always offered the choice of swats or a suspension, so I guess he knew what was coming, at least in a general sort of way. Messner then proceeded to take down the leather glove he kept on a nail next to his prominently-displayed paddle. Slowly he flexed his hand into the glove, testing to make sure there were no wrinkles, I assume. 

Messner then took the paddle, rocked back and forth a couple times and, literally, I swear, launched himself at the skinny butt, repeating the force of the 300-plus pound blows twice more. That young man was a lot tougher than me, I’ll tell you that, but, then, he was a Lemay kid.

    Having finished, Messner then ordered the offender out of the office. “Get out of here!” he choked. The poor kid was lucky he didn’t get another blow from the door as Messner couldn’t get it closed fast enough so that he could fall on the floor, rolling in laughter. “Did you see that?” he chortled. I assured him that I had. I also never sent another kid to the office for years. I don’t know if my student was traumatized, but I certainly was.