Sunday, March 27, 2011

Mr. Brown

Technically, Mr. Brown was not a high school teacher, but one I had in 7th grade.  He taught history and English, wore shirts that looked like 70's linoleum, and had one glass eye (due to losing his real one in a skiing accident).

He liked to use Greek philosophy as a teaching template, and it was in his class that I first heard of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.  He told us that the Greeks had three words to describe love; eros (romantic), philos(brotherly), and agape(unselfish). He had us keep a syllabus, and told us we needed to sublimate our bad impulses, channeling the negative energy into something positive.

In fact, when we got too noisy or out of control, Mr. Brown would shout "Sublimate! Sublimate!"

Yeah, now that sounds dirty.

However,  I believe his heart was in the right place, even if he often did come across as an overdramatic hippie.  He truly hoped that we would grow up to be good people, which considering he taught a bunch of 13 year olds, is quite an endearingly optimistic quality.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Mrs. Dudley


Mrs. Dudley was my English teacher in my freshman year of high school. She always told us to read at our desks while she left the room to smoke for 45 minutes.

In retrospect, I realize that she must have been a very unhappy woman. That's the only explanation for the odd revelations and pronouncements she always made.  

She told us about her divorce. She told us about how she went to her high school reunion and found out an ex-boyfriend had died. She assured us that life would not turn out the way we expected and we would likely find ourselves disappointed with the result.

Each time, we just stared at her blankly, thinking "Well, you probably did something to earn that. Those things will never happen to us."

Because we were 14, merciless and ignorant.

Good times!

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Forecast; beware of boisterous bunnies


A very talented friend of mine related a story about how her young son interrupted a business conference call by throwing bunnies at her.

That incident begged for an illustration.

(The pattern you see on her dress is from a Photoshop brush that she created and kindly let me use!)