RODAN NEARLY GOT ME

In fourth grade, Rodan was big back in the late '50's. I mean this huge bird was destroying Japan. Saturday matinees kept a lot of us busy when we weren't playing ball. And we liked Rodan.

I had a teacher in the fourth grade, female of course, remember the era. She had heard that on our bathroom breaks, we were too talkative. Now tell me who would care what fourth grade boys did in the bathroom as long as they weren't destructive.

So a new rule was enforced. One boy would be responsible for writing down the names of anyone talking while in the bathroom. Moronic? You bet. The kicker was that if you got reported xx number of times, you couldn't use the bathroom anymore that week. (This same teacher once substituted for Scott's elementary school class and wouldn't let him leave the room to go to the bathroom because he had a nosebleed. It must have been something about the leftover talking I had run up twenty years prior.)

I decided that on a Friday, we would go to the bathroom and talk to whoever we wanted. Hey, the count started over on Monday so what was the harm? I walked up to a big fifth grader, Lanny Shaw, and said, "Rodan is great." Lanny about died because everybody knew that our class couldn't talk in the john. Three other guys joined in and we talked up a storm.

The little guy that kept score probably had to leave and sharpen his pencil as many times as we four were jabbering. Not loudly, just frequently. When we returned to class, the principal was there. He called us to the front of the room. I knew we were going to get spanked. But it didn't happen. I think he knew it was a stupid rule. In fact, I think that day ended the stupid no talking rule, if I remember correctly.

But years later, she got even. At the expense of my son, Scott.