The Water Farmer

There was a new teacher on faculty my sophomore year in high school.  Her name was Ms. Wasserbauer, and she was hired to be the German language teacher.  I’m not sure what happened to the old German language teacher.  Maybe he left or maybe the school needed a second teacher because of the amount of students enrolled in German class.  I don’t really know.  I didn’t take German.  But Ms. Wasserbauer also taught World History, and I was in that class.

At the start of the first class of the year with this woman, she introduced herself.  “Hallo und begrüßt meine Klasse. Mein Name ist Frau Wasserbauer, und ich bin aufgeregt, um Sie als meine Studenten zu haben.”

Everyone in the class just kind of looked at her in silence.  We all wore the same expression on our face.  You know the one:  that confused look with polite smile that says “OK, this is strange.  What the fuck is going on here?”

Ms. Wasserbauer spoke again.  ”Verstehen Sie mich nicht? Nicht?”

Another awkward silence permeated the room.

Then, badly acting as though she reached an epiphany, Ms. Wasserbauer said, “Oh my.  This isn’t my German class.  This is World History.  I apologize.  Let me start over.  Hello and welcome to my class.  My name is Frau Wasserbauer and I am excited to have you all as my students.  Before I learn your names, I’d like to tell you about mine.  I am of German descent and my name, Wasserbauer, means ‘water farmer.’  Even though this is not German class, I would like you all to address me as Frau Wasserbauer.”

It was painfully obvious, even to a 15 year old, what she was trying to do:  Start with a joke in order to warm up the audience.    The only thing was, this wasn’t particularly clever or natural.  And it fell very flat.

I don’t know what her experience as a teacher was, but she did not come across as a teacher who knew how to handle a class of 28.  It felt like she was a substitute teacher and her class was just something to do before going to the next, real class.  And it continued to have that kind of feel for the whole year. 

One fine day in World History class, she asked us to put our notebooks away and get our textbooks out because we were going to read and talk about Darwin and the theory of evolution.  As I put my textbook on my desk, I noticed my pen cap was in the groove at the top of the desk.  I grabbed it to put it on my pen which should have been in my bookbag, but I couldn’t find it.  I moved the books this way and that and I tried to feel around underneath them but no luck.  I became so engrossed in locating my pen that everything else became secondary.  I felt my pockets and looked around on the floor before returning to the bookbag on the floor.  I took the notebooks and books out one by one looking for the pen, and I was vaguely aware that the teacher was talking about the lesson but at that moment I was all about locating my pen.   I continued to dig around in my book bag, and checked the small zippered compartment on the side.  I looked all around my desk and felt my pockets again.

“MISTER WARE!”

My attention was jolted back to the classroom and I slowly straightened up in my chair.  “Yes?”

“Perhaps *you* would like to explain the theory of evolution to the class?”

Now…I hardly did any extra-curricular activities during my 4 years of high school.  For me, it was enough to just be there for 6 hours each day.  School newspaper, debate team, band, student union, student council…I didn’t do any of it.  On several occasions, the gym teacher had suggested that I think about trying out for the track team or the baseball team but I never entertained the idea for even a minute.  The time that I had between dismissal and sleep was mine and I didn’t want to abandon it by continuing to be associated with school for several hours after classes.

However, I *was*in the drama club my sophomore year.  I got involved with that because my girlfriend was in it and, like all that are young and “in love”, I thought it would be fun to hang around with her as much as possible.  They play we did that fall, which a few of my Facebook Friends were also in, was “Inherit The Wind.”  If you’re not familiar with the play, it is a fictional account based on the Scopes Monkey Trial, which resulted in a teacher’s conviction for teaching evolution to a high school science class, which was against Tennessee state law.   I was cast in the role of “Howard”, one of the students who had been exposed to the lessons of “eviloution.”  At one point in the play, my character was put on the witness stand to testify as to what he was taught.

Without missing a beat, I confidently answered Ms. Wasserbauer with my lines from the play.  “Well, at first the earth was too hot for any life.  Then it cooled off a mite, and cells and things begun to live.  Cells are little bugs like, in the water.  After that, the little bugs got to be bigger bugs, and sprouted legs and crawled up on the land.  All this took a couple million years.  Maybe even longer.  Then came the fishes and the reptiles and the mammals.  Man’s a mammal.”

People laughed and Ms. Wasserbauer’s face became a shade of red that I’ve never seen in any box of Crayola crayons.  She screamed and stormed out of the room, slamming the door and breaking the transom window above it as she departed.

An unspoken directive seemed to permeate the classroom.  Surely someone some other member of the faculty was going to come to the room and it would be very bad if we were out of control and having “social hour” after what just happened.  So, when Sister Collette entered the room she found a room full of quiet students silently working on class assignments as if it were a study hall.

