Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

From the 50s and 60s to today . . .



Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Spare-ly There

So much to do during Spare.
Spare.
The best part of the school day. The period with no instruction when one catches  up on things.
Gossip.
Flirting.
Sleep.
Okay, I admit it, if one was so inclined, one could even catch up on school work.
Pfff . . .
In Junior high, Spare was always supervised.
Nominally.
For the supervising teacher, it was also a time to catch up on things.
Reading.
Marking papers.
Sleep.
The class would steadily grow noisier and more unruly.
Until things reached a certain pitch.
The teacher would look up. “Okay class. Settle down!”
And the whole process would start over.
One time, the teacher had just lifted her head.
But before she could utter the fateful, silencing words, another teacher (obviously misled by the noise level), appeared in the doorway.
“Who’s babysitting you guys!” she demanded.
Loudly.
Then realized that her friend and fellow teacher was properly seated at the ‘supervisory’ post.
Oops.
As we got older, supervision became more and more . . . Slapdash? Haphazard? Cursory? Superficial?
I’m going to go with Non-existent.
We were required to police ourselves.
It wasn’t too bad.
By this point, there were several of my classmates who actually wanted to finish their homework.
Weird.
They would effectively shush us if we got too noisy.
Kill-joys.
But we had nothing on my Dad’s class.
Oh, they weren’t noisy.
Or unruly.
Just . . . creative.
Case in point:
A girl in Spare was reading the newspaper.
For those of you in the virtual world who are unfamiliar with the word ’newspaper’, it was a collection of news and advertising, published daily or weekly, and printed on very large sheets of paper. Google it . . .
The girl was engrossed in an article in the top right-hand corner.
Her absorption left the entire bottom half of the paper unguarded.
Normally, not cause for concern.
But, remember – Dad was in the room.
As she read, he approached quietly.
And, squatting down beside her, lit the bottom left corner of her paper on fire.
Yes.
On fire.
So . . . creative, he definitely was.
Cautious?
Not so much.
The girl soon realized that something was amiss.
She glanced down.
Her paper was rapidly being consumed.
She blew on the flames a couple of times.
Dropped the paper and stomped them out.
Then leveled her best glare at the guilty party.
Because, let's face it, everyone knew who it was . . .
Spare.
The best part of the school day.
For so many reasons.

12 comments:

  1. No one had spares at our school unless they were near the bottom of the totem pole of achievement. But it sounds like it was fun ... or dangerous!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Spare didn't happen here either. Which may have been safer...

    ReplyDelete
  3. No spares here, as EC said. We were expected to do our homework at home, something my dad never approved of, he always said schoolwork belongs in school. I never did learn that study habit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ugh. Homework. I'd rather not have done it-either at school OR home!:)

      Delete
  4. We never got that creative during spare. I remember about 7th Grade. I learned to cup my left hand under my right armpit and then bring my right arm down to emit a loud flatulating sound. Gordie sat in front of me and we had the game down perfectly. He'd raise his leg and I'd unleash the ignorant sound. It always worked the best when we had a substitute. I might add that Gordie and I knew each other so well that we'd both think of the idea at the same time. One day Mrs. Selby caught Gordie (us) and sent him to the bathroom. Trouble was those ignorant little toots carried on. I must have been sneaky enough; I never got caught...

    ReplyDelete

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