In the North Channel of Lake Huron cruisers gather for cocktails on rocky outcrops in the late afternoon to plan the next day’s cruise or to simply kibitz. It was at one of these paseo’s that I heard about “remedial rifle” in response to my tale of laziness in high school Spanish class. I appeared to struggle with Spanish vocabulary and verb tenses while in reality ignoring them completely. In response to my feigned sincerity I was sent to spend Saturday mornings with a Spanish tutor instead of watching my favorite cartoons for the remainder of the semester. My well thought out plan backfired.
In a similar vein the dean of our cruising gaggle explained how he and his basic training mates shot up the shooting range one day and were sent to remedial rifle as punishment. Consequentially he became a marksman. The concept makes me chuckle.
When I think of it, it was suggested that I take remedial reading the summer before high school. The class was taught at St. Gregory’s High School, a short bike ride from my home. What I remember of that experience is sitting in a sweltering classroom with a frustrated teacher who threatened to shut the windows if we did not behave. This demand was too good to be true for any red blooded American goof off and so we pushed her over the edge, and then watch her sweat as the room became hotter and hotter. Images of Sir Alec Guinness in The River Kwai come to mind.
We reveled in our prankster-hood. Another memorable event that summer was the doing of my fellow classmate Larry. He plugged the drain the library’s sink (it is anybody’s guess why the library had a sink) as it closed for the day and turned on the spigot. Oh boy did that caused a mess.
But it wasn’t all mischief on our part. An affront to my self-esteem occurred at the bike rack in full view of the other remediates. I unlocked my bike while making wisecracks about the rest of them when a pigeon took aim and landed a big juicy turd on my head. It took the entire summer to live that down.
In the fall I matriculated to St. George High School, a bastion for kids from the middle of the middle class. It was a great school and perfect for me. There was just enough school spirit to make it fun without the pressure to excel like at the Jesuit St. Pat’s. The Christian Brothers were not frustrated like the nuns that taught me in grammar school. They actually seemed to enjoy themselves and once when I screwed something up my penance was to clear the beer cans out of Brother Ed’s room.
I was more involved academically there. Not a star but at least for once I was trying. After my freshman year it was deemed that I would benefit from speed-reading, which of course was held in the summer. I cherish summer. If possible summer should not be wasted with work and school. So here I was reading the equivalent of Hemingway’s Old Man and The Sea every two days. As per usual I could only tolerate so much education and instead of participating migrated to the back of the class to read Hot Rod magazine. Despite my best efforts to derail a positive outcome, I learned not to read faster but to comprehend more of what I read.
Years later, when I became a professional student that one thing got me through several decades of higher education. I am grateful to the Christian Brothers for their ability to keep things light while cunningly educating us. They understood the concept of remedial rifle and it still makes me chuckle.
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