Sister Collette was an old woman. It wouldn’t have surprised me at all to one day hear, during morning announcements, the sad news that she passed away over the weekend†.  She was rail-thin and had a staccato pattern of speech, each word being clear and distinct.

She surveyed the room a moment before asking the class, “What.  Happened.  Here?”

I raised my hand an offered the explanation.  “She asked me to explain the Theory of Evolution to the class.  I did.  And then she ran out.”

Several of the other students in the class confirmed my explanation and Sister Collette said, “Treat.  The.  Remainder.  Of.  This.  Class.  As.  A.  Study.  Hall…..Work.  On.  Something.  Quietly.”

She sat at the desk to supervise us for the remainder of the period.  I don’t know if Ms. Wasserbauer resumed her teaching duties for the other scheduled classes that day, or if those classes became study halls.  But she did return the following day.  I was amazed that she never addressed the incident in any way, shape or form.  Not to the class.  Not to me.  She behaved as if it never happened.  This, I suppose, was the best way to handle it.

I never had her for a teacher again after sophomore year.  To be honest, I don’t even know if she returned the following year or not.  But I’ll never forget the water farmer.

†As of this writing, Sister Collette is still employed at the school and working in the Alumni Office.

 

The Night I Missed The Fireworks

For as long as I can remember, there has been a fireworks display every July 4 at Ault Park.  The park was about a mile away from my childhood home and we would walk up to it every year.  It was great, because we could leave the house about an hour before the big event and not have to worry about finding  a good spot to park or have to stake out an area on the field.   And, even better than that, we never had to worry about fighting the traffic after the event was over.

In 1980, when I was 10 years old, I was invited to go with a classmate, Barbara, and her family.  They lived further away and had planned on making a day of it.  We left their house at 3pm, drove up to the general area, and parked about a quarter of a mile away.  I remember walking, each of us carrying an aluminum folding lawn chair and her parents carrying the blue plastic cooler between them.

I don’t remember actually arriving at and staking out our position on the lawn in the mall of the park.  I *do* remember being kind of upset because we couldn’t get to the playground because that portion of the park was blocked off for firework setup.  Barbara and I had to make our own fun.

We walked around other areas of the park and explored a little bit of the woods.  But the coolest thing, by far, was climbing the big wall of rock.  Barbara was too afraid to climb it so she stayed up at the top of the wall at the end of the mall and looked down at me as I climbed up.  I must’ve climbed that wall 7 or 8 times that day.  Until I fell off.

I had reached the summit and reached over the top of the wall to help pull myself up.  I must have grabbed a patch of moss or something because my hand slipped and I fell backward.  I landed on my feet and crouched into a summersault to roll with the impact.  Unfortunately, I smacked my face into my knees and cut my left thigh on a piece of broken glass that littered the ground at the base of the wall.

So there I was with a nose bleed and a two-inch cut on my thigh with a small part of muscle protruding out of it.  Barbara and I walked back to our spot in the mall on the lawn and her dad took one look at it and said, “You’re going to need stitches.  Let’s go find the police.”  We left Barbara and her mom and went in search of civil servants, which did not take long at all.

Apparently, the cut on my left was bad enough for the police to offer us a ride to the hospital, as the surrounding streets were closed off and we would be unable to drive the car even if we went to it.  So, Barbara’s dad and I were loaded into the back of a police cruiser and we were taken to a hospital.  On the way there, the police called dispatch who in turn, called my parents and told them which hospital I was going to.

I don’t remember how long it took to get there or even arriving at the hospital.  My next clear memory is sitting on a table getting a local anesthetic injected into my leg for the stitching.  My dad arrived and he came back to the room and talked with Barbara’s dad while the doctor stitched up my leg.  After everything was taken care of, we gave Barbara’s dad a ride back to the park.  We got him as close as we could before letting him out to walk the rest of the way.  My dad and I stopped at United Dairy Farmers for a chocolate ice cream in a sugar cone before heading home.

I didn’t get to see the fireworks that night.  And, to be honest, I wasn’t upset by that.  I was more worried about Barbara’s dad getting back to his family in time so they could all see the fireworks together.  I felt absolutely terrible inside.  Thankfully, after they had gotten home from the fireworks, Barbara’s mom called to see how I was and I learned that her dad made it back just in time.

Every time I pass that wall in Ault Park, I’m rocketed back to the moment where I got up off the ground and look down to see a part of my thigh muscle sticking out of my leg.  And I remember, clear as day, the sickness I felt while worrying that Barbara’s dad wouldn’t make it back in time.

