Drafting I

I went through a couple of really low periods during High School… Grade 10 in particular was a really bad year.

I skipped a lot of school. When I did attend class I didn’t really participate. I smoked a lot of weed. I stole my parents car and went “missing”. I used my Ritalin prescription to make a mild form of speed that I then sold to a preppy kids for way too much money… In general I was a punk, a knucklehead, an idiot... whatever word you can come up with to describe a stupid teenager, that was me.

My second semester of school that year in particular was a real abortion.

One of my more memorable classes was Drafting. The teacher was named Mr. F… he had been teaching at the school for over 30 years. He had seen a lot of drastic changes during his tenure, many in the 10 years leading up to my arrival at the school.

The student body had gone from almost all upper-middle class to an eclectic mix of kids from all races and economic classes.

When I was going there I would say it was 30% Inner City Ghetto kids, 40% white trash, 20% rich kids, and then a random 10% group of immigrant kids who had just started to arrive in our area from Central America.

The part of the city I grew up in is now being gentrified and the school is back to being upper-middle class… but at the time I was there, it was a mad house. And especially in Mr. F’s class.

Mr. F just didn’t seem to have the energy or desire to handle a class room… he was a pretty decent guy, just running out of steam. If you needed his help, he was there for you, but he couldn’t go out of his way to help every kid that needed guidance.

I think he had given a lot of time and effort in the past to kids who went on to later break his heart... at least that's my theory.

Each Monday he would give our class an assignment, and that was it. If you wanted to do the assignment, great… If not, whatever.

He let us sit wherever we wanted. We could talk as much as we wanted. We could listen to our headphones. We could eat or drink in class… he didn‘t care. The unwritten rule was basically, “Don’t do anything blatantly wrong" and he’d leave you alone.

The were two entrances to his classroom. One of the entrances was located right next to the supply shelves and was not visible from Mr. F’s desk.

If a kid was so inclined, he could pretend to be going to get something off the shelf and just walk out of class… There were so much commotion in the room that it was pretty easy to get away with.

Another trick for the less daring student was to ask Mr F for a bathroom pass and then just not coming back for 40 minutes. He usually didn’t notice.

Since this class took place while the first lunch shift was going on, kids were always looking to get out of class and visit their friends.

My girlfriend had the first lunch shift… Moe Greene had the first lunch shift… I wanted to be on the first lunch shift.

I used the 'bathroom' and the 'sneak out' trick all the time. But I also had another trick up my sleeve… Because I was such a fucked up kid, I qualified for what is know as a “Crisis Pass.”

This little piece of yellow laminated paper meant that any time I thought I might stab someone with a #2 pencil, I could whip out my little pass and the teacher had to let me leave… They were supposed to verify that I had indeed actually gone to the Guidance Office later on, but most teachers did not. As you can probably imagine, Mr. F was not the type of teacher that checked.

So I managed to make an appearance at first lunch shift almost everyday… In fact, most kids actually thought I was on the first lunch shift.

Whenever I used the Crisis Pass on Mr. F he would just say, “okay…” and that was it. He never even looked up from whatever he was working on. I could never figure out if he just didn’t care or if it made him uncomfortable to know that I was having a crisis.

One day towards the end of the year I went up to his desk with the intention of going to see my friends during first lunch shift… I had been sneaking out with bathroom passes all week and had somehow managed to actually get caught once. So I decided on this particular day to use my Crisis Pass.

I walked up to his desk. He didn’t look up.

“I need to go to the Guidance Office,” I told him.

“What’s today’s date?” He asked me.

I assumed that he wanted the date so that he could write me a hall pass…

“I don’t need a hall pass,” I tried explaining as I took out my laminated yellow paper.

“What’s the date?” he repeated.

He still hadn’t looked up from the papers he was grading, despite the fact that I was clearly trying to show him my pass.

“May 7th,” I replied- not hiding the fact that I was annoyed.

“What year?”

At this point I thought he was possibly entering the early stages of senility right in front of my eyes… “Mr. F, I know you’re getting old, but if you don’t know what year it is-”

He cut me off.. “Just humor me.”

“Okay… 1996...” I responded. I was very confused at the direction this conversation was going, and I cursed myself for not sneaking out of class instead.

Then Mr. F looked up from his desk and directly into my eyes…“Son, do you remember what was bothering you on May 7th 1995?”

“No…” I cautiously answered. It felt like a trick question.

“How about 1994?”

“No,” I laughed.

“Okay then. I’m going to let you go to the Guidance Counselor but I want you to think about the little talk we‘ve had here.”

Of course I didn’t go to the Counselor, I went to see my friends… But I did think about his question. I still do… I guess his point was, a year from now I would have long since forgotten whatever issues or problems I was dealing with.

Of course that’s not always true, but it usually, it is... Especially at that age… For the most part, there are few problems that can arise in a 16 year old boy’s life that can’t be fixed.

And even though I was lying on that particular day about having a crisis, I had been given the Crisis Pass for a reason… I was, and still am the kind of person who let’s a manageable problem bother me to the point that I become overwhelmed.

I’m not saying that Mr. F’s advice changed my life or “saved” me, but what he told me that day has stayed with me all this time.

At the end of the school year when report cards got mailed home, I knew I had failed every class except English… but for whatever reason I took a look at it anyway. As I made my way down the paper, something jumped out at me. When I got to Mr. F’s class, it read as follows:

Drafting I: First Term- F, Second Term- D, Final Grade- D.

I had passed the class, with a D, but it was still a passing grade… I had only completed one assignment the whole year, it was in the first week of class, and I had copied it from someone else.

I doubt Mr. F remembers that talk. I’m positive he doesn’t my name. But, in a 2 minute talk he probably doesn’t even remember, he gave me one the most valuable lessons I learned in 4 years of High School.

So where ever you are- Thanks Mr. F…