F - A - T-square

Dad didn't do well in school, from second grade through high school he only did well in one class, Drafting. 

Dad told me that he loved that class and was sure he was going to get an A finally after so many years of disappointments and summer school.  He was down to his last project and he was doing it perfectly.  While he was at the drafting table in school working diligently another boy, who never much liked Dad walked by.  Dad's nemesis took this opportunity to jostle his arm.  It was a stupid, yet simple thing to do.

It was Dad's right arm and at the jostling his hand holding the writing instrument drove across the page, marking it indelibly.  I don't know if it was a pencil or a pen but I got the impression that the swath it made across the page would not have been erasable regardless of the instrument.

Dad flew into a rage and with the T-square already in hand he beat the boy with it.  It not only assured him of a failing grade in the class, but I believe a suspension.

It's hard to believe with all the scholastic accolades he earned in the Military and the Police, and how everyone remembers Dad as a great teacher; that he ever had such a hard time in school.  Maybe it was because he had such a hard time that he knew how to help others learn.

Swimming for Lane

My mom had a box of stuff she found in the house and she had us go through it on Easter. I found a few things that sparked ideas about stories.

I'm going to start with the swim card I found. It reminds me of when Dad was on the swim team in High School.

Dad attended Lane Technical High School and at the time it was an all-boy school. Because the school was all boy the swim team did not have suits, they swam in the nude. I guess the idea was that they would be faster.

One time they were at an away meet and the Lane swim team was gathered in their locker room (clearly not the dressing room) and got a rousing pep talk from the coaches. The captains got them further fired and led them to the locker room door full of, well let's just say pep.

They all lined up; cheering and chanting they made ready to burst into the pool room. The captains opened the door and ran out, followed by everyone else.

The trouble was that this school they were swimming against was large and rich enough to have bleachers looking on the pool. The bleachers were full of parents and siblings, some of them even sisters, and maybe a few grandmothers to boot.

The captains stopped dead in their tracks and tried to back pedal. The rest of the team pressed forward, unaware of the problem, but ready to beat the world.

The result was a dogpile of naked teen boys just inside the locker room door.

They had to quickly find suits or they would forfeit the meet. They did, but the suits were from a grade school or something because they were all too small. They did win the meet I think because they wanted to get out of those small suits as soon as possible.