Meet the Principal

Play fighting was a popular activity by the time I was junior high age. We honed our skills as play fighters and delighted in making in all look real. We would throw punches and then sprawl across the ground when we were play hit. We even threw in sound effects when we could.

On balmy summer nights we would play fight on the parking of White street east of the school building. I don’t know why we chose that spot except that my parents probably couldn’t see us through the Elm trees that were abundant then. At about dusk we would wait for a car to start down the street and then we would engage in what was to appear as a horrific brawl.

Cars would honk and slow down but it was rare to get one to stop. I imagine because the fight did not look nearly as real as we thought it did. On one occasion a car did stop and the driver got out. We, of course, high tailed it out of there. We ended up under the big evergreen on the west side of Saunders. Breathless, we rolled on the ground giddy with our perceived success. There were comments like, “Did you see that guys face!” and “We got that guy!”

It was only later that I found out that the driver had known what we were up to all along and had jumped out and yelled to try to scare us. He told my Dad that we ran like “scared rabbits!” I never did tell the rest of the guys what had really happened.

At the junior high kids would often greet each other with a fake belly punch or a kerpluuee to the jaw. I don’t know what compelled us to do it but it was very common in those days. Actually, it is pretty common in these days, too. I have seen many elementary students play fight and bring the supervisors rushing over. We finally had to ban play fighting at Longfellow.

My first close encounter with the junior high principal came right after a play-fighting event in the boys’ bathroom. I had unleashed a series of belly punches to Gilbert Galyon when the principal walked in. I immediately stopped and the bathroom cleared. The principal walked up to me as I explained that we were just play fighting. He said, “How would you like it if I did that to you?” He shoved me back into the coat rack and threw several very convincing fake punches.

He stepped back and said, “How does it feel when it happens to you?” I said, “Fine! I don’t see why you had to make such a big deal out of it!” That was a big mistake on my part! He got very red in the face and escorted me by the nap of my neck to a chair outside his office. He left me there to ponder my fate while I think he went off to plan his next steps. It was sitting there that I first felt the pain in my back. The pain from him shoving me into to coat rack at the very beginning of the encounter.

After what seemed like hours but was only about 20 minutes he came back and took me into his office. What followed was a long and somewhat confusing lecture. He said he knew all about me and that I was a real troublemaker at Saunders. I was baffled by that and wondered if he had me confused with someone else at first. I didn’t say one word and in time he calmed down. He began talking about my sisters and then my parents. Then he suddenly stopped and said, “Get to class!” and I left.

That was the one and only encounter I had with the principal in junior high. He was an elementary principal in the district during my entire teaching career in Mt. Pleasant and served on the school board there for a time. He was on the interview team when I interviewed for a principal job in Mt. Pleasant. I didn’t get the job but I doubt it had anything to do with our junior high play fight.