 

Scelerophobia

When I was a kid I worried (a lot) that someone would break in to our house at night and I would be kidnapped.  I have no idea why I felt this way.  This was in the late 70’s…before Adam Walsh and before “I Know My First Name Is Steven”…and I can’t recall anything that would have sparked this fear.  While most kids avoided nighttime monsters by hiding completely under their monster repellant covers, I was worried about burglars ransacking our house and thinking that I would be a better haul than my mom’s jewelry.  I would have two pillows under the covers on either side of me as some sort of camouflage effort to make it appear as though there wasn’t a little boy in the bed.

There was one person that I was particularly afraid of: a villain from a movie who had no remorse, no concept of mercy, and would take what he wanted by any means necessary.  General Zod.

I remember kneeling on floor of my bedroom, staring for hours at a picture of General Zod in my Superman II Movie Book, committing the image to memory in case I ever saw him on the street and thinking, “There’s nothing I can do to stop him.”   The fact that he was a movie character never broke though my fear.  Why General Zod, who was bent on destroying Superman and ruling the world, would even need me…for anything…is just ridiculous.  But it didn’t seem so ridiculous back then.

As much of an impact the movie Star Wars had on me, and as much as Darth Vader deservers to be #1 on TimesOnline 50 Best Movie Villains List, it was General Zod who haunted a portion of my childhood.

 

No Drinks For Me

Here’s a little story that will explain just how familiar I am with alcoholic drinks.

A while ago, my wife and I were invited out for dinner and drinks at Newport on the Levee.

For those who don’t know, Newport on the Levy is an entertainment complex that played a HUGE part in turning Newport, KY from “Cincinnati’s asshole” to one of the happening places to be. Newport, KY has done what Cincinnati has failed to do time and time again: turn their downtown area into someplace people want to go.

Anyway, we had never been to Newport on the Levee and we don’t normally get to go out and do stuff with friends all that much because the kids are involved in scouts, soccer, scouts, baseball, ballet, and basketball.  But we found a Friday night where we weren’t busy, dropped the kids off for a sleepover at Grandma’s, and we went to this place at Newport on the Levee called Jefferson Hall.

We sat down and ordered out drinks.  I ordered a Coke, my wife ordered a water, and the couple that we were with ordered beers.  My wife’s water and our friends’ beers came in these big 32 ounce plastic cups, but mine arrived in a 6-ounce glass tumbler.  I thought, “Well that’s odd. Surely, beer is more expensive than Coke, so why are their cups so much larger than mine? What a thing to skimp on.” On top of that, my drink came with a little swizzle straw. I thought, “OK, small glass, small straw.” I sucked a mouthful of drink through it and instantly thought, “Ugh, their Coke syrup isn’t working, it’s just carbonated water.” Then I swallowed, and it all became clear. I pushed it to the center of the table and proclaimed, “That isn’t Coke.”

I called the waitress back and explained that I hadn’t gotten what I ordered.  She asked, “Didn’t you order a rum and Coke?”

“No, just a Coke.”  I seriously kicked around the idea of pretending I was a recovering alcoholic and everything was now ruined, but I didn’t think I could pull it off.  We got it all straightened out and she brought me just a Coke, but that god-awful taste would not leave my mouth.  Even through the popcorn shrimp, the bacon cheese fries, the onion rings, and the ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery…that taste just would not go away.

I was getting closer and closer to vomiting and I needed to go home.  We said our good-byes and my wife drove while I was concentrating on not yakking everywhere.  Once we arrived home, I raced to the bathroom, slapped a big dollop of AquaFresh on my toothbrush and brushed my teeth for like 20 minutes.

God, it was awful.

 

I Wasn’t Trained For This

Working in a call center environment, with such a diverse group of people, there are some pretty…let’s just say “interesting”…events that occur with the staff.

I have worked at such a company since the year 1986, and I’ve had a ring-side seat for many of these “interesting” events which some of my Facebook friends have also been present.

The following story happened a while ago, when I was a supervisor in the call center.  I’m not sure of the exact year, only that it was before 1999.  That’s the year my twins were born.  That’s the year I left the 2nd-Shift Call Center Supervisor position and moved on to the greener pastures of day shift office and administration.

It was a Saturday.  The shift was from 11am – 7pm, and there were 3 supervisors scheduled for the room of 100 agents.  At about 11:30, one of the agents who was sitting in Section A (seats 1-20) came up to me at the Supervisor desk and said, “Something stinks over in section A.”

“You wanna move to a different seat?”

“No.  I just wanted you to know.”  She turned and went back to her seat.  The Unknown Odor was then placed at the bottom of my priority list.  Apparently, it wasn’t bad enough that she wanted to move, so I just kind of let it go.

