Crazy is as crazy does

I may have been a pain in the (cl)ass

     This is a follow up to yesterday's stroll down memory lane.  Specifically those golden high school days.
     Miss L.  one day moved me to the back of the room.  She thought this would discourage my talking to the people around me.  It did not.
     "Who are you talking to?" she asked me one day.
     Not wanting to get Connie or anyone else in trouble, I said, "No one, Miss L."
     She looked at me and said, "Well, you looked like you were talking, so one of us must be crazy."
      "Don't look at me!" I replied.  I thought it was an incredibly clever retort.
      We had a fire drill.  Our class was on the second floor and she had a hard time negotiating stairs.  So she appointed a line leader to take us out of the building and then return.
       Once we got outside someone suggested we relocate eastward on Irving, past the school and out of danger.  It was like someone let the monkeys free at the zoo.  We walked all the way to Southport, about two blocks.  Then we turned north and walked one block, then headed back to school.  We were gone almost the entire period.
     We walked back into the school, up into class and sat down just as the bell was ringing to end the period.  She never once questioned why we were gone almost 40 minutes.  No other teacher or administrator missed us, and those who saw us come back into the building never questioned why we were out 30 minutes longer than the rest of the student body.
     Long about mid-May, John reminded me that I had a paper to do and I still had not bought the mandatory workbook to go with the outdated books.
     So I bought the workbook and spent the next few weeks filling in the answer blanks.  Notice, I did not say answering the questions.  I did do that on the first couple of pages, but then I just wrote stuff.
    I also had a paper due on the Mississippi River, it's importance to the US for transportation, economics and development.
    In those days we did not have computers, so it was hand written.
    My first page went something like this:  The Mississippi River winds through the heartland of the United States.  It is 2,226 miles in length from it's beginning in Minnesota to its end in the Gulf of Mexico.  The river has many large communities, St. Louis, Minneapolis, New Orleans, that depend on the river for transportation and jobs.
    The river also supports much wildlife.  There are ducks that live on the river.  The ducks go quack.  Sometimes they go quack, quack.  Often you will hear quack, quack, quack.  The ducks love the river.  The ducks are fun to watch.  They go quack.
    I filled three fourths of a page up with crap about the ducks going quack.
    And being the daring person I was, I copied page one for 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13.  Same language.  Same garbage.  I threw in a map, a couple of pictures, ended up with a 20 page paper.  I got an A.
     I knew she would only read the first paragraph, which was as factual as I could be without doing any work what so ever.  Then I knew she would look at the pictures and count the pages.  I don't remember what I put on the even pages....it is possible I actually found out some information and sandwiched it in among the tripe.
     I saved that paper, but somehow in the last 50 years it got misplaced.  A shame really, because it is hard to believe there could be a teacher as terrible as she was.  Or a student as uncaring as I was.
    Oh yes, I know what you are thinking.  I should have taken the high road and done it correctly.  I should have produced work that I was proud of.
    Yeah, you are right.
    And so you know, there were 700 kids in my graduating class. (John will correct me, I am probably way off...I don't always remember numbers well.)
    And I made the upper half of class by 5 kids........  Sure I was 345 in my class, but hey, it was the upper half!