Eleventh grade auto shop one was taught by Mr. Green. He was young enough where he didn't seem ancient to us but old enough to command authority. We considered him a cool guy (excellent praise from us).
He had a good sense of humor laced with sarcasm. He would give some of the guys nicknames. Like Bobby Horner, he called, "Horny." So we started calling him Mr. Green Jeans after an actor on the TV kids show Captain Kangaroo. Just about every kid in America watched that show when they were little. Mr. Green didn't mind at all. I guess he thought that if he could give us nicknames then turnabout was fair play. He really was pretty cool.
Eleventh grade auto shop one was held just in the classroom. You didn't get to work on your own cars until the next term in Auto shop two.It was Automotive theory or some crap. Most of us had been working on our own or our parents cars for years.
As far as discipline in his class went, he was pretty lax. However he made a very strict announcement, at the start of the semester that there was a report due at the end of the term. He said that this paper HAD to be turned in. No reportÖ fail his class. The report had to be on some aspect of the automotive industry, whether it was, auto paint, body work, repair, whatever, it was up to us. But it must be done.
One day we were going to see a film about the functioning of the carburetor or some such car crap.
In high school there was the audio-visual club. There were tons of so-called clubs. School sanctioned clubs, clubs that nobody cool would ever be a member of. Like the Reading Club, The Art Club, etc.. But the audio-visual club was a tiny bit different. It actually did something. If a teacher wanted to show a film, slide show, play a record or use a tape recorder he or she would schedule someone from the audio-visual club to operate the device. These guys were generally weenies or nerds (nerd was a pejorative term back then). Naturally, of course, these so-called weenies became engineers and the like. Guys making tons of money and putting people on the moon and shit. Who knew?
So as the audio-visual weenie was setting up the projector Mr. Green told us to watch the film and take notes (yeah right). I guess he had had a rough night the night before because when the film started He went to the back of the class room, sat down in a student desk, put his head down on the desk and went to sleep. That was cool, we knew the feeling.
In those days the Samohi faculty had a dean of boys, a dean of girls and an attendance co-coordinator. The dean of boys was a guy named Mr. Delkner. He was referred to by everybody as simply, "Delkner" and he was a dick. He did have a tough job ridding herd on over a thousand boys. Some of them real thugs. But he choose to be a dick about it.
The attendance co-coordinator was Mr. Sevlin. Likewise called, "Sevlin." His job was to hound everyone into going to school. He was also a dick. He was short, chubby and an asshole. He liked to throw his authority around trying to impress and intimidate adolescents with his power.
I guess Delkner and Sevlin were friends. As when they weren't in their respective offices they would walk around the campus together during class periods visiting classrooms. I think they were into intimidating the teachers as well.
As the film was showing Gilbert and I had went to the open classroom door and were leaning up against the right and left door jambs cleaning our fingernails with our totally illegal, long, thin, pocket knives. As we lounged there we saw Delkner and Sevlin coming around the corner about twenty yards away. They were heading for the auto shop classroom. They looked like two schoolyard bullies looking to cause trouble.
Gilbert said, "Shit!"
I said, "we gotta tell Mr. Green Jeans."
We went inside, woke him up and I said, "ManÖ Delkner and Sevlin are heading this way. You best get up."
He said, "Shit."
Dashed up to the front of the room picked up a wooden pointer and rapped it on the lectern. Everybody in the classroom looked forward Gil and I made it into a couple of desks and looked attentively to the front.
Mr. green started pointing to the screen. The audio-visual nerd missed the whole thing because he was fussing with the controls on the projector. Just then Delkner and Sevlin walked in stood in the back of the room. Mr. Green nodded to them and continued, "teaching" They hung out for a little a while then left with out comment.
In the next class nor for the rest of the term nothing was said by either Gil or I or Mr. Green about the incident. We were cool.
At the end of the term when the absolutely required reports were due a few kids turned them in and a few didn't. Of course Gil and I were in the latter group. The group who didn't turned them in received, "Ds," on their report cards.
Gil and I both received, "As" in the class. Like I said Mr. Green Jeans was cool.