When I was in 9th grade, I had a baseball coach for history. He wasn’t a history teacher who was ALSO a baseball coach. He was a baseball coach who happened to also have the responsibility of a history class. He made no pretense whatsoever of knowing any history or being able/willing to teach it.

Instead, he’d hand me a notebook of notes and tell me to write them on the board. He said I had nice handwriting and knew how to spell. This is true. One time he made the mistake of asking if I wanted to do this,  and I smiled and said, “not really.”

“Tough!” And he handed me the notebook and for the rest of the year he remembered not to ask – he just handed me the notes and pointed to the board.

Coach used to yell my last name across campus, as if I were one of his athletes. My maiden name is 3 syllables long, and when you yell it in a deep voice with an exclamation point after each syllable, it ceases to be anything I identify with any part of me. I sure didn’t answer to it. This did not inspire Coach to ever, even once,  use my first name.  Sometimes later he’d ask me in class why I never answered when he’d yell at me and I’d ask why he was yelling at me in the first place. This always caught him off guard and he’d shrug and say he didn’t remember.

He was the sort to yell and wave at anyone, anytime. I am the sort who doesn’t like this.

One of Coach’s baseball players and I shared the same last name, and I always assumed that if anyone were to yell that name in that way, then it probably was intended for that guy. Who was not related to me in any way. But who pretended he was, for I have no idea what reason, and he often told everyone I was his cousin. This bothered me because this guy was…. bleah. I didn’t really know him, and I never took the time to try. But I loathed him anyway. He was loud and outgoing and a general troublemaker and I never thought he was that bright.  He  was a pitcher, and he looked like a Ken doll.  I never find the Malibu Ken look  endearing in any way. Everyone else did, though, so I didn’t feel so bad.  He liked to wrap an arm around me and call me “cuz” just to confuse teachers and see if I’d deny it.

When teachers saw my name on the roll at the beginning of the school year, they would stop and narrow their eyes at me and tell me they already knew I was the pitcher’s cousin. They didn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t, and it was their way of warning me that they knew I’d be trouble.  Right. The petite, silent types with the killer spelling skills are SO ROUGH.

In Coach’s history class, there were all the athletes and a few of us non-athletes. I never considered that there was a REASON that Coach had all the athletes, or that they all got really great grades despite some of them not being all that smart. Like my non-cousin. And regardless of whatever my effort was, I got a 97 on every single report card.

None of us really learned any history.

I never thought I’d miss Coach’s history class. But today, I really do.

Today, I am in the opposite of that history class.  I can read everything I’m supposed to read, study as hard as I can,  and learn a whole lot of history – and yet there is NO WAY I can make a good grade on the quizzes. The professor set it up this way.  Obscure questions. Questions from a textbook he said we wouldn’t need. Questions that don’t exist in any of the required or optional textbooks. Everything he has given us in written form is positively hostile. It’s an online course, and I’m glad I won’t ever have to see him face to face.  This guy is mean. That’s not a hasty judgment, or overstating it. This guy is MEAN.

There will be no more undeserved 97s. There will be no special treatment because I have nice handwriting and I know how to spell.

And yeah, that’s how it SHOULD be… but I’m a bit wistful anyway.

Be Sociable, Share!

•