Larz Neilson says

• Just to prove that I can remember something from school:
• My earliest memory of the Whitefield School was going down there with my grandfather Norton in the 1940 Chevy to pick up my brother Peter, who started school there in 1949. Maybe this was a year or two after that, since I can't remember anything from before age four or five. But I can certainly remember the stink of the tannery.
• In the eighth grade we had a new art teacher, Mr. Covey. He had us trying to sketch a girl holding a push broom. Mr. Covey was trying to get her to hold the broom as if she were actually sweeping with it. From the back of the room, John O'Reilly said, "Forget it, Mr. Covey, she uses a vacuum cleaner."
• Mr. Covey left school quite abruptly. Rumor had it that he had been arrested, supposedly for taking indecent photographs. No details were ever released, at least none that I heard.
• I had a study period with Mr. Kelley. I now really regret that I never had him for math. Anyway, Frank Ramsdell was trying to cause trouble, and had picked up some yellow chalk. He began eating the chalk, trying to get a reaction. A few kids were snickering. Mr. Kelley barely even looked up when he said, "That's not very becoming, Frank." Frank was totally deflated.
• I also had a study period with Alice McCarthy. She now lives near us in Southport, Maine, where she shares a house with Georgia Dadoly, although Georgia spends most of her time in Greece. We met up with them about a week ago (late March 06). (They're at P.O. Box 52, West Boothbay Harbor, ME 04575.)
• Mr. Gilligan was one of my favorite teachers. One time he caught Mike Masse throwing a paper airplane. He kept him after school, gave him a piece of graph paper and told him to cut along the lines. Okay, now make a paper airplane out of each piece. I think he let Mike go home before the task was anywhere near complete.
• I had Mr. Desmond for home room in the eighth grade, when we had double sessions. One time I came in with a crew cut, and he started calling me "Nikita."
• Latin was not one of my better subjects. Actually, none of my subjects were better subjects. I think it was Tom Roberts who quipped something about taking up space. I flunked Latin I, passed it on the second try, and then flunked Latin II. All I can remember from II was when Mr. Egar had us choose a class motto. Gary Phillips won with "Alius dies, aliud nihil." Another day, another zero.
• I can't remember exactly why she did it, but during a music class in the auditorium, Dawne Burns swung her pocketbook at Norman Norton. The next period in French class in Room 113, she opened the pocketbook and found that she had broken a bottle of nail polish.
• That French class was with Mr. Economeau. Joe Gray asked him how to spell "enough." Well, how do you think you spell it? Joe's guess: a-n-u-f.