Mr Painter

I had a substitute teacher at McDowell Intermediate High School named Mr Painter. He was a retired educator who just tried to just keep things down to a low roar when the regular teacher was out. Every class with Mr Painter was a new adventure, because his faculties were waning.

But something Mr Painter said has stayed with me all these years: If you took all the wars out of your history book, you'd have nothing left but the cover.[1]

One day when subbing for Fraulein Heugel in German class, Mr Painter told us to read the index to our German books, as the value an index was often overlooked.

And so we read our indexes. For 50 minutes.

I wonder how much TV news would be left if you removed all the wars. We'd have more time for Snooki and JWOWW.

[2013-01-17]

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If you have a smart phone, the Internet looks three inches wide.

[2013-01-17]

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[1]
Mr Painter also said that the blood during the American Civil War flowed to the horse's bridle. He probably didn't think there might be someone in the class that knew he was borrowing a biblical image.

When I arrived as a freshman at Calvin College, I proudly wore my McDowell school jacket, which had "TROJANS" embroidered across the back. You can imagine the response I got. I didn't know that Trojans were a brand of condom. I wore a different jacket after that. I had no letter or pins or anything. I wasn't an athlete. I became adept at a young age at quickly adapting to change, even though I hang on to small physical mementos form nearly every period of my life.

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