Go Team!

I’ve been really flattered by the response to this new blog. Thanks to all of you who read it, whether you’ve responded or not. There have been almost 3,000 views so far; I’m glad so many of you are enjoying my little nostalgic trips down West Ripa Avenue.

I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I’ve been busy, not slacking. You know how hectic the beginning of the school year is. Oh, wait, was. But I am still coaching softball, so that makes this my busy time.

It’s ironic that coaching is the last regular job I have left in education, because one of the things that chafed in my first couple years at the Place was the jock mentality that pervaded the high school. The joke was, “How do you get to be a principal? Have a losing season.” Richard Eichhorst, the principal and ex-coach, ex-St. Louis Hawk, was kind of a stereotypical jock and so were at least some, if not most, of those who made up the Tiger coaching staff. It is important to note, socially and historically, that other than the club level GAA stuff, there were no interscholastic athletic teams for the girls at this time, and, therefore, no women coaches, at least at Hancock.

As previously noted, ties were the required uniform for male teachers, unless, of course, you were part of the coaching staff. They could, and almost always did, wear polos; most of their shirts labeled them as coaches, just in case they forgot what their sport was, I guess. However, the decidedly unathletic English Department came up with a kind of anti-jock protest counter-strategy to the double standard, one that we found amusing; the coaching staff, not so much. 

I don’t remember for sure who came up with the idea of English Department polos, but I’m going to give credit to (the late) Curt Kenner. We all jumped on board (as I have noted elsewhere, I really am a team player, even if I reserve the right to choose my teammates), though, and one day shortly thereafter came uniformly dressed in our gold polos, and conspicuously used the secret greeting of, “Hey Coach.” Our shirts all identified us as Hancock English Department; Kenner was tagged “Journalism” in a circular script above the tag, (the late) Debbie Strouth Weissflug was “Drama,” (the late) Bill Blake “Poet in Residence,” etc. I don’t really remember my tag, (but I want to say it was something like “Vocabulary Master”) or Cheryl Berry’s or Joyce Pfaff’s, but it doesn’t really matter. You get the picture.

Shockingly, we found our satire much more amusing than the coaching staff. The boys were a little touchy, proving you don’t have to be a jock to score points.

The Way We Were -- Random 70's Notes

Men were required to wear ties. Not a big fan of the tie, but since I had to wear one, I chose, uh, shall we say, quite colorful options. (Ed Kurmann made his own, mostly out of frugality, but was quite proud of his efforts.) I’m thankful that there is limited photographic evidence of my fashion choices, because my ties were designed to complement the rest of my wardrobe.

This was the start of the Peacock Fashion Phase for men, and while I’m going to share the blame with Carolyn who happily encouraged me, I confess to being a willing participant. In retrospect, perhaps I should be thankful for the tie rule; it eliminated the possibility of my ever wearing one of my two “leisure suits” (hey, only one of them was powder blue, paired with white patent shoes on a half-inch heel) to school. Still, I remember the plum double-knit flared pants, the orange brushed corduroys, the chunky-heeled brown shoes, still enough hair to wear at least to my jaw.... Maybe a good memory isn’t always a good thing.

Women could not wear pant suits (not pants) until November 1. That enforced-modesty rule was made prior to the popularity of short skirts, and with a huge influx of young female teachers to the district in the 70’s, the Law of Unintended Consequences played a role. Only the students wore "hot pants," however.

Those rules only lasted a few years. The collection of ties I retained made infrequent appearances until I landed at Schechter, which required ties on Fridays for Shabbat.

1971 was the year that the high school eliminated separate faculty lounges for the men and women. The small room on the third floor of the West Wing became the co-ed smoking lounge and housed the only official faculty bathroom. Poor Jay Zimmerman was never comfortable sharing that space. (There was an unofficial bathroom on the lower floor of the West Wing, next to Jack Hemm’s choir room [part of the former cafeteria prior to the Dome], if you could score a key, which I eventually did some years later. The women started using the one in the nurse’s office.) Despite its smaller space and less than wonderful ventilation (second-hand smoke not having been invented yet), that became the more popular hangout for most of the staff. It was there that Francis Pratt and Don Steckhan passed on their experience to us newbies.