Teacher Memories

Now all of us can remember our favorite teachers or teacher. As a former teacher myself, I tried to emulate my favorite one, Mr Elmore. He was great in the classroom. He had a great sense of humor and made learning fun. Now he was algebra and did I struggle at Hillcrest and college too. So maybe I had too much of a good time and did less learning. Maybe I was not destined to use algebra in my life. I did major in science, political science and later picked up a masters degree in library science. But no one ever asked me about algebra.

I remember when I was first teaching ( it was Hillcrest) there were a bunch of young teachers there. When we were at HHS, I got the feeling our teachers were just days away from social security. In this category I put Mrs Sanders, Mrs Jackson, Mrs Cuttino, Miss Gaston,  Mrs Kenny, Mrs Estornelle, Mrs Cooper, Mrs McCutchen, and maybe Mr Merritt. ( I did cheat and look up three of these teachers in the annual)

I do not have many memories of these, but just snippets. My homeroom teacher in 9th grade was Miss Gaston. She made us all read a verse from the bible each morning. John Kelly really objected and refused, but she persisted. When it came John's turn, he said the shortest verse in the Bible...."Jesus wept!"  Ha... she went speechless!

I had Mrs Riley Bradham for world history. Now she made this real boring. Later  I learned she was an excellent golfer and left every day to hit the links after school. Well her mind was elsewhere. My class was mischievous and maybe I played a role. She locked the door always between class so she could run and have a smoke. Several of us took turns putting a pencil in the lock and breaking off the lead in the door, so a key would not get in to open it. She never was really pissed, but tried, called Charlie the janitor, and he got it open. Once they had to take off the door.  No one ever caught!  ( later I taught world history at HHS and she was teaching the same down the hall...we never talked)

Mrs Sanders brought her husbands Ku Klux Klan outfit to class one day. She said it was not his but a neighbor's, but we all knew. I loved US History and Government. I wish we would have had someone to make it come alive more. I just remember her reaching down the top of her dress and pulling up her bra or slip strap every day... we would wait for it and giggle!

We had a Latin teacher that died during the first or second year and then we had Mrs Stevenson as a long term sub. I do not think she had Latin since high school. We learned little. Thanks to Kris Shekitka for being a Catholic acolyte and  knowing all the Latin... it saved us. Later we got Mrs Cuttino. She was ok, if you liked Latin.
My senior year some of us needed another credit, so a couple of us took French under Mrs Kerfoot Kinney.
Now she was footsteps away from the nursing home. John and I had a great time there. We had some freshmen in there that were in awe of us and we took advantage... especially with the girls. Mrs Kinney would have us take a vocabulary test every day. First she gave us 15 minutes to learn the words and then she wrote on the board the french  words and never looked back at the class. Every one was talking, sharing ( cheating) and then we gave the papers to someone in the isle next to us and we graded them in class. What a waste of time and education.

A quick note to some others...Mrs Estornelle loved my experiments... alcohol effects on hamsters ( my dad's Canadian Club) and the liquid oxygen one I got from the base. She loved off the wall stuff. She did not love me blasting glass everywhere while making hydrogen.  (her grave is 8 ft from my spot at Holy Cross Church in Stateburg... scary!)
I never had Mrs Jackson, but I did have her daughter... not in the sexual sense...but we did date and had some excellent times making out in her living room right next to Mrs Jackson's bedroom!  I never made out at HHS. I might be in the minority here.
I do remember and may come back later and talk about Mrs James, Mrs Shuler, the coaches, Mr Alston, Mrs Gantt and one more that I cannot remember her name in 9th grade, but she was beautiful!
Oh yes.... Mr Merritt and Mrs McCown!