HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS
Several
weeks ago in a post on my high school physics class I mentioned my teacher Mr.
Taylor; an interesting guy Mr. Taylor.
http://joeh-crankyoldman.blogspot.com/2014/08/pssc-physics.html
http://joeh-crankyoldman.blogspot.com/2014/08/pssc-physics.html
His full
name was Noel Taylor. Behind his back we
called him Leon Rolyat. Weren’t we clever?
Mark Taylor,
Mr. Taylor’s son was in my class…smart MF’er. He got no special attention from
Mr. Taylor.
I think Mr.
Taylor was once a very good baseball player, and might have been the school coach at
one time. As I recall Mark was also a
pretty good ball player.
Anyway, the
Mr. Taylor I knew had issues speaking, never mind playing baseball. I think he had at sometime suffered a mild
stroke. He sounded like a phone call with a bad connection. If I make fun of his speech,
keep in mind we all loved this guy. He
was strict, he never laughed, he was all business, but he had a twinkle
in his eye that let you know he was a good dude.
I was not a
good student, certainly not in any science related study, but I was a pretty
good wise ass. Mr. Taylor had the
perfect demeanor for my wise-assiness.
On our very
first class, Mr. T explained the difference between a ruler and a meter stick.
“Ow listen up oo
guys. This is a etterick. It is not an
ard ick, it is a eterick. It is ot a
uler, it is a etterick. So ets call it
orectly o k.”
It was not
long after that speech that I had a need for a meter stick.
“Excuse me Mr. Taylor, can I borrow
one of those big rulers?”
“Agy, oo umb b’
unny. It’s not a uler, it’s a etterick!”
Another time
Mr. Taylor was giving a lecture on the battery.
“N eeon ow wot is a attery?”
Realizing
that Mr. Taylor was a baseball fan, I decided to give him a wise guy answer using the baseball term for a battery, which refers to the pitcher and the
catcher. In my haste to get this bad
joke out I responded,
“It’s the kitcher and the petcher…the
petcher and the kitcher…oh hell I screwed that one up.”
Mr. Taylor
did not miss a beat,
“Actually Mr. Agy, umb
b’unny that he is ot the ight nswer.”
He then went
on to explain how a battery pitches and catches electrons or some such stuff.
Mr. Taylor
did not write much better on the chalk board than he was able to speak.
As he
mumbled he wrote and there with a constant clack clack and flying chalk dust as
he rambled on,
“all oo ave to oo is
easure the istance eetween the ulcrum and ee nybathm to et the ite ansr.”
“Bird” who
sat behind me, I don’t remember his real name but he was tall with a big Adam’s
apple and resembled a cartoon buzzard, tapped me on the shoulder and asked,
“What is he writing?”
“What, you can’t read that, it is as
clear as a bell…it says, ‘all oo ave to oo is easure the istance eetween the ulcrum and ee
nybathm to et the ite ansr.’”
“Agy, oo umb b’unny,
ots so ogon unny?”
I hated
Physics, but I liked Mr. Taylor a lot!
That was funny. I hated physics too. After going to baseball games for many years, I still don't know what a battery is... I'll have to check with my Joe.
ReplyDeletehe kept his wit if not his perfect speech.
ReplyDeleteWell, he did have a sense of humor. I didn't catch much of what he said though. That's okay, you don't have to translate. I'm not that good at anything science related either.
ReplyDeleteHave a fabulous day. ☺
I like him!!
ReplyDeleteWe Taylors are a funny lot.
ReplyDeleteHeck, I never got anywhere near a physics class in school. I did have a PE teacher who didn't have a stomach and he ate tiny amounts of food all day long.
ReplyDeleteOh MY--as if physics isn't tough enough, you have a teacher who can't even communicate? Good thing physics students are already super smart. It seemed to me every super-smart math teacher I ever had in any math class of any type had severe social issues. It's like when you have mega-brains, God has to compensate by taking a little away from your ability to communicate with others.
ReplyDeleteActually he communicated just fine, we could understand him, just not his subject.
DeleteGood thing he had a sense of humor. He kind of sounds like Kripke on the Big Bang Theory.
ReplyDeleteI didn't take physics until college and I understood those professors just fine. It was the Indian and Korean profs for calculus that couldn't communicate in English. I just copied everything written on the board and taught myself derivative and integral calc. There was no fun to be had in either one of those classes.
ReplyDeleteI have a great appreciation for most teachers who babysit kids all day; most important though, teaching them. I'm glad Mr. Taylor stuck with it.
ReplyDeleteHow long did it take you to write his interpreted language? :) Amazingly, I got it.
What if he was just talking that way to mess with you?
ReplyDeleteBeing partially deaf, I think i would have had a great deal of trouble in Mr Taylor's class.
ReplyDeleteI'm not even too sure my high school offered physics.
ReplyDeletebetty