Posted: January 17th, 2011 | Author: miconian | Filed under: Miconian At Large | Tags: high school, martin luther king, MLK, SME | 3 Comments »
My high school, which had been around long enough for my mother to attend it, had never officially acknowledged Martin Luther King Day, up until my senior year. A few words from my favorite teacher, and I was resolved to change that.
Mr. DeBarthe had been pointedly relegated to the classroom that was as far as one could get from the principal’s office and still physically be in the school. He was a Mormon with an elaborate mustache and no beard, fond of wearing Hawaiian print shirts, especially one that said “Tahiti” on the pocket. He went on archaeological digs. He coached the chess team. HIs grading system was difficult for many students to understand. He refused to answer yes or no questions. He could draw a perfect circle on the blackboard, and he often came up with reasons to do so.
My first real interaction with Mr. DeBarthe happened when I was taking a journalism class my sophomore year. I was writing an article about the chess team, which regularly attended the national high school chess championship tournament, despite paltry support from the district. Mr. DeBarthe had some inflammatory things to say about the school board, and I put them in the article. The journalism teacher refused to accept my assignment, insisting that no teacher in his right mind would make such a statement if he knew it was going to be printed and distributed to the administration. I returned to Mr. DeBarthe, explained that we were talking on the record, and asked if he wanted to change his quote. I read it back to him.
“I was being too kind,” he said, and gave me another quote, twice as inflammatory. Upon hearing about this, the journalism teacher threw up his hands, and the quote went into the paper.
I resolved to spend as much time as possible in Mr. DeBarthe’s classroom for the remainder of my high school career.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: June 19th, 2009 | Author: miconian | Filed under: Miconian At Large | Tags: cashew, high school, kansas city, reunion, SME | 2 Comments »
The Cashew is a four-story bar in downtown Kansas City. It didn’t exist when we were in high school. Everyone attending had paid $70 ($60 in advance) for an open bar and “heavy appetizers.” At 11:30, the staff told us that we could either pay another $2,500, or our open bar was closing. Lame. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: June 18th, 2009 | Author: miconian | Filed under: Miconian At Large | Tags: high school, reunion, SME | 2 Comments »
The morning of the second day of the reunion, there was a tour of the high school scheduled for 1o am. I didn’t plan on going. I figured I’d be hung over, and that my days of having to get up early for high school were long over.
But in the morning, I woke up with plenty of time to spare, so I went. I figured that physically walking through the building would help give me some perspective on things that had happened there.
I knew some things had changed…
Back when I was a student, tobacco products were not only allowed, there was an official student smoking lounge. In a school of 2,000 students, with five minutes to get from one class to another, smokers still found time to sprint to the lounge, and to be seen standing there for thirty seconds, casually having a drag as if they’d been there for hours and had nowhere to go. Read the rest of this entry »
