Uncle Pappy is such a jerk!
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I think it’s time to open the Cardiogirl Archives from October 24, 1983. I was about one month into tenth grade and it is extremely clear that I was not happy with the teachers I was assigned to.
I’m sure it was bad karma from the universe and had nothing to do with my 15-year-old attitude.
God I hate Uncle Pappy! My math teacher. He’s such a dummy! That’s the class, as you probably guessed, I’m doing bad in. God what a jerk.
Besides that all my other classes are going good considering all the stupid teachers I got. It’s like the pricinpal or whoever matches teachers and students was thinking, ‘Hey, let’s give Cardiogirl a hard time this year!’
I’ve got:
1. Uncle Pappy — I have him for Geometry 2 this year and he’s a jerk. I know he’s a jerk because I had him last year for Algebra. He likes to make out with the girls rubbing his hands up and down their backs! All except me.
Anyways, last year he told everyone he wasn’t teaching geometry this year, the jerk, but he is and I got him. He’s so stupid, he doesn’t explain anything at all and he won’t answer any of my questions.
You’d think all I have to do is get a transfer, right? Wrong. Mr. White, my counselor, is so dang busy he can’t see me. So every day I write my name on a piece of paper hoping to see him but it never works!
2. Mr. Adler — super boring, he could put a snail to sleep.
3. Mr. Smith — more boring than Adler.
4. Mrs. Bowhuis for German — she’s a female Hitler!
5. And last and least Mr. Freeman — sweat bomb, he always has yellow rings under his arms and he likes to talk with his eyes closed.
Yes, I know. All of this is begging for some explanation.
Uncle Pappy was a jerk. Now that I’ve read the entry I do remember him sitting on the edge of the desk behind the girl in question, looking over her shoulder while his right hand rubbed her back from the shoulders down to the small of the back.
Gross. I guess I was a bit of a wild rebel cat even back then and he knew enough not to attempt to touch my feral shoulders. But come on, look at those pictures. They’re both from 1983/1984 when I had a modified mullet and humongous glasses. I think the photo illustrates that the top of the frame reached my eyebrows and the bottom of the frame was parallel with the bottom of my nose.
That gave me a windshield of sorts to see all kinds of stuff clearly. And I clearly saw him “making out” with the other girls. Jerk.
I stand by the assertion that Adler and Smith were boring. I do feel bad for saying Mrs. B was a female Hitler. She was strict but she wasn’t a tyrant. Sorry, Mrs. B.
But when I read that Mr. Freeman liked to talk with his eyes closed it totally took me back to his class room. Yes, he did speak with his eyes closed. As I recall, he used to tip his head back, toward the ceiling, close his eyes and then re-state the answer.
I imagine now that he was expressing exasperation with his dense students. And instead of screaming at us, he simply tipped his head back and silent asked, “Why God?”
Or maybe he was silently screaming, “Serenity Now!” as I frequently do when frustrated with my children. I’ll have to make a mental note to tip my head to the heavens next time I scream that in my head.
I guess karma does come back to get you after all.
That light is so bright in the first pic that you can’t even tell the pics are of the same person. Whatever happened to Uncle Pappy? Did he end up in prison? Maybe enter the priesthood?
That light is bright, isn’t it? It even makes it look like I have blond hair there. I don’t know where Uncle Pappy is, but his co-horts are the wrong gender for him to enter the priesthood, no?
Your post takes me back to memories of my high school. We had an English teacher called Mrs. Krishnan, who we thought was very cool. She used to smoke in her room & was married for the third time, with a son in his late twenties and one who was only 6.
All this was quite shocking, as most of us had never even heard of any woman being divorced let alone being on her third husband.
How times change. I am getting divorced for the second time & nobody is shocked. I know many who are on their third or even fourth spouses.
I can see how that would be radical back then. Did she actually smoke a cigarette in her classroom as she was teaching? That would blow my mind. Is Krishnan a common last name? Our pediatrician’s last name is Krishnan. She’s 64, I think. Wouldn’t that be something if she was your former teacher!
I’m so sorry to hear about the divorce, sanjay; that bites.
Wow…total high school flashback there. Although I was sporting my very sexy men’s hair cut with occasional perm (if i put on tinted sunglasses when I had the freakin perm, my hair looked like David Hasselhoff’s in Knight Rider….not such a good luck for a teenage girl!!!) I was lucky enough to not need glasses until college, so I missed the humongous glasses phase…thank goodness.
