Luke Grown Up

When I was a junior in high school, my senior friend Bill told me about this class he was taking. It was called Electricity, and it was taught by Mr Hoar (pronounced “whore”), my favorite Physics teacher - a really punny guy that was also incredibly nice, but he was a good teacher as well. All around, great guy. Bill said that it was so easy and fun. When I was a senior, I figured, why not? I don’t want to do any work. So I took it, and it ended up being the best class of my high school career.

Let me set this up for you folks that didn’t go to Franklin High and are unaware of the notoriety of this class. First of all, it was all male. Just by chance, but also, it had to do with the subject material, and probably the fact that it was a known “guy class,” which isn’t really a reasonable explanation. So all guys. Not just any guys though: some of The Crew was in there with me. The Crew is my group of friends from high school. We were pretty big - ten or so core members and some fringe members (people we hung out with on occasion that were also cool, but we didn’t hang with them as much as core Crew). In this class, I had Ross, a ridiculous goofball wop that always made me laugh, Kurt, the original dynamoaf, Adam, a junior that hung out with us because of his membership in Stream, FHS’ favorite band that I was also in (we weren’t that good, but girls loved us for some reason), and James, a guy Kurt hung out with a lot that just added another level of disrespect to the class that I could not even fathom. I mean disrespect in a good way, because he made some hilarious moments happen.

So this class was basically a big joke. We spread the word around, and we would always have guests randomly show up. D’Errico, another of the Crew, would often come and hang out while we did work. Hoar didn’t care at first, but after awhile he’d boot people. The visits made the class even better. But the best part was the stuff that we as a class did in that room. Since Mr. Hoar was so laid-back, he let a lot of stuff slide that really would have pissed off other teachers. Here are a bunch of stories that I can remember that are funny.

One thing that occurred for the first time midway through the year and persisted as a popular event was throwing shit at Mr. Hoar’s dick. It started one day with a wily scheme and a ball of paper. As he was standing at the front of the room, one of us (probably Adam) pitched the ball at Hoar’s crotch. Hoar flinched and it hit his thigh. We thought this was hilarious. The abuse continued as the weeks past. I’ll never forget the day Kurt threw a whiteboard marker at his crotch and it nailed him. The look on his face while he leaned on his desk for support while his groin ached was priceless.

Another recurring event was Adam’s insistence of watching the Super Bowl Shuffle in class. For those of you that don’t know what that is, I’ll explain. In 1985, the Chicago Bears made it to Super Bowl XX. They then recorded a song called The Super Bowl Shuffle, which apparently made it to the tops of the charts. The Bears won the Super Bowl, and the song exploded. There was also a music video that was ridiculous. Adam was a huge Bears fan, so naturally he owned an original tape of it. All the time he asked Mr. Hoar to watch it, and every time Mr. Hoar shot it down, obviously. Adam kept raving about it, and the tape developed a cult following before any of us had even seen it.

Then one morning we were going to watch a video at the beginning of class. We were all there, and the television set was waiting for us. Mr. Hoar popped in the video but didn’t start it, and he left the room for a second. We took this opportunity to take the Super Bowl Shuffle out of a drawer on the side of the room (it had found a home there due to Adam’s constant pleadings) and replaced it in the VCR. So Mr. Hoar comes in, hits play, and there’s a black screen. He thinks it’s the movie. Then the song and video start up. We are enthralled, and Mr. Hoar realizes immediately what is going on. He springs to his feet and shuts it off while we all groan. He was pretty pissed off.

To this day I still haven’t seen it. They managed to watch it two times with Mr. Hoar’s permission, and of course I was there neither day, I think because of college visits. The last time a viewing was attempted (I was present, and I think the same thing I mentioned earlier happened again), Mr. Hoar ripped the tape out of the VCR and threw it in the trash. Adam lost The Super Bowl Shuffle that day. We continue to mourn his loss.

We also pulled other pranks on Mr. Hoar much of the time. The only reason we did them was because we knew we could get away with them.

To understand this prank, you have to understand that our classroom was not anyone’s personal room - therefore, when not in use, it was always locked. So before class, there’d be about 20 rowdy boys hanging out in the hallway, waiting to get in. On some days, Mr. Hoar just wouldn’t be there on time, so one of the assistant principals would let us in. Most of the time, we went in, turned on the lights, and did the usual fuckshittery, but some days we would all hide under desks and in cabinets and turn the lights off. When Mr. Hoar would unlock the door and come in (I think the door relocked automatically), he would turn on the lights, then we would all pop out and yell, “SURPRISE!” Then we would proceed to sing Happy Birthday to him. We did this several times, including once on his actual birthday, I believe. I also believe on one of those days. we actually brought in cake - I don’t believe it was his birthday when we did it. Every time we did it, he just gave us a look, like “So this is what my job has come to” sort of thing.

