Are y’all ready for another story? Are y’all out there???
We have lots of stories–from our SUK and from past schools, as well. My wonderful niece in Tennessee thinks some of them are actually funny–I want to give her a “shout out” and tell her that her thinking so makes a “HUGH DIFFERENCE” to us! (More about HUGH later…)
Somewhere down the yellow brick road of your teaching career, you may run into a Clayton Norwood. It won’t be THE Clayton Norwood, because he is his own unique self, but there is at least one similar guy in every district.
Our Clayton was a semi-famous, unemployed archaeologist who was 47 years old, wore a huge neck brace most of the time (I heard from several people that the neck brace was because he was not a very good driver, but the biggest reason was that Clayton’s life goal was to go out on paid disability), and he lived with his mama—at least that’s what he told me. Well, he told me the part about him being an archaeologist. I could SEE that he was unemployed as one, and the lunchroom lady told me he lived with his mother. He was semi-famous for his reputation of having asked every single female who came to work at that school, regardless of age, status, or stature, out on a date—me, included.
Clayton’s job at our school was to maintain order in The Slammer, which is what the cherubs call the “time-out room” and his lunchtime was the same as mine. He shuffled into my room the second day I was there as I was pulling a glob of that rubber taffy stuff teachers use to put up posters. He just kind of stood there and grinned for a minute or two and then popped the question: “Would you like to go to Tallahassee with me this Saturday to see Florida State play Clemson? I can have you back by Sunday noon.”
Now, this was only the second time I had ever laid eyes on this man, and I am quite sure that at that very moment, my face was frozen into the Mr. Bill Look-Alike Hall of Fame. Then, my eyes fixed upon Clayton Norwood’s forehead and I stared at the 25 or so half-inch wrinkles above his eyebrows. They were quite unusual—most people’s are horizontal, but these were vertical and equidistant apart and I marveled at how he got them to do that! It’s funny how a person’s mind works like that—your brain is in a situation where it should be screaming, “Are you out of your MIND???
H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY-STICKS, NO!!! I’m not going on a freaking overnight trip with YOU, a stranger, not to mention a stranger who is STRANGE!”, and instead, it’s thinking, “Wonder why his wrinkles are like that?”
I guess that’s one for the education research gurus to figure out.
I worked up a teachery tone of voice and told Clayton that I’d get back with him on that the next day—and to my surprise, that was THAT! He never mentioned it again! I was off the hook, and around January, he actually started speaking to me again. I suppose he figured out by then that our relationship was going to be platonic, at best.
Most days, when Renee and I were out by Tina for a sanity break, Clayton would come out and join us. Being that Clayton’s hobby was asking all manner of personal questions, we amused ourselves by coming up with artful ways to avoid him and his nosiness, but one day we went out and found him hunched over one of the BTWGG’s* cars (see below). He was half-lying on the windshield with his hands cupped around his face-like a pair of binoculars-looking at the front seat. He looked up at us and said, “Well! I guess Mrs. D is getting a re-fi on her house!”
Then he added, “Do you realize her deadbeat husband only made $40,000.00 last year? “
“Clayton, how do you know this?” I asked.
He said, “I just looked! The papers are right there on her front seat. And I think Rayleen (the lady PE teacher) is homeless because she has clothes hanging in her back window and she gets to school awfully early.”
Renee and I were dumbstruck. We attempted to go into “conversational shopping mode” and act like we had neither seen nor heard what we had just seen and heard. Nosiness was one thing, but this was bordering on severe personality disorder.
I shoved in a beach CD.
Clayton just kept standing there, and then says, “Listening to the Embers?”
Now, not too many people outside the Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia have ever heard of the Embers and Clayton was from somewhere like Michigan, for Pete’s sake!
“How do you know about…?”
“I read the CD cover on the floorboard of your truck this morning,” he said.
Renee and I suddenly remembered that we had a “meeting”.
