I
had a lunatic Civil War buff history teacher who was maybe on the
downward slope of sanity when he was teaching us. He was able to
cover pre-Civil War US history in about two weeks and then jumped
into the causes battles and implications of the Civil War for the
rest of the semester forgetting to leave time for anything in the
twentieth century. I didn't really care what he taught about he was
funny and had mostly interesting anecdotes and stories and was real
light on the dates and facts part of history. He told us one time
about going to a Civil War symposium in Georgia and registering as
Mr. Sherman (after the famous scorched-earth northern general
William Tecumseh Sherman) so that he could make jokes all weekend
about Sherman's march and Sherman's neckties. Esoteric Civil War
humor that was lost on the hotel staff but tickled this teacher to no
end. In his civil war memorabilia he had a replica Civil War rifle
that he kept in his office with gun powder and balls and everything
it needed to be shot. Seems reasonable to have on hand just in case
you needed it. One time when he had set us to our quite work, which
most of us where doing, but there were two girls in the back chatting
away disrupting the mood. The teacher snuck back to his office loaded
the gun with everything but the ball, affixed the cap and came out
and without warning, shot the gun off into the mostly silent room
right behind the chatty young ladies. I was most of the room away and
it was deafening so I cannot imagine what kind of ear ringing must
have been going on there in the back. The smoke filled the whole room
and most people were in shock holding there ears and ducking close to
their desks because they were not sure what had happened and if it
might happen again. The teacher opened the door to let out the smoke
and told every one not to talk during quite work time and went to put
his rifle away. When he was back in his office people started looking
around to see what everyone else was thinking but we kept the talking
for later because we were not sure if his instability would include a
projectile in the next shot. I was thinking just now how bizarre it
was that there was a time when a teacher could shoot off a rifle in
class without warning. It would be cable news staple for two weeks
nowadays and there would be legal action from half the students. The
lesson worked though and the class quite time was quiet, quiet and
watchful after that.