About 20 minutes later, the agent, accompanied by another agent, came up to me again.  “It still stinks over there.  She smells it, too.”

“Well, what do you think it might be?” I asked them.

“I dunno.  But it’s bad.”

I got up and went with them back to their seats.  I walked up and down the aisle of Section A, but I didn’t smell anything.

“I don’t smell anything,” I said.  Not that I really expected to.  I have a pretty bad sense of smell.  Food cooking on the grill, flowers, a spritz of perfume…can’t smell any of it.

“It ain’t smelling now,” the agent said.  “But it smelled bad, didn’t it?”  She looked at another agent, who nodded in confirmation.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said.  “There’s nothing here now.  Best I can do is move you to a different seat.”

My offer was declined again.

As the day went on, several more agents came up to me to complain about the smell.  Some of them accepted my offer and move to a different seat.  Others did not.  It seemed as though these agents were on a mission to find the source of the smell.

About halfway through the shift, the most vocal of the agents came up to me again.  “It is bad!  It is SO bad!  And I found out what it is!  That man is seat 7 done shit himself!  He shit himself, Kevin!  You can see it on his pants leg!  All up and down!”

This was so over the top, it couldn’t possibly be true.  This was an older gentleman, probably in his 50’s or so.  Certainly, there was no way this agent’s claim could be true.  To just sit there in it?  It was unbelievable to me.

So I did some recon.  I patrolled the aisle of Section A and had just a few moments of “personal time” with each agent.  I asked how their day was, said I was glad they came in to work, yada yada yada.  I kept looking over at this man, hoping for (or was it hoping against?) visual confirmation.  And yep!  There it was, smeared all up and down the right pant leg of his navy blue suit.

Well, I didn’t know what to do.  I’ve never had to have a conversation about this before.  What do I say?  How do I begin?  “Hey, how you doing today?  Glad you came in.  I see you shit yourself.”  See?  That just doesn’t work.

I called my boss.

“Uhh, hey Natalie.  It’s Kevin.  Oh, not too bad.  Hey, listen.  I’ve got a rather unusual situation here.  Seems the agent in seat 7 shit his pants.  Yep.  Shit.  His pants.  How should I handle this?”

It was decided that the other supervisor and I (the third supervisor had gone to lunch about a half hour before) would simply ask the man if he was feeling OK, mention his pants, and send him home free and clear of any kind of attendance violation.  So we pulled him off the phone and into an office.

I jumped right in.  “So, uhhh…we were wondering….are you feeling OK?”

He didn’t even have to think about it.  “Well, to tell you the truth, no I’m not.  You might have heard these little girls out here talking.  I had a little accident on the bus on the way here.”

In my head I thought, On the way here?  You crapped your pants on the way here????  That was like 4 hours ago!  What came out of my mouth was, “Tell you what.  Why don’t you just go ahead on home and take care of yourself.  We won’t even mark it down as a violation.”

He was very appreciative with how understanding we were.  My co-supervisor then went out to the call center to get his personal effects.  She brought them in to him and we had him leave through the office door instead of going back out through the call center.  After he left, we took the chair that he was sitting in and rolled it out the rear door.  Our nefarious plan was to retrieve the chair after the shift and put it somewhere in the marketing department.

After we sprayed Lysol in the general vicinity of seat 7, things calmed down and everything was back to normal.  About a half hour later, the 3rd supervisor came back from lunch.  The other supervisor and I are doing our work, tallying totals, checking project status and production rates.  After a little while, the supervisor who had been at lunch came up to the two of us and asked, “Umm…did something happen while I was out?”

We told him what had happened with the guy and how we handled and so forth.  And then, “Why?  What makes you ask?”

“Well,” he paused a beat before he continued, “cuz I was just in the bathroom and, on the floor behind the toilet, was underwear filled with dookie.”

“WHAT?”

“Yeah!  I walked in the bathroom and there was this terrible smell.  And stuffed behind the toilet, was dookie filled underwear.”

“You’re lying!”

“No, I’m dead serious.”

Great.  How was I going to handle THIS?

I guess he could see it in my eyes, because he popped right in and volunteered with, “Oh, I already took care of it.  I got a pair of those yellow cleaning gloves, stuffed the dookie drawers in a Subway bag, and threw it in the dumpster out back.  Why is there a chair out there?”

We explained that it was the chair the soiled agent was sitting in and told him of our plan to place it in the marketing department.

The rest of the day was incident free.  The shift ended, we did our end of day tallies and clean up and stuff, and I went out to get the chair off the back deck.

But the chair was gone.  Someone, at some point during the day, came along and had stolen it.

I wonder just how long they kept it before ditching it?