Once we got into her classroom, which overlooks the parking lot, we hatched a plan. The only windows in our classrooms are eight feet above the floor (can’t have the cherubs looking at traffic while they’re supposed to be learning), so first, we put a chair up to the old clothes dryer in the Health classroom (don’t ask– we don’t have a clue why it’s in there). For a week during our lunch break, we climbed up and observed Clayton looking into the automobiles and lives of school employees. In a “light bulb moment”, we even figured out that peering through his “hand binoculars” must have been how he got those wrinkles to do that!
You’ve heard that when the student is ready, the teacher appears? Renee and I were about to provide an apparition for Clayton.
I suppose we could have just looked inside HIS car and turned the tables on Clayton, but we did catch a glimpse inside it one day when he drove up. Clayton was definitely not a neat and organized former archaeologist and his car would have scared Stephen King. We decided, instead, to make use of his nosy side, so I told Clayton I was getting a part time job to help make ends meet.
Clayton obviously needed some excitement in his life, so we decided the wardrobe approach would be best. Renee brought in a pair of red fishnet hose she had left over from a bad date, a horsewhip from her riding days, and a pair of handcuffs (never mind). I contributed a black leather miniskirt and vest, along with a sheer red scarf. By the time we were done, Tina the Toyota’s backseat was a virtual showcase for Clayton’s eyes! We draped the skirt, vest, and scarf over the backrest, wadded up the fishnets to make them look like they’d been worn, and left the whip and handcuffs sticking out from under them. We made it look as if I’d changed clothes in the car on the way to school after a wild night on the “job”. Then, we went inside and lay in wait.
On that particular day, however, Renee and I noticed that Clayton’s neck brace was unusually askew. He wasn’t acting right, either. He was all glassy-eyed, didn’t have much to say, and didn’t come out to the parking lot for his morning break! A bit later though, Renee spied him headed that way for lunch. The trap was sprung! We waited about ten minutes and then headed toward Tina, acting VERY nonchalantly like it was any other day. We sashayed out the back door of the school, and immediately realized that something was wrong!
Clayton was lying ON his back, IN the parking lot, UNDER Tina’s rear bumper! Renee and I gave each other a horrified look—We had killed Clayton Norwood! He had seen our display and keeled over dead right there on the spot! We ran over and noted that he still had a little color in his cheeks, so he hadn’t been dead long—or—WAIT! Maybe he was still clinging to life! Renee whispered—or rather hissed, “Clayton! CLAYTON! Get up from there!”
I was about to give him a toe nudge and then all hell broke loose.
Unbeknownst to us, the shop teacher had already spied Clayton lying under Tina and rushed inside and called 911. Here came two city police cruisers with lights and sirens, on two wheels and sideways, into the parking lot. The two officers jumped out, and ran over to Clayton yelling, “Hey buddy, are you OK? I need you to open your eyes!”
Suddenly, we saw movement—Clayton batted his eyelashes and very feebly raised his arm JUST before Renee and I were about to throw up our hands and confess to his murder.
He says to the policemen, “I was coming out for my break and stepped off the curb and I think I wrenched my back.”
CRAP! He hadn’t even SEEN our display! About that time, an ambulance pulled up, and then James’s golf cart buzzed out with the principal, assistant principal, and James aboard.
We decided that since every semi-important person known to our small world was on the scene, then would make a good time to slink back inside. Five minutes later, Renee and I were standing on the dryer watching Clayton being loaded into the ambulance along with his neck brace. That SKUNK!!! He had almost gotten us arrested!! And every member of the school administration rescue squad was now peering into Tina’s back seat!
Renee and I decided that paid disability should not be a mere dream in the head of Clayton Norwood. If he lived longer than a week, we were really going to teach him a lesson and PUT him on disability! We haven’t seen him since that day because he is, indeed, out on you-know-what, but stay tuned…
*BTWGG: Bad Teachers With Good Gigs–These are former teachers who didn’t like teaching or children, and are now out of the classroom in neat little cubbyholes getting paid to tell US how we should teach. They usually have a nameplate on their door that says Something Specialist. Not all specialists are BTWGGs, but lots are.
