Teachers had their hands full....

Teachers had their hands full....

I noticed in the "obits" the other morning in the paper that Gwyneth McKinney passed away.  Mrs. McKinney was Miss Jones when I first met her, but she married Bill McKinney while I was still in high school, thereby changing her name.  I always liked her.  She was the librarian at CCHS for a number of years and we spent Study Hall hours down there.

One of my favorite stories on her happened one day in study hall.  Jackie Graves (he was "Dedo" Graves lesser known brother) happened to be in her library and he brought an "adult" men's magazine to class with him.  He went over to the magazine rack and got himself a "Life" magazine or maybe it was a "Saturday Evening Post," but anyhow it wasn't supposed to be a "Men's" magazine he was reading.  Jackie took the Men's magazine and carefully placed it inside the other magazine and proceeded to look at the pictures.  Trouble was, he was enjoying looking at these "girlie" pictures so much, he couldn't keep it to himself so he invited some of his "buddies" sitting around the table to view them with him.  This aroused Mrs. McKinney's suspiscion so she "meandered" over by the table he was sitting at and managed to glimpse over his shoulder. 

"Jackie Graves," she said in only a tone teachers can talk in, "Just what do you think you are doing?  Put that magazine away this minute and go straight up to Mr Gish's office....Right Now!"  Jackie, who sorta dressed like "Fonzie" back then, complete with the leather jacket with the rabbit's foot on the zipper also wore glasses that looked just like the ones that Buddy Holly wore.  He casually looked over the top of those glasses and responded with "Blow it out your A - -!"  Well, Mrs. McKinney took a gasp of air and stormed out of the library to go and get Mr. Gish!  About three or four minutes later, Mr. Gish showed up in the library with Mrs. McKinney in tow.  He sought out and found Jackie and quickly asked him, "Jackie, did Mrs. McKinney tell you to go to my office?"   "Yes Sir," Jackie said, "She sure did!"   "And what did you then say to her?" he asked, to which Jackie responded, "I'm Going Out Fast!"  If my memory is correct he got "three licks" and two weeks in detention hall for that one.

Mrs. McKinney taught there for a few years after I graduated but I guess I lost contact with her.  I believe she went on to teach in the Logan County system for a long time because the obituary said she retired from teaching after 35 years.  I ran into her many years later when I became Mayor of Central City because she went on to become Mayor of Lewisburg.  From what I could gather, she did a very good job at it, too.  Unfortunately she was diagnosed with Alzeimer's Disease and it eventually took it's toll on her.  I thought she was a nice lady.

Last year, everyone's (at least at CCHS) favorite teacher, Alexander Cather passed away.  Mr. Cather was one in a million.  He taught History (and was probably one of the most intelligent historians anywhere) and I don't know of a student that was ever under his tutor that didn't love him.  Mr. Cather was never afraid to use his history book as a weapon.  Most of these books were about 4" thick and when applied in a certain method over the top of the head,  they were most effective.  I particularly remember one day in class when fellow classmate Jim Bob Vincent kept talking to fellow student Vivian Carroll.  This went on and on for several minutes.  There happened to be an empty seat to the left of Jim Bob (who happened to be sitting on the front row) and Mr. Cather tapped him on the shoulder and said "Jim Bob Vincent, move over one seat!"  Jim Bob quietly stood up and moved over and sat in Vivian's lap!  "BAM" was the sound as the heavy history book slammed over Jim Bob's head, which quickly knocked him to the floor.  Dazed but still conscience, he moved over to the empty desk finally realizing which seat Mr. Cather meant for him to take. 

Althought I haven't been able to confirm it's accuracy, there was another story I was told about Mr. Cather that was supposed to be true.  Seems like our old friend Kirk Stone acted up in Mr. Cather's class one day so Mr. Cather took him outside the classroom and set him on the steps.  Had Mr. Gish or Mr. Taylor have caught him outside the room without a hall pass, it would have meant instant "detention hall."  After he was out there a couple of minutes, Kirk knocked on the classroom door.  When Mr. Cather opened it, Kirk attempted to get back inside.  Mr. Cather would grab him and reposition him back on the steps.  A couple of minutes later, this situation would repeat itself.  This happened two or three times when Mr Cather decided to stand just inside the door, History book in hand.  Sure enough, there was a knock on the door.  Mr. Cather quickly opened the door, hoisted the History book above his head and brought it back down with all his might.  When the smoke cleared, he found John Kirtley standing at the door, glasses across the bridge of his nose, obviously "dazed" and Kirk patiently sitting on the steps outside.  Seems Mr. Kirtley came up to pick up Rodney from class for a Doctor's appointment.  As I said, this story was told to me for the truth but even if it isn't, it sure is a good one.  Everyone has a favorite Mr. Cather story.

Another teacher we all loved very much was Mary Taylor.  Mrs. Taylor taught English.  She was very sophisticated and "classy!"  We used to laugh at her because she had a habit of placing a pencil sideways just over her upper lip and pressing on it.  This caused her upper lip to turn up in the funniest way.  She looked like she took Botox injections before they were even invented.  One particular event I remember in her class involved my good buddy Larry Vincent.  We were in about the 10th grade and Larry and I were sitting on the back row.  Somehow, Larry came in possession of a certain rubberized birth control device for which he apparently had no need.  Larry was already well over six feet tall even at that tender age and he wore a size thirteen (or something?) shoe.  For some odd reason, he thought it would be a cool thing to stretch the device over his shoe (which took a lot of stretching).  He worked for five or six minutes and when he had accomplished his mission, he reached over and tapped me on the arm to show me what he had done.  By reaching, it forced him to "flex" his ankle ever-so-slightly and the prophylatic became disengaged and went flying over everyone's head and landed directly beside Mrs. Taylor's desk.  Apparently everyone in the room saw it except her...you could see (but not hear) "snickering" throughout the class.  Larry, being the "quick thinker" he was instantly got up with his workbook and went up to her desk.  When he approached, he "squatted" down and said "Mrs. Taylor, I'm having trouble with this sentence,"

pointing in the workbook.  As she was trying to explain how to diagram the sentence, he casually reached behind himself, scooped the stretched device up and stuffed it in his rear pocket.  Unfortunately it was stretched to about 15" long and he only got about 6" of it in the pocket.  The rest dangled outside it.  I remember this so vividly because he was wearing green corduroy pants and the seat was worn smooth in them.  On his return trip back to the desk Mrs. Taylor finally spotted it and asked Larry to go to Mr. Gish's office (which he casually did).  I'm pretty sure that when Mr. Gish finished with him he wished he had retained the corduroy that was missing from the seat of those pants (or any other padding he could have mustered).