“Years ago, I was an angry young man and I’d pretend that I was a billboard.” – Talking Heads

If there’s anything that you’ve learned about me from my little anecdotes, you should have learned that I am hard to figure out.

READING

I was given one of those Birthday Books recently… you know the astrological guides to the day of your birth. The first piece of insight on my day from the author is “Why are you totally misunderstood?”

Staying in that theme then, would it surprise you to realize that I’m a textbook workaholic… who was a TERRIBLE student?

I hated school and academia for my entire time in it. I didn’t love the idea of following one person’s idea of what I should learn, particularly if the subject was something that I couldn’t care less about. I’m sure I’m not the only one who felt this way, but I may be the only one who stood by my mislaid convictions and be a complete a-hole at school.

Even in 5th grade I had a sour outlook on life and school. I recently found this drawing I did, circa 1981:

I don’t know about you, but I don’t read too much “caring and sharing” in that humble delineation.

I remember my wonderful teacher in 5th grade came to our apartment to discuss me. I was totally embarrassed about this, living in the shite-hole that I did. But he was a genuine example of a teacher that cared about me.
It turned out that the highlight of that visit was him being introduced to my sister Heather. She is my autistic sibling who I’ve talked about before. Well wouldn’t you know that she ran up to hug him, then pushed away from him just as quick and started yelling “PEW! YOU STINK LIKE B.O!!! PEW!” He tried to soften the moment by saying “No I don’t sweetie… no I don’t”. She was waving her hand and arm in front of her nose as if it would remove the smell and replied “YES YOU DO! PEW!!!!!”

Actually, that moment may have been a metaphor of my life in school when I think about it. Teachers = BO to me. Hmmm.

For the most part I came out ok I think. Though, I didn’t start using the word “mine” until about 12 years ago. My friend would make fun of me because I would reference something as “My one”.

WRITING

I was a statement kid. I missed a lot of school thinking that I was sending a message to the faculty for some reason. And I got worse the older I became. I thought that if I were loud enough of my disdain I would change the way that schools thought. What a dope I was, huh? Maybe it’s because I missed so much school.

I started in Quincy Vocational Technical School (where I was eventually tossed from) thinking that I wanted to be an electrician. Since I’m not a handy person, I have no fucking idea why I thought that this would be a good fit with me. I’m the guy who looked in the toolbox for the right-handed screwdriver. The rest of the school body, and even some of the teachers considered the Vo-Tech kids to be idiots.

“Hi… I go to the Vo-Tech and stuff”

One teacher introduced himself and told us that we would have to be ready for a POW… It could come anytime. What was a POW, you ask? A POW was the Puzzle Of the Week. A WORD FIND! We had word finds as a weekly test! Heck, I like word finds… but what the hell would one learn from a fucking word find?? We took advantage of it though. Every time the guy took out a text book on social studies, we started pounding on the desks and yelling “POW! POW! POW! POW!”. He would finally concede and say “Ok… you wanna do a POW? We can do a POW”.

The guy could never get my name right either. Since day 1 he would call out: “Jeffrey Pompro?”

I would reply… “It’s Pomeroy”.

Weeks later…. “Jeffrey Pompro?”

Me: “It’s POMEROY” amongst classmates laughter.

Month later…. “Jeffrey Pompro?”

Me: “here.”

ARITHMETIC

Another weird rule that the Vo-Tech had was for science class. For some reason they had a rule that you had to take two years of science class… but only had to pass one. And, one of those years had to be Biology. So I decided in 9th grade that I would take General Science and pass it… then in 10th grade take Biology and fail it! And that is precisely what I did.

My Biology teacher did not care for my well thought out strategy, however. I could be wrong, but I think he hated me. He tried to embarrass me in front of the class, but it never worked… mainly because I didn’t give a shit. He had a bad lisp and was almost spitting at me certain days. I remember one day he approached me:

“Mithter Pomeroy…. Why don’t thyou do any work in my clath?”

Me: “I don’t like biology”.

Him: “You don’t like it?”

Me: “Yeah… why do I care what’s inside a cell? I like cells. I have a lot of them. But I don’t care to know what’s in them.”

Him: “Well Mithter ‘I don’t like biology,’ you will come after thchool every day until you finishth your homework, underthtood?”

Me: “Yes!”

Of course, I never went. Not even once.

I think the time that he lost it the most was with the grasshoppers. He came in one day with a large white pail. When he opened it, this awful smell filled the classroom. He then passed out gloves to the kids, and soon after he dropped big, black grasshoppers in front of the students. He wanted us to measure these disgusting things. Why the fuck do we need to measure a grasshopper? What possible benefit to my education in science could this offer?

The tables sat two people, and you were usually a lab partner with that person. My lucky “partner” was a popular cheerleader who may have hated my guts more than the teacher. She would sit next to me and cross her legs away from me. I saw her back more than anything. Anyhoo, when I looked around I noticed the guys putting on the gloves and the girls were writing the answers for the team. So Princess Positive hands me the gloves and says, “You measure, I’ll write”. These may have been the first words she ever spoke to me, mind you.

Me: “I’m not measuring those fuckin’ things”.

PP: “You don’t expect ME to measure them??”

Me: “No… You don’t have to measure them. I’m just telling you that I, for sure am not measuring them. You can do whatever you want.”

We started fighting over it and the teacher whisked over and said “WHAT is going on over here??!!” She stated her case… I stated mine. My case was that I didn’t care, as usual. I wish you could have seen this guy’s face… if he had heat vision, he totally would have melted my face. Finally, he went over, grabbed some rocks, and almost threw them on the table at yours truly. I was startled and looked up at him.

Him: “WILL YOU MEATHSURE THESE?!?!”

Me: “Ok… I’ll measure these.”

There was this huge sigh from the class then, half of the guys holding these smelly grasshoppers next to their rulers.

After this incident, he sat me in the back of the class with the other kid in the class who was failing. He was this huge kid that looked like a gorilla. We called him Grape Ape. The funny thing was… when I first sat with him, we both gave eachother this look of understanding and acknowledgment of our mutual goal. (Or lack thereof). Ah, I miss Grape Ape.

I have so many more stories of my history. Or, even when I skipped History to go to McDonalds. But I will stop the bleeding for now.

I would love to hear your stories if you have them!

This was my one.