Can you forget high school humor once graduation is behind you?

A few years later, perhaps? A few decades? Try a few lifetimes! High school humor has almost unbelievable staying power. Why? Because we were teenagers at the time? Maybe. Whatever the REASON, the FACT is inescapable: We. Do. Remember.

For example,three of us Juniors at Drummond High School (in Montana) got into a giggle-fest one fine day after school was out. A giggle-fest sounds kind of girly, but two of us were guys. What on Earth got us going? No idea. None whatsoever.

What I do recall with crystal clarity is this: We were sitting on the steps in a hallway, waiting for our drama teacher to let us into the gym-and-stage area for play practice. Connie and I were villains in the upcoming class play; Dave was a hapless victim. We must have giggled helplessly for close to thirty miinutes.

In fact, we didn't stop until our teacher and other cast members began arriving. High school humor--WHATEVER triggered it--can be like that. Could you see yourself losing control that way today? No? But in our midteens, that was another matter.

When we were Seniors, my best friend and I had many a gut-busting belly laugh together. Like that one experiment in Chemistry Lab....

Esters
Copyright 2007 by Fred Baker

Senior Year was underway, back in nineteen-sixty
We had a class in Chemistry; the lab was kind of tricksy
That day we had no teacher present, so another one filled in
Mrs. Skones corrected English papers while we opened up the bin

We set up all the beakers and mixed up all the stuff
Knew we'd done it right when she picked her papers up
Never even said a word as she scooted 'cross the floor
Leaving us to clean up the beakers and lock the chem lab door

A few minutes later on the bus ride home
All the other kids gave me big space
The rest of the bus was pretty well packed
They wouldn't even look at my face
The answer was simple when you knew how it worked
We'd been learning what made esters tick
In the lab we'd mixed a batch of butyric acid
Which smells precisely like the dog got sick

=================================================================

High school humor in action. We had NOT planned the assault on the nose of poor Mrs. Skones, who was an excellent English teacher but hardly prepared for the smell that came wafting over to her that day. No, it wasn't deliberate.

Thankfully, even she knew it wasn't done on purpose. If she'd thought we HAD been, our English grades for the Semester might well have wound up stinking worse than even the butyric acid vapors permeating our clothing and the very air around us for hours.

Thanks for reading,

Fred

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