Snapshot is an irregularly-scheduled series featuring reminiscences of places and experiences in my life. To read all my Snapshot posts, please click here.
A childhood friend recently posted a photo on his Facebook page that brought a flood of memories rushing back to me. It was this one, seen also above in the “Snapshot” graphic, but you can click on this one and see it bigger.
The friend’s name was Donnie, who I went through school with just about my entire kindergarten through senior year run. Donnie is a journalist, photo-journalist, author and editor, now—like me—enjoying retirement, still back in the Tamaqua area, and he’s very prolific on FB, in addition to still writing feature pieces for his longtime employer, The Times News. Where he found this photo, which is of a group of my classmates in 1969, our freshman year at the brand new Tamaqua Area High School, is beyond me, but it looks like it was taken from an old newspaper. Beyond seeing some of familiar faces (that’s Donnie fake-drinking in the background on the left side of the photo), it brought back to mind one particular incident involving one of the young ladies in this photo.
I learned years ago that the Internet has a million eyes. Early in my blogging “career,” I posted an essay about not going to my senior prom and how the plans I had fell through when my supposed “date” persuaded her old (and older) boyfriend to escort her to the big dance. I mentioned her by her full name and in a few days I got an email from her then-husband (not the old boyfriend, by the way … that ship had evidently sailed), saying I was a liar, that she said this never happened, and please take down the post. I think I went in and edited her name, and I never heard anything again. As a song of that era—the 1970s—once said “lessons learned are like bridges burned, you only have to cross them but once.”
Anyway, in the true tale I’m about to relate, I’m not going to mention the person’s name at the center of it; I’m pretty sure she is still a very private person, as she was back in high school. My purpose here in relating this tale is not to embarrass her.
Donnie’s caption to this was a simple “1969 inside a brand new high school, completed 1968,” and a list of some of the people pictured. My class at Tamaqua Area High School was the very first to go through the new building from freshman through senior years, and was the largest-ever class ( to graduate (300+ in 1973) in Tamaqua, a record that still stands.
1969 was a rough year for me. I was 13 going on 14. Both my beloved maternal grandparents, George L. Meredith (“Gramps”) and his wife, Cora (“Nana”), died early in the year, just 13 days apart, with Nana going first. I always saw them as a bickering, old couple who tolerated each other, but I guess once his wife was gone, my grandfather just didn’t want to live any longer. At some point, after much inter-family strife with an uncle who was a giant A-hole (yes, with a capital A), the decision was made that we would move out of the house I grew up in (which was owned by my grandfather) and move into my grandparents’ house, which my mom had inherited (the cause of the aforementioned inter-family strife). So one day, in late spring 1969, I left the only home I ever knew to go to school, and when school let out that afternoon, I went home to our new home.
By the time September rolled around, I was 14 and we started school in the new high school. Going to school each day involved a long trek up and down Stadium Hill, with the new school located adjacent to the high school stadium. A pain in the butt any day of the week, it was an absolute adventure in winter, with a steep, snowy hill the length of a football field.
The last class of the day for me was ninth grade English with Miss Kate Wenzel. Kate was the older half of a sister/teacher duo; her sister Irma taught junior high school geography. Irma was the sister who had the sense of humor; Kate leaned more towards histrionic poetry readings (“Oh Captain, My Captain” was a particular fave of hers). The late ‘60s was the era of the mini-skirt (followed quickly by “hot pants”, and no, I never complained about either), and the powers-that-be at school had strict guidelines as to how mini those skirts could be. One day, as class began, one of my classmates entered the room and crossed in front of Miss Wenzel’s desk to get to her assigned desk. She was wearing a mini-skirt, which immediately caught the teacher’s eye. (Miss Wenzel herself preferred long, flowery dresses, thankfully.) She was clearly offended by this skirt and called on the person wearing it to come up to the front of the room, where Miss Wenzel told her to get down on her knees in front of the class so she could measure how far the hem of her skirt was from the back of her knees. I believe the school rule was no more than three inches, and this skirt was more than that amount (but still entirely tasteful, to be honest … the person in question wouldn’t have worn anything that wasn’t). Miss Wenzel promptly banished the offender to the principal’s office, and, as it was the last class of the day, the captive audience in this little drama never knew what punishment came of it.
Until the next day. I caught sight of the young lady in question eariy on and saw what she had worn to school: a “maxi-dress,” the polar opposite of a mini-skirt, one that went all the way down to her ankles. Those of us who had witnessed the drama the day before could hardly wait to see Miss Wenzel’s response to this bold and gutsy move. When it came time for the final period of the day, the person waited outside the room until everyone was seated and then calmly walked to her desk, passing in front of Miss Wenzel’s desk. The teacher did a classic double-take, as perfect as any ever done in a movie or TV comedy, but didn’t say a word. Class went on as usual, with all of us watching the clock and chomping at the bit to be set free for the day.
I will always remember the smart, classy dish of revenge that was served that day, and how perfectly executed it was. A student had silently made a statement in a subtle way against an over-reaching teacher who had called her out and humiliated her in front of her classmates the day before. As far as I was concerned this move was checkmate. And in that particular moment—and for the rest of high school—I thought she was the coolest girl in our class.
@innocent-bystander.com 
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