School was not a place I liked to be; it seemed I was always in trouble, and then I would find myself sitting in the principal’s office waiting to get the strap. For those who do not know what that is, it was a heavy leather strap about 12 inches long and 3 inches wide, with a wooden handle. They would make you hold out your hands while they swung it hard, repeatedly against your palms. Hurt like hell. Flinched but never gave them the satisfaction of seeing me tear up. It always seemed to be one thing or another at school. As I said, School Sucked.
One day in grade 4, I was walking out to the backfield. When, unknown to me, someone had bounced a superball onto the school building’s roof. These balls were made of a very hard rubber with spectacular bouncing ability. One of the boys had climbed up to retrieve it, he threw it hard onto the paved tetherball blacktop below, and it went out in a great arc towards the backfield, right towards me. The other kids began yelling at me to run, and run I did, not knowing why, though, and I ran right into that damn ball, it hit the top of my head with such force that it drove my head into the ground, where I received a split lip, bleeding nose, and two eyes already turning black. This seemed to be very humorous to the whole damn school. As I said, I did not like school. School is where I learned to fight.
Never did too well in school, not because I was not smart enough, you see, I stuttered badly. I failed grade one because of this. While in grade one, they sent me to a place in Vancouver to check me out. They thought I might have developmental issues from my preemie birth. It was to test my IQ. They ran a series of tests that showed my IQ was above normal.
My stuttering was so bad that the teachers would make fun of me, and all the kids would laugh at me. The following year, I was tested again with the same results. Yet all through school, I did badly. When I was talking to teachers, my stuttering was really bad, and you could tell they just wanted to slap me to make it stop. This just made me stutter worse. At home, where no one could see me, I would stand in front of a mirror and practice talking without stuttering. I found that by tapping my fingers on my leg and pulling at the material of my pants, I could control the problem. By the end of grade school, I had my stuttering under control and no longer needed to use my finger-tapping. My grades had improved as well. These incidents with teachers did create a problem with a dislike of authority, though. This strong hostility to authority would play a major role in my life.
After moving up to junior high and grade 8, I was in academics. During my first month, I argued with a French class teacher about talking in class. It was at the start of class, just as we were getting seated, a friend asked me a question, and I answered him. The teacher told me to be quiet and to take my seat. I turned to look at him before replying that he could f-off. He threw a book at me, with it hitting me with it. For a moment, I thought about his actions before picking up that book and throwing it back at him, and damb, but I must say that I wound up hitting him in the head as well. It was spectacular.
This pissed him off big time; he dragged me down the hall and into the principal’s office by the scruff of my neck, screaming at me like some sort of demon. He was brutal, but seeing that book hit him in the head made it all very much worth it. The principal gave me 2 choices: move to the vocational department of the school or leave. So I did a stint as a student in vocational school. I learned the basics of carpentry, auto shop, welding skills, English, and math during this period. These skills were the best schooling I got.
The vocational department had its own principal, I believe his name was Mr. Sibling, or something like that. Mostly, I remember him grabbing your shoulder with 2 fingers and pushing down as far as you could go, all the time having you swearing that you would never do whatever it was you did this time ever again. This guy was brutal. The pain from these encounters would last for hours. He was a martial artist with a black belt.
Although I did have one teacher who wanted to see me succeed, I did not listen to him, but I wish I had. He was always telling me that I was smart and bright and that I could make something of myself. His name was Bill Mountain, and he only had one eye. I remember how, when he was talking with you, he would pull his glass out to polish it. He saw something in me that was not visible to me at the time. I regret not listening to him.
I was in the occupational unit until I had another altercation with a teacher, with the outcome being that he needed to get stitched up; he needed 4 stitches to stop his forehead from bleeding. The last I saw of him, he was running after me with murder in his eyes; his whole shirt front was soaked with blood. Yelling that he was going to kill me. He looked like a wildman.
I can’t remember his name, think it might have been Mr. Sherret, but he looked just like Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes. So that’s what I always called him; he did not like this. I regret what I did to him, but to be honest, he brought it on himself. He used to walk around the classroom with a small paperback in his hand. Behind his back, he would carry a much bigger book. When he felt like it, he would hit you with that bigger book. Sometimes, knocking you right out of your chair, and I was getting pretty tired of it all. Just before we were to do sports outside one day, he had hit me once again with that big book. Once we were outside, I picked up a rock and, before throwing it his way. I was about 100 feet from him, I hollered to him to make sure he could see it was me. Darned if that rock didn’t just fly in a line right to his forehead. Splitting it wide open. Personally, I hope he still has nightmares from this.
This class had been my last chance to stay in school. They kicked me out and told me not to come back, not ever. That suited me just fine.