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.

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.