168: Morale in the new school . . .
Little Follies, “Take the Long Way Home,” Chapter 8 begins
8
MORALE in the new school sank daily. The continuing construction made things difficult for everyone. Whenever the site of construction shifted, groups of students would be shifted to clear the area. When the cafeteria floor was being laid, we had to eat lunch in the gym, and the gym classes were held in the corridors. Teachers taped paper over the glass in the classroom doors, but still the thunder of sneakers would distract us now and then. We were never quite sure from one day to another, and even during a single day, where we were supposed to go next. However, for the students the most unsettling part of all this was that since the school wasn’t finished, the choosing of the winner of the name-the-school contest was continually postponed. Not only did we suffer the disappointment of not knowing who the winner was, but, worse still, since the deadline for submitting names was extended again and again, there was the need to come up with more and more names. Some boys and girls developed more or less constant headaches. I ran out of ideas. Over and over again, I tried scrambling the elements of the names that I had already submitted in the hope that I might come up with a winning combination. Like words repeated too often, my names began to sound meaningless and stupid to me, and I decided to ask that all my entries be withdrawn, so that I’d be spared the disappointment of losing or the embarrassment of having one of my ridiculous entries win. I went to see Mr. Simone one day during my lunch period and asked to have my entries back.
“I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear what you said,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because nobody likes a quitter, my boy.”
“Oh,” I said.
“So you just get those ideas about withdrawing from the contest right out of your head.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. He showed me to the door.
“And as far as I’m concerned, none of this ever happened, okay?” He smiled quickly and held his hand out for me to shake. I shook it, with little enthusiasm, and left.
Several innovations were introduced to raise the spirits of the students. Among these was the Young Tars. Membership in this group was limited to boys and girls who achieved certain academic standards, excelled in athletics, fawned over their teachers, or had influential and insistent parents. The Tars wore nifty sailor suits that caught the fancy of everyone in the school. Well, nearly everyone. The elitist selection process, which the faculty and administration had designed to make other students try their darnedest to earn admission to the Tars, created a large and angry group of students who hated the whole idea of the Young Tars and every now and then a couple of them leaped from behind a privet hedge and beat the bejesus out of a Tar who was on the way home.
The duties of a Young Tar varied from rank to rank and from week to week. Among other things, we directed traffic at street corners near the school; kept boys and girls in line on their way to lunch or recess, when they left school, and while they waited for their buses; ran errands for teachers; clapped erasers; distributed announcements; carried messages; hung exhortatory posters in the halls; interpreted Mr. Simone’s schedule changes for students who were baffled by them; and washed the car of Mr. Summers, the science teacher who was put in charge of the flotilla.
Within the ranks of the Tars, the fawners usually held the higher positions (Commodores or Admirals), followed by the ones with influential parents (Captains or Lieutenants), those who did well at athletics (Ensigns or Petty Officers), and those who did well academically (Seamen, Baymen, and Swabbies). I would have been in the last group, but fortunately for me, when the first uniforms were being handed out, it was discovered that Mr. Summers had ordered one of the two Commodore outfits in my size, instead of a size that would fit Robby Haskins, who was to have been a Commodore. Since this fact wasn’t discovered until all the Young Tars were backstage in the auditorium minutes before we were to be presented to the school as paragons, I became a Commodore by default.
[to be continued on Thursday, January 6, 2022]
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