The Regime

My first administrators were (inordinately?) proud of their German heritage. As I’ve noted elsewhere, stereotypes can cheat both the typer and the typee, but generally do not arise in a vacuum. German culture is not known for its empathetic qualities, and Rich Eichhorst’s and Siegfried Messner’s “all in” embracement of their Germanity (yes, spell-check, I know it’s not a real word) led them to some insensitive, at least, and more likely offensive behaviors. At least one person was offended, for sure.

One or both of these administrators had managed to procure some Nazi memorabilia (Messner’s father had been an unrepentant member of the SS, a fact he related often, without any seeming embarrassment), including some rubber stamps that included the swastika. They got great amusement sending each other notes with those stamps clearly displayed.

I had not yet ventured into the Church of Righteous Indignation, so I mostly thought they were weird and just kind of nodded pleasantly. That I was a new teacher and they were my bosses is the only excuse I can offer. Fortunately, the practice didn’t last that long.

The school secretary* (as they were called then) was Lena Duggan, who had emigrated from England. She put up with their nonsense for a while, then informed them that she had spent too much time unconscious in a London hospital from a Luftwaffe air attack to find their shenanigans one bit amusing, that she was offended, and they needed to knock it off. Thus did the swastika quickly disappear at Hancock. Just as an outgunned Britain held off the more powerful Germany, so did a feisty English ex-pat bring two grown (sort of) men to their senses, if not their knees.

* An aside for current and prospective teachers: the school secretary, or administrative assistant if you need or want more syllables, is, hands down, the most important person in a school. If she (and they have universally been women in my experience) is not your friend, you need to work on that. If you haven’t already discovered, nothing changes when an administrator is out of the building, but everything goes downhill very quickly should the secretary be gone for more than an hour, which is why so many tend to grab lunch at their desks or in a cubby-hole around the corner. Cleaning up the mess created by their absence is just one more task for these school building heroines.

Introduction

It was about this time in 1971 that I was trying to get ready to start the adventure that became my teaching career. That career sent me to places I could never have imagined, introduced me to people of such diversity that I will never be the same, and made me a better person. 

Perhaps that journey is not yet finished; perhaps it will never finish. But it began in a small inner ring suburban district in South St. Louis County that was bordered by the Mississippi, River Des Peres (really more of a drainage ditch than a river), Interstate 55 and other, seemingly random, border lines. I had never heard of it, a K-12 district that always totaled fewer than 2000 students, K-12.

This new blog will reflect my memories of those times. I stress that these will be MY memories, and yours of the same time and events may be different, because we all view the past (and even the present and future) through our own lenses. 

It is not meant to be self-congratulatory, nor to solicit compliments or gratitude. Neither is it meant to dredge up painful memories or settle scores (of which I have almost none, quite frankly). Feel free to follow or comment or ignore. Like most of what I write, this is for my own satisfaction and amusement.

The story of my years at Hancock, this collection of random memories that float around in my brain and bubble to the surface for seemingly no particular reason, will always be, at its heart, a story of love and gratitude.