“I Will Not Chew Gum In Class”
Dream Shrooms
Normally, I did not want to be noticed by any teacher in my junior or senior high school classes. If offered the opportunity to choose my seat, I would sit in the back, and still do. I loved to read, but not the assigned material and sitting in the back gave me the cover I needed to freely read the paperbacks I loved. Ninth grade World Geography was no exception, I had the perfect seat, back row, in the middle, with kids on both sides of me. Coach Devereau was the teacher. I had many faults in the ninth grade (sigh, and still do) but the worst of them were chewing gum and being a smart ass. BTW, I don’t chew gum anymore.
My fourteen-year-old self chewed gum. A lot. In theory, chewing gum in school was not allowed, probably because of the under the desktop gum disposal methodology. Consequently, when in a class with a teacher who was sensitive to this “no gum rule,” I would park my gum in the side of my mouth…between cheek and gum…and then resume my chewing once class was over.
One day in World Geography, something must have distracted me, I was chewing as I read. Out of the blue I heard a loud, “Halvorsen!” Long pause as I slid my book into the desk’s cubby, “Are you chewing gum?”
What could I say? I could have swallowed it but I’d been caught. “Yes, Coach, I am.”
“Get up here and spit it out!” he said loudly. I walked to the front of the classroom and spit my gum into the trash can he’d pointed at. Today, that’d probably be a biohazard violation and not allowed.
“Halvorsen, before the next class I want you to write ‘I will not chew gum in class’ one hundred times and give them to me at the beginning of class,” Coach said, as he looked at me hard and turned slightly red.
Does anyone remember Huron’s junior high study hall in 1963? This huge cavernous room with a couple of hundred seats (small town, remember) was usually buzzing with undertones of conversation and activity. That’s where I wrote my punishment lines, “I will not chew gum in class” one hundred times. I discovered a rhythm or cadence to the writing. Admittedly, the penmanship was awful; in those days, cursive was the method, not the quasi-printing of today. I turned my two notebook pages, both sides filled, into the Coach the next day in class.
Not too many days later I must have been distracted again because I heard the bellowing, “Halvorsen! Are you chewing gum in class again? Spit out the gum and write ‘I will not chew gum in class’ two hundred times!” The next study hall I wrote my punishment and turned them into Coach the next class. A few days later, once again the gum inexplicably moved from the side of my mouth into chewing position and I heard that familiar bellow, “Halvorsen!” This time it was three hundred times. Once again study hall provided me the time to do my punishment writing but now it was easy, I’d captured the rhythm and internal melody of writing “I will not chew gum in class.” The three hundred lines came easily; I turned them in the next class. Had I learned my lesson? Sadly, no.
Distracted once again in Coach’s class, I heard the familiar bellow, “Halvorsen!” and wondered why he couldn’t use his inside voice. Predictably, he made me spit out my gum and assigned me to write the punishment sentence four hundred times. I remember that he was quite agitated.
Back in study hall, I finished my four hundred sentences relatively easily. But then, a small demon sat on my shoulder and urged me to write another five hundred sentences. And, I did.
At the beginning of the next class with Coach, I turned in my four hundred sentences and took my seat. I am pretty sure I was adrenaline enhanced and was waiting for the right moment. It came. During the lecture Coach looked at me and I very dramatically chewed my gum. He turned a little red.
“Halvorsen!! Write ‘I will not chew gum in class’ five hundred times!” And in what seems like slow motion now, I pulled my pages of 500 sentences out, marched to the front of the class, put them on his desk, and went back to my seat. No words came out of his mouth but he turned bright red, the color of a ripe tomato. I sat down. The class had started laughing but was now silent.
“Halvorsen! Come with me!” he hollered. Off we went to the principal’s office, I sat outside the office while he talked to the principal. I remember loud voices. I don’t remember what happened next, probably detention.
I feel badly that I was not a perfectly behaved student, was disruptive in class and took away the teacher’s time from other students. And, I will not chew gum in class ever again.