Our high school shop teacher was named Mr. Buscemi & he was Steve Buscemi’s cousin.

On the first day of class, he explained:
1) Who Steve Buscemi is.
2) What a “character actor” is.

He also called wood glue “yak snot.” This concludes all the information I retained from shop class.

There was also a “print shop” class. I don’t recall that teacher’s name, but he *was* missing a finger.

He did not lose the finger in a print shop accident. It was chopped off by the propeller of a model airplane.

The print shop teacher did once lock a kid in the paper closet for 40min to “teach him a lesson.” That kid went on to become valedictorian, so

One time my friend Ricky sharpened a candy cane & stabbed that same kid in the head. Which hardship lead to him being valedictorian, I wonder.

The valedictorian had a twin brother who, while also smart, did not become valedictorian.

The valedictorian’s twin was never, to my knowledge, locked in the paper closet or stabbed in the head with a sharpened candy cane.

The twin was not the salutatorian. Our salutatorian was an angry vegetarian who used her time at graduation to speak out against George Bush & some parents booed her.

In the second grade, I had a big crush on the salutatorian. Made a special card on valentine’s day, etc.

She was new to our school & “talk of the town” due to: 1) vegetarian; 2) lesbian mom; 3) mom had very nice laptop computer;

The mom brought the laptop to school one day & gave a presentation about all the things it could do. We were captivated.

There were a lot of presentations at that time. One day, for presentation, the teacher’s friend came in & used a divining rod to locate an underground river beneath our classroom.

We were astounded. A river! Under *our* classroom! And the teacher’s weird friend’s divining rod tipping down to point at it!

One day a policeman showed us a length of pipe fitted to fire a single shotgun shell at the press of a lever. (“I don’t ever wanna catch you kids with one of these!” he said.)

Another day a “science guy” froze our teacher’s sock with liquid nitrogen & shattered it on the floor.

A magician cracked an egg on our principal’s head.

Then there was Veterans Day, when 20 elderly veterans came in & we all sang the Bette Midler song “From a Distance” for them.

One day the principal gave a long, angry presentation about how whoever was writing words in excrement on the bathroom walls NEEDS TO STOP. He slammed the classroom door for emphasis.

I believe he gave this angry presentation to every classroom in our school. It must have taken several hours.

Later that year, the principal retired & all the teachers chipped in to buy him a vespa. The entire school was brought outside to watch him blaze around the parking lot.

Then there was the time the computer teacher’s denture’s fell out. He was so disgraced that, to win the kids back, he had to bring in his drum set & play “Wipeout”

He even did the part where you shout “Wipeout!” & laugh like a maniac. And you know what? It worked! Kids largely forgot the denture thing.