One prank that was spoiled was when Adam and/or Ross was going to call Mr. Hoar’s phone from another classroom (the theater room across the hall) and keep harassing him. The prank is on the verge of happening, when something happens. Jordan Hill walks into the room. A quick sidenote - Jordan was another class member, but most of the time, he was not really thinking. He was incredibly skinny and in 10th grade math he was at the board pointing out something on the screen for the overhead projector, which was projecting problems. He started writing on the screen. Someone quickly told him was he was doing, and he whipped around and ended up looking directly into the overhead’s light, got blinded, let out a cry, and fell to the ground. Another time Kurt thought he was Chris Diaz from behind. So Jordan’s had his share of mishaps. Anyway, so Jordan comes in and loudly announces, “Hey did Adam call his phone yet?” We all started swearing at him. Mr. Hoar caught on, and the prank was finished.

Another common occurrence was Adam’s using Mr. Hoar’s computer. He would just sit on it for most of class, checking the weather and sports scores. I don’t know why Mr. Hoar didn’t care at all - only once in awhile would he boot Adam. I think because he loved him.

Well, this one time Adam sat down to do his usual routine at the computer. The monitor was off, so he switched it on, but there was no picture. Then all of a sudden, the monitor made this noise: “ssssssssssss-pok” . And then Adam said: “Uh oh…” We all laughed. Mr. Hoar was pissed. The monitor was completely busted. But the thing is, Adam didn’t even do anything - it died on its own. Nevertheless, Mr. Hoar blamed Adam for the whole thing. We all giggled like schoolgirls.

However, nothing ever became of the monitor incident because Mr. Hoar loved Adam. He used to call him nicknames, which stemmed from one time that Ross went on Adam’s screen name when we were sophomores and pretended to be him, stating that his name was “Afam Kumelt” (this set of IM conversations is known simply as “The Derfelt Files,” and may have been lost forever). We called Adam “Afam” in class, and Mr. Hoar caught on to the idea and started making up stuff, like Alam Fanbelt and Aram Deerpelt. The best was one day when Adam left the room for some reason, probably to skip class. Mr. Hoar leaned out into the hallway and yelled, “Hey! Abraham Dirtbag! Get back here!” Since then, that has been a popular nickname for Adam.

Adam and Ross were always teaming up to do something ridiculous. Usually they got in trouble for it too. I’ll never forget the day that Adam and Ross got written up. Since the theater room was right across the hall, there would sometimes be a piano in the hall. One day Ross and Adam decided to leave class and play the piano. But that wasn’t enough - Adam pushed it down the hall while Ross sidestepped next to it, playing some ridiculous stride tune as the piano made its trek to the end of the corridor. Obviously, Mr. Hoar was ripped. He wrote them up for it. Actually, only one of them got written up - I think it was Ross, because Adam never got in trouble for anything anywhere, especially in Electricity.

Ross and Adam would constantly be spitting all over each other too. It was pretty gross, but hilarious too. They would chase each other around the room and spit all over each other. Any time Adam spit on Ross’ leg (which was frequently), Ross would wipe it off in a humorous fashion. The same applied when he spilled liquid on himself.

This leads me to the most disgusting thing we ever did in that class. Before we ever had a bottle of shit, we had a bottle of spit. This was absolutely terrible. Just thinking about it now makes me want to gag. So one day we all decide we’re going to collect our spit in an Aquafina bottle. Terrific idea, right? So we pass the bottle around, spitting into the bottle cap and pouring it into the bottle. I think the bottle went around twice - we barely got any in there, but everyone was trying not to throw up - it was truly disgusting. We abandoned the project soon after its start, and we were all relieved. Ross probably got yelled at while we were doing that.

Speaking of Ross getting in trouble, he would frequently write ridiculous things on the board. He wrote “Boobs” on the board one day, and nothing became of it - I think it stayed up there for the entire class. But another time, he wrote “Mr. Whore” on the board and got detention. Mr. Hoar was weird sometimes.

One time I was standing by the cabinets on the side of the room where everyone (mostly Adam) stashed their stuff. I went into one of the the drawers and took out a book and started looking at it. I put it back, and started to back up and turn around. I backed into Ross, who was standing directly behind me with his chest puffed out. He yelled, “BBBBBBOOKS” in my ear and startled me quite badly. My heart raced as I nearly peed myself laughing.

Then of course, there are the quotes. One day the group at my table was just sitting there, talking about something unimportant. Mr. Hoar is sitting with us, grading something. All of a sudden he looks up and says, “Did somebody just say ‘mung’?” Though we had said it before, we had not said anything of the sort in our conversation. We all cracked up because he was being serious - he thought he heard ‘mung’.

Another time James ordered Mr. Hoar to “drink my daily diarrhea.” He got an ADP, which is a 2-hour detention where you can’t do anything but homework.

The last thing I’ve got is a quote from a Mr. Andrew Carroll. This guy meant well, but we gave him shit for no reason - he didn’t deserve it at all. One day Adam was shooting spitballs at him from across the room. He hit him in the neck a couple times. Mr. Hoar is teaching at the board. Andrew gives Adam a look that says “stop,” but Adam shoots another one. While Mr. Hoar is talking, Andrew yells, “Fuck you Derfelt!!!” We all just stared. The two of them had to go after school to talk to Mr. Hoar for that one.

As you can tell, this was one bullshit class. What really blows me away is that this was an Honors class, as I was just reminded by Bill. Complete garbage! How that class was considered Honors I’ll never understand. I know I’m forgetting some things, including the bad things that I said that I had to stand in front of the class and explain. Anyone from that class, let me know what I’m missing.

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