Your whole description of Uncle Pappy gave me the creeps! We had one or two teachers that might be a little too flirtatious with some of the older girls but nothing like that…Yikes!! Btw, please tell me that Uncle Pappy was just some sort of nickname you gave him and not actually what he had students call him.
Look at you with the short do, back in the 80s no less, Buf. You’re a visionary! Though I had to laugh at the David Hasselhoff reference. Yes, that was a nickname. I’m pretty certain that nickname was used behind his back, but I’m sure he knew about it. His real last name was P@ppenh@gen. But obviously I used to bitch about him, behind his back, using the nickname. The jerk :)
Ewww, Uncle Pappy was probably the type of teacher that would now be brought up on sexual harassment charges. He sounds rather slimey from your description. But I had to giggle about Mr Freeman tilting his head back and saying, “Why God?!” I have a friend who’s a teacher, and I’m sure he is this generation’s Mr Freeman.
I had some pretty uneventful teachers, though some were a bit odd. None were mean, though. I tended to make friends with mine, mainly because I didn’t fit in well with people my own age. In 3rd grade, we had Mrs Winn, whom we thought was a royal witch till we eventually realized it was just her outer shell, that really she was a sweet and lovely lady (not physically, though). Then I had Mr Pilley for pre-calculus my junior year, who gave us all our trigonometry heading & bearing problems using bombing runs from Vietnam. He retired VERY precipitously a few days before the start of my senior year, throwing a huge monkey wrench into the works for many seniors who thought they’d have him for calculus.
My best friend ended up having to switch his entire schedule around because of Mr Pilley’s sudden departure. I guess the meanest teacher I had was Mrs Novak. I’d moved from Nebraska back to Virginia before my sophomore year, and all the kids were given this packet to review algebra at the end of ninth grade to prep for algebra 2. I had three days to finish it, and I couldn’t remember any algebra to save my life. I stayed after school one day to ask for help, but she’d do one example problem and then walk out of the room. When I asked her for more help and explanation, she got angry at me. I did all right in algebra 2, amazingly enough.
I had those big glasses too. And no, I didn’t style my hair like that every day. I still cannot style hair. Now you know why I keep it in a bob.
Yes! I had exactly the same thoughts, blue when I wrote that out. That kind of behavior would never fly today.
I have no clue what heading and bearing problems are but I would have *loved* to hear his problems using scenarios from Vietnam. It sounds like a creative way to work through post traumatic stress.
Your picture is so cute! Love the glasses and the color coordination. Stellar!
awwwwh look at your cute round face (i’m pinching your cheeks) in the second picture, the one i can see. uh uncle pappy? why the name uncle pappy? am i missing something? who is pappy? is that his real name? making out with the girls? oh yuck! rubbing their backs? oh h*ll to the naw!
“and last and least mr. freeman — sweat bomb, he always has yellow rings under his arms and he likes to talk with his eyes closed.” lol and yuk
“a windshield of sorts to see all kinds of stuff clearly” rofl, okay they are a bit huge.
i imagine now that he was expressing exasperation with his dense students. and instead of screaming at us, he simply tipped his head back and silent asked, “why god?” awh heck too funny and you’re probably right.
did he ever pinch the bridge of his nose while holding his head back?
(Laughs) Hell to the naw! (Bob-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee) I think it was just shortening his last name, isn’t it funny I never questioned the origins of that nickname. His actual name was Mr. P@ppenh@gen.
I am positive Mr. Freeman pinched the bridge of his nose while tipping his head back. Poor man. It’s like teaching was his living hell.
and i wasn’t pinching 41 year old cardiogirl cheeks, i was pinching 15 year old cardiogirl cheeks. there’s a difference.
Oh Natural. You’re so diplomatic, it’s cool. Occasionally I have to swat a cheek pincher away even now. No sweat.
I think Uncle Pappy must be a creep based on the fact that his students called him Uncle Pappy. Gross.
Yeah, he was something else. And I really don’t think he was a very good math teacher based on how well I did. Man it would be nice to see how well his students did each year and what the average grade was.
Ok, rubbing the girls’ backs AND he was called UNCLE Pappy? Eww. Talk about a call to the police nowadays! Love your describing your glasses as a “windshield”, LOL!
Your pics are too cute!
Thanks Kari! Yeah in retrospect it was nasty and disgusting. I’m surprised he was able to get away with that.
Awesome photos!! Now I can modernize them and picture what you look like. Pretty creepy sounding teacher you had there.
It’s a scary modernization, ain’t it? Just remember to add a ponytail.
