Scared Of Teacher

Lee Harvey Oswald

Yesterday was Columbus Day and a lot of people had this day off but, I was not one of them. I haven't thought about this teacher in years and, for some reason, yesterday made me think of him. I've had many good teachers in my life... teachers who inspired me to go forward and do big things. I've had memorable teachers in the Philadelphia public school system, suburban school system, and in college. I've had great and inspiring teachers. This teacher, however, was not one of them.

First off, I'm going to refer to him as Mr. O. He might be still alive and I don't want to get sued or have a contract taken out on me. To understand this story, you have to first understand something about me. I read history books for fun. History and english were probably my best subjects throughout school. I've always liked a good story and I've always liked to know who did something first, when they did it, etc. Yes, I was a bit of a nerd back then.

Mr. O. was short, muscular, and (I swear) bore a striking resemblance to Lee Harvey Oswald... the man accused (and believed by most) to have assassinated President John F. Kennedy. He wore his hair the exact same way, had the same smirk, and everything. I wasn't the only one in my class who thought so either. President Kennedy was killed about five or six years before the story I'm about to tell takes place. So, all of us kids had seen photos of Lee Harvey Oswald in the paper and all of us swore that the recently deceased Oswald had come back from the dead and come to our elementary school to torment us.

Mr. O was our swimming instructor. He was a frightening man that yelled and screamed to the top of his lungs if we did something wrong. I don't know if I was more scared of drowning or getting on his bad side in swim class. I dreaded Monday mornings, when we had to pack our swim gear and head to the YMCA on 52nd street for an hour-and-a-half of swimming instruction with him. Back then, you had to pass swimming in order to get out of elementary school and into junior high or middle school, as they call it now.

I was way too young to know or care about conservatives or liberals or right-wing agendas back then. Now that I remember though, Mr. O. used to say things to us and give us lectures that might have gotten him thrown out of school if he said them now. Not only him, but a lot of the teachers said some pretty wild stuff considering. I had one teacher (who was black) tell me that I was a "disgrace to the negro race." She had the unenviable misfortune of meeting my grandmother, who said a few things to her that I can't print but may have made her reconsider such a charge.

Mr. O., for instance, told us that because we "were negroes" we weren't as "buoyant" in the water as "other races"..."But (he added), that doesn't mean you can't be good swimmers. If you work hard, you can still be competent enough in the water to at least save your life or the life of your buddy." (I wonder if he watched the Olympics last year?) Nobody in that class disputed him then... we all took it for the gospel because he said it was so. He then would say... "But, you see, that's the problem. You got some people who don't want to work hard and they want everything given to them... all these demonstrators and civil rights marchers who are tearing our great country apart!" And, he'd go on and on and on... working himself into a frenzy. We were kids, we just tuned it out. I wonder what my uncles or my older cousins would have thought if he had said that kind of stuff around them?

He yelled at this girl one time, who was trying to explain why she couldn't float properly... "See, that's what wrong with this country... all you people THAT WANT TO TELL SOMEBODY IN AUTHORITY WHAT TO DO. JUST DO WHAT YOU'RE TOLD!!! DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLDDDD!!!" I've been in the U.S. Military and my drill instructors didn't instill this much fear.

It never occurred to me then that this man really had a problem and shouldn't be teaching period. I just thought he was a typical uptight adult. He also taught "Social Studies" and this is where he and I had a problem. Remember, I read history books for fun. He starts telling us about how Christopher Columbus "discovered America" and I'll never forget it. This girl in my class named Mary Ann spoke up first... she asked him how Columbus could "discover" a place when there were already people here when he got here? (people he decided to name "Indians").

Mr. O. got as red as a beat and said... "ARE YOU THE GODDAMNED TEACHER OR AM I???I'M TEACHING THIS CLASS. HE WAS THE FIRST WHITE MAN TO COME TO AMERICA OKAY!!!" (I guess that was all that mattered. Those Indians didn't count for human.) Here was a moment where I could have kept my mouth shut and I wouldn't have had a story to tell but, noooooooooooo. I had to raise my hand and tell him I had read that the Vikings, who were certainly white, had been here before Columbus was born and the "Indians" were really from out of Asia and had been here even before them.

The man was about to have a stroke. He gave me and Mary Ann a detention and said that he wouldn't be surprised if he didn't read about both of us being on the FBI's most wanted list one day, just like those "damn Black Panthers" who were threatening to overthrow our government and all those hippies and people protesting our government's valiant efforts to stop communism in Vietnam.

I didn't know Huey Newton from a Fig Newton at the time and all I knew about Vietnam was that Mrs. Harper's son was fighting over there. We were much too young but, I remember this man saying all this stuff and yelling to the top of his lungs. He was so red, I thought he was going to catch fire. The principal of the school, a black man with a slick process like David Ruffin of the Temptations, came to the door of the classroom.

"Mr. O" he said. Mr. O. turned around and nearly screamed, "WHAT!" The old black principal with the doo-wop look gave him one of them... "Oh, no you didn't" kind of looks but said calmly... "Can I see you in my office please?" Mr. O. slammed his book down and walked out behind old Principal Doo-Wop. He came back in the room a few minutes later and said quietly... "Boys and girls, I will no longer be teaching here. You will have a substitute tomorrow." And, that was it... that was the last time any of us ever saw him and he was on my list of people who would not be missed.

Neither Mary Ann nor I had to take that detention that day. We also got a new swimming teacher... a woman who was a major improvement over his yelling and screaming. It would be a few years before I realized the seriousness of just what Mr. O was saying and how warped and possibly racist and dangerous that man actually was. It didn't occur to me then but, this guy would have been the subject of several lawsuits had he been spewing the kind of junk now that he was spewing in 1969 and 1970. What was amazing is that no one ever told their parents about him... that's how much we feared the man. Hell, they were going to work, we had to sit in that class with him.

I have often wondered over the years what became of Mr. O. Did he become an alcoholic? Did he join the United Aryan Nations or both? Who knows but, one thing is for sure... I hope he never ever got another teaching job.