Hated "shop class" in Junior High

Every now and then, my thoughts drift back to Shop Class of junior high, grades 7 and 8. I didn't sign up for it, I didn't particularly care for it. I got a wallet and a lamp out of it, but little else.

First, how about I discuss the teacher? His name was Gene Hudson, aka Mr. Hudson. Most of the boys in the class (it was a boys only class for what it's worth) didn't really like him. However, if you were of one of the "well to do" families and you talked about things he liked, like Golf, with Mr. Hudson, you tended to do well. I later found out he helped out during school athletics like score keeper and things.

My first or earliest experience in the class that started the whole thing was we were to sit at these desks, much like a drafting table I guess, and he thought he was explaining what we would be doing in the class. And what I figured out years later was some sort of technical drawing. We had to buy special mechanical pencils and erasers for this activity which to me seemed to take up the entire year, the first year anyway. You get your sheet of paper. You were supposed to draw a frame on the paper so much in from the edges. At the bottom was another line and a series of boxes. This was for you to put your name, date, whatever the hell the assignment was about.

He'd hand out these sheets of things we were supposed to copy off the paper. He tried explaining the size of arrows, the weight of lines that are drawn. I thought that last part, weight of the lines, was either understood well enough or graded arbitrarily by Mr. Hudson.

I would do my best to copy something off the handout. When it was done, we brought it up to him. He would look at it, circle a few things (usually he would circle something, more often than not things got circled), and offer a grade on the assignment. There never was any helpful explanation what I did wrong or right. Never any explanations - nothing clear, just some scribbles of what he thought was an explanation but I never did learn anything from the scribbles. I think we were all scared of him, but hate was more like it. We put up with the class as best we could. All Mr. Hudson seemed to care was that we were quiet and he could pick earwax out of his ears with his car keys. I guess as long as he got to do that or talk about Golf, he was happy.

I got only 1 A on those drawings. I usually got Cs or Ds for no reason at all. If you don't explain what I needed to do better, how am I supposed to learn? How do I get the right weight on the lines? Why did this even matter? It could be the experience in the 2 years of Mr. Hudson's class as the reason I never pursued anything similar in later work. Of course, I could have had the associated stigma that my older sister did so well and I was doomed to not be allowed to have similar scholastic success, and Mr. Hudson played his part. If I could ask for those 2 years of grades from those classes struck from my school district transcript, I would have it done in no time.

The 2nd year of Mr. Hudson was a bit more productive. I ended up with a wallet I used for some time, and a lamp I still have and use. I doubt anyone else from that class still uses the lamp they made.

There were a fair share of bumps along that year. My mom had a friend who wrote a check to help pay for the kit for the wallet I wanted to make. A paltry $6.50. However, Mr. Hudson had a problem with bounced checks. I didn't know the person who wrote it would have a problem. I seem to recall Mr. Hudson giving me a hard time about a bounced check. Either way, the whole thing was resolved, he got his money, and I got to make the wallet.

The other bit was during the making of the lamp. I think this was the only technical drawing I did in the class that got an A. It was basically redwood and white pine, in alternating slices. A base, and an electric lamp socket. I guess it turned out a bit less than I was hoping. I couldn't do the entire thing as one unit, but instead 3 blocks of 4 alternating woods, since the drill press in shop class couldn't drill through the entire stack of wood. At least it got glued and sanded well enough. It's never come apart since it was glued. And me being a kid and never worked with wood, I didn't know you can't buy blocks of wood and the slice it (well maybe you could), but instead you had board feet to deal with and you just cut the boards. The choice of wood was to reflect the school colors.

Joe Eltringham at the time was a dick and the bump I had here with the lamp was that for some reason I was forced to share a storage locker in shop class with him and he stole the electrical cord for my lamp kit. He'd deny it even today, but I knew. The way he'd act today was as if I was a friend of his from way back, but as I recall, he was never a friend. Not even a good one.

I was not aware there were options for making lamps. As I recall, we were just asked to design a lamp, so much wide, so much tall, and that's it. Other kids got these lamps with a hollow box and optional sockets for blinking Christmas tree lights and a semi-clear plastic insert for it. I still liked my design anyway. And I'll bet nobody else in those classes that year still have their lamps.

I think also another point of the year was due to my glasses always having problems with other people breaking them for me in some way, and I eventually ended up using an electronic alligator clip to hold them together. While that worked in holding my glasses together at one hinge point, it ended up getting me the dubious nickname of Roach Clip for a while. It got to be disconcerting and eventually someone got around to asking Mr. Hudson if there wasn't something he could figure out for me. I think it ended up with him coming up with some sort of adhesive for that problem and pretty much held my glasses together until I got a new pair. Probably the only time I saw Mr. Hudson be somewhat nice as he worked on my problem.

Of course, that's why I have wire-frame glasses today. All those damn plastic frame glasses and the assholes throwing basketballs at my face sure didn't help things.

The grades I received on the lamp? Even though it was mostly as I intended, with varnish and all, he barely managed to give me these 4 grades, and I don't know why it was 4 but I still remembered what he wrote in the gradebook in order: D, D, C, D. *sigh* Screw you, Mr. Hudson.