Now that was a moniker!

As if her maiden name hadn't been bad enough, after she married and returned to school, she was now "Mrs. Fluck".  Going from "Miss Trowbridge" to "Mrs. Fluck" was bad luck indeed, poor woman. 

She was our grade eight art teach at York Street Public School and as with all art teachers, Mrs. Trowbridge-Fluck (I kid you not!) was a tad peculiar.  Pounding my 50 laps every morning, I have little to occupy my mind, so thoughts from the past float up, so to speak.  Today it was teachers' names. 

Miss Earle, four-year-old kindergarten, was calm, cool and collected.  Miss Minto (yes, she of New Edinburgh's Minto Bridges) was plump and jolly.  Miss MacKenzie, grades three and four, was stern, thin and always adjusting and yanking at her bra -- obviously endlessly fascinating for an eight-year-old.  Principal Miss Headrick, also portly, used to hug in regret those to whom she was obliged to administer the strap -- usually David Wade who would simply not be.  Probably ADHD, back then it was called "bad".  Grade seven's Mr. Peacock used to let us mark our own papers -- out of laziness no doubt, but what a dumb idea!  Incidentally, I always did wonderfully in math, which got me into grade 8-A, where I struggled mightily amidst all the brains. 

Into high school, I remember science teacher Mr. Felker, a kindly old gentleman who had long since given up caring about who did what to whom in class.  Mrs. Todd was a crazy, bony algebra teacher with wonky snow-white hair and arthritic fingers.  Miss Gemmill was a mean, grossly-obese Latin teacher who once amused us by slipping and falling in a crowded hall at lunchtime.  She could not get up and had to be rescued by Mr. Rentner, my geometry teacher.  Even he had a hard time hoisting the beast.  We all stood there, immobilized in shock, trying desperately not to laugh.  Man, that gave us weeks of delighted sniggering.

Resident lesbian Miss Bishop, my grade 12 English teacher, was an expert marksman.  Facing the blackboard, she could wheel around on one foot and score a direct chalk-hit on the forehead of an intended offender.  Then she would paste a big smile on her face, say absolutely nothing and continue on with the lesson.  No culprit ever tried anything again.  I have to say, however, that Miss Bishop instilled in me a deep love of English and the written word.  Along with Miss Anderson (grade eight), I credit both those extraordinary women with my decision to become a writer (of sorts).

French teacher Mr. Caron, just out of university himself, apparently had the hots for a young tease named Michelle...something (?) -- she of the rigid beehive and push-up bra.  I know because I overheard him in the principal's office asking for advice on how to deal with it.  "You's", was a favourite and charming turn of phrase of Mr. Brisebois, another math teacher.  You could not make this up!       

Then there was Mr. Wade.  My grade 12 chemistry teacher, he was as mean as they came.  You might even say abusive, so dreadful and sadistic was he.  "Up, up," he would yell, jabbing his thumb in the air when he asked a question, the answer to which I never knew.  Terrified, I could not even spurt out H2O, when asked what "water" was.  Thankfully, God had given me Bob Amey as a seat-mate, who faithfully whispered the answers to me every time I was victimized.  I often wonder if Mr. Wade would have beaten anyone who had not known his chemistry cold.  Probably.  Amazingly, he lasted in the system for years and years, a testament to the potency of the teachers' union.  In fact, I ran into him at Nepean High School a hundred years later, when I went to pick up one of my kids.  That same fear gripped me the minute I spotted the monster in the hall.    

Ah yes, good old Lisgar Collegiate Institute.  I remember it with great fondness.