So, did your cheeks need glasses too? You are one HOT babe there, CG! (Notice how I don’t post my horrid photos from wayyyy back when. Smart, eh?)
Hey! I’m back from vacation! Did you miss my smart @ss comments? Didn’t think so.
Love the teacher who is so boring he made a snail fall asleep. Now THAT is boring.
I *did* miss you and your comments. I also missed your return comments back at your pad, missy. Yeah, I had to beat the boys off with a stick. Not.
I’ll have to look for the photo that shows the stick-on initials I had on the bottom left side of the windshield, I mean lenses. And they went diagonally, baby. I had flair even back then. As I recall they were gold colored and the font was like the one you see on diplomas. Yeah.
Ha Ha your description of Mr. Freeman had me laughing but not of Uncle Pappy, icky. I had a geometry teacher that always had a string of spit hanging between his upper and lower lips when he talked, it was really distracting not to mention gross. I find myself saying” Serenity Now” with my kids a whole lot. And funny thing I was just the other day telling my ten year old that girls had mullets in the eighties too. You rocked the mullet CG so cute. I think those big glasses were the style too weren’t they?
Certainly I would have failed your geometry class from fixating on the string of spit (well I cannot figure out geometry to save my life, but that’s beside the point.) It was a rockin’ mullet wasn’t it? I remember really working on the feathering on top and then curling the back under. To make it perfect. Then I used my mom’s Aqua Net, in an aerosol can no less, to hold that style in place.
Yes ma’am. Those huge ass glasses were all the rage. I was right on the edge of fashion there.
I had a typing teacher in high school who was quite memorable. He began the class with a long lecture about how fortunate we were to be taking typing because it will keep us from kicked to the curb, homeless, unable to support our families. Next, he proceeded to introduce us to the parts of the typewriter. I distinctly remember him asking us to run our hand across the carriage – “now, caress the carriage.”
Another memorable one was Harsh Ms. Karsh, but she was a favorite of mine (she had extremely high expectations of her students, but was still accessible).
Then, there’s my high school’s claim to fame (freshman year, somebody made sure to show me the photo on the wall of graduate, John Wayne Gacy – yikes!).
Wendy you have earned the Gold Star of the Day by a landslide!
This comment started as a small snowball that gained momentum and became an avalanche of epic proportions. Ending with the best nugget of all — Mr. John Wayne Gacy! I actually laughed out loud with my mouth gaping open.
For the folks who may not know, Mr. John Wayne Gacy was a convicted serial killer who used to entertain neighborhood children as a clown named Pogo. Surprisingly or not, I find the photo of him as a clown much more terrifying than his mug shot.
Uncle Pappy?! He made you call him *uncle*? Ew.
No, that would be completely disgusting. It was a nickname we used behind his back.
I was just thinking about Mrs. Bauhaus and the time she was screaming at me “You didn’t think! You didn’t think!” But it is interesting how time can bring some compassion for some of our teachers. It would be interesting to know her life story.
On the other hand, I didn’t realize how Uncle Pappy was with the girls. That reminds me of a particular middle school teacher who was eventually charged with sexual misconduct with some of his students.
Mr Freeman…he was my teacher, too. Your descriptions bring it all back home. Poor, poor man. I hope he has found some peace.
BTW-Gacy as clown-totally scary. We can trace all clown phobias back to that photo.
She sure did love that phrase, “You didn’t think! You didn’t think!” I know I heard that *many* a time.
Just quickly getting off track a bit: I hated those damn die, der, das things (can’t remember what they’re called but I know that have a name) that indicated a feminine, masculine or neuter word. What the f*ck is a neuter word anyway? And all I really remember is that cat is a feminine word — die Katze. Is a male cat still referred to as die? What about that question Mrs. Bauhaus? And I don’t know how to spell her last name.
Moving on. I’d forgotten about him and his wandering hand until I read what I wrote. It cracks me up that he didn’t try that with me. I don’t think it’s because he thought I’d slam him to the wall. I think it’s because he didn’t like me and he *knew* I didn’t like him.
Oh yes, that nasty, nasty science teacher in middle school. He finally got what he deserved. Asshole. I really hated him. I truly wished ill will on him and the word hate does not convey what I really felt. He was so antagonistic. God I hated him. Again, getting off track, I wonder what was going on in his head to cause that behavior. Issues, baby.
Freeman was a piece o’ work, eh? I didn’t really like him either. Have I mentioned high school was not a good time for me?
And amen on the clown thing. As a 41-year-old I think that photo is really terrifying. I can’t imagine confronting that as an 8-year-old.