Lee Note 41 Rand Evans Memories May 12, 2001

Kay,

The stories about Mrs. Gelber and Mr. Wedgeworth brought back some memories to me as well. I was in Mr. Wegeworth's honors class in geometry. Nothing but pop tests and proofs.

I thought for sure he was going to flunk me so I worked a transfer too. I imagine his class was a lot smaller at the end of the semester than it was at the beginning. I've never used pop quizzes on my students because of the experience with Mr. Wedgeworth.

I was never much good at chemistry either. I have yet to figure out how chemical compounds work. Mrs. Gelber was always helpful though and wanted me to go into some sort of science.

She was terribly disappointed when she heard I was going to major in psychology in college. She took me aside and said that psychology wasn't really a science and that I would starve to death if I went into it as a life's work.

Well I did it anyway and my belt size is considerably larger now than it was then. I did a passable grade in Chemistry but only because I had someone to study with, Mary Kubica (REL 59), who I later married. So the class wasn't a total loss.

The stories about Miss Mitcham have been fun to hear too. I was in her honors class my senior year. I started out in her afternoon class (by 5^th period she sat rather than stood for her lectures) but she thought I should be in her honors class.

Actually someone (I've forgotten who) in the honors class used to feed me information about the lectures so I could have some good responses in that afternoon class. She found that I had not been suggested for that class because of some test we took in which I scored one point below the cut off.

Actually she asked me once if someone had been feeding me information and I admitted it, but she thought I showed "ambition." The honors class was great. It was one of the best experiences I had in high school. She asked the class one-day about "beatniks" and wondered what they were all about.

I am not sure who decided to demonstrate for her but we had another teacher (Mrs. Bradshaw, I think) distract her while we pulled the desks out of the way, got ourselves dressed up in "beat" outfits, dark glasses and all.

I brought in a Peter Gunn album and we played real coffee house sounding music for her. I still have the album. She walked in and was appropriately surprised. I put some dark glasses on her so she would "fit in." There is a photo of the group in the annual that I came across the other night. She always made learning fun.

How many can still remember parts of the line of the kings and queens of England from William the Conqueror to Queen Victoria? We used some kind of mnemonic but I can't remember what it was now.

I remember Coach Kern discovering that I had never been paddled throughout my school career and decided to leave his mark. I found out to my surprise that the damn thing didn't hurt. If I had found that out in junior high my deportment might have been considerably more problematic in gym.

Choir was one of the high points of the day. Mr. Seale ruined me for the college choirs. They seemed frivolous by comparison. We learned a lot about a lot of things in that class: music history, pronunciation of church Latin.

I can still remember some of the songs we sang. He was a great guy and I hope he understood what a gift he gave us. Somewhere I still have an audiotape of the spring concert and, I think, of the choir/band concert. I need to convert that to CD so it will stay intact.

It seems to me we had a choir party that Christmas with a beatnik theme. I still find myself repeating to my students some of the things I learned from Miss Mitcham and Mr. Seale.

Anyway, just some random thoughts.

Best, Rand Evans