Well, after a pretty vanilla first day I make my way out to campus number 2 and my first day of Federal Government. Now, this part of town, or this particular suburb is pretty... well, it's pretty country. I was expecting more blue jeans and cowboy boots and got a bunch of saggy-ass pants and backwards ball caps. It was really a pretty diverse crowd, more so than it was eleven years ago when I first came to this school. Pretty much any social or ethnic group was well represented. This should lead for some pretty interesting conversation in my government class to say the least.
My class starts at 7, which is fifteen minutes later than I thought. I found my class and took a seat in the hallway. Surveying around, I look to be the oldest person waiting for this class. The teacher shows up at 6:55 and says for us to go in and grab a seat, he'll be back in a minute... this guy, seems interesting. He's probably in his 60's, slightly hunched over and walks with a shuffle. He's very energetic and friendly it seems. He's wearing a red flowered shirt with black slacks and white tennis shoes. Hell yes! I go in and sit in essentially the same place I sat the day before.
While waiting for the teacher to return, the rest of the class files in. We have a big jock wearing a black tank and some gym shorts, the two popular girls who won't shut up and seem quite bitchy. A dumb blonde. I'm not being mean, judging by the conversation she was having with the guy next to her, she's dumb as a post. Seriously. "Oh my gosh, I was so hungry on my way here, so I went to Sonic, but the line at the drive through at Sonic was long, so I ordered and I was waiting. And then I got tired of waiting and I told Jennifer I didn't want to be late for class so we got out of the line and came here. I wonder what happened to my food? I could be eating my food right now. It was so funny when we out out of that line." She was one of those girls that says everything like it was a question. Pencil, meet eyeball...
Eventually, we also had about a 50 year old lady that was too spunky for her own good. She must have just left Starbucks, there is no other explanation for her perkyness. She was also friends with the bitchy girls and gave them hugs when she got to class. That was weird.
Then THIS this guy comes in. Younger, I'd say around 20 and tall, around 6'3" or so. Wearing all black, and I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he came from work at a restaurant or something, because he had a black button up shirt, black slacks and black shoes on... and sunglasses. Black aviators. No explanation there, just... weird. He moved slowly across the room and took a seat at the end of the row next to me. I also noticed he was a little scruffy in the face. No big deal, as I usually am too about five days a week. The problem with this guy is that he didn't quite have it all coming in yet. Think Joe Dirt's facial hair. It wasn't trimmed up this way on purpose, it was all this guy had.
The professor comes back at about 7:15 with a GIANT fountain drink. We're talking your big 44oz-er here. He comes in and starts speaking with a bit of a stutter. Oh man, that's going to drive me nuts. I wish there was a way that I could get a profile of everyone I'm about to meet a day ahead of time. Yesterday, with the teacher with the mysterious "back lump" and now this character. Physical deformities and speech impediments get my curiosities and imagination going. I have no problem with it, I mean I'm not going to not shake your hand because you have a scar on your face or something, I just can't help but think about it and be distracted at the same time you're trying to tell me important information.
Luckily that was NOT the case here. He starts with "I'm not going to pass out a syllabus, I'm not even going to start talking about government. You see, friends, we're here also to learn about.. ROCK AND ROLL!"
As he goes on, I can't help but think, as the night before, "Who does he remind me of?" Someone from TV or a movie... then it hits me. He looks just like "Doc" from Fraggle Rock! If you don't get the reference, perhaps you know this one. He also played the bartender in the movie Boondock Saints. Yes, my government teacher is "F*ck-ass" from Boondock Saints.
So for the first hour and a half of class, we had rock and roll trivia, going from the start of rock and roll up through the 70's with a couple of things coming after that. This was a chance to earn up to four points on my first exam. I managed to get all four points pretty early, and got to sit back and observe the lack of knowledge of the younger people in the class, which wound up being pretty funny.
One of the questions I answered was "Who was the African-American guitarist who wrote 'Johnny B. Goode'. I answered with Chuck Berry and got it correct. He then went on to say that Chuck Berry had all of his songs go straight to number two, but he broke that barrier with what risque song in 1968?*"
I raised my hand... "Would that be 'My Ding-A-Ling?"
He replied with an enthusiastic "YES!!" and wrote down my extra point in his book. What happened next was simply great. He sang the entire first verse of "My Ding-A-Ling". I've sen lots of things, I've been lots of places, but I never thought I'd go back to school to have my professor stand at the front of the class to sing that song. Mind. Blown.
So he moves on through the 60's and he starts to talk about Led Zeppelin. He asks the class what their most famous song was. Guy sitting next to the dumb blonde answers with "Hot for teacher". The professor doesn't even know who sang that. Once I told him it was Van Halen, he scoffed at them like they were Nickelback or something. One of the bitchy girls answered with "Welcome To The Jungle" and I almost lost my mind. Freakin' kids.
Amazingly enough, the dumb blonde got the answer correct! There may be hope for this chick yet. This went on for a while longer before we took a break.
After the break class was pretty uneventful. We wound up taking some notes, which was great. We were told what to write down and once we were done he'd tell us to put our pens down. Simple enough. He didn't even pass out that syllabus he promised us because the office they were in was locked up for the night. He did assign us a one page paper for bonus points on our second test. Looks like I'm going to be +2 on that test also.
This class should be fun. I no longer have anxiety about Government. Composition and Rhetoric 2 is tomorrow at the same campus. I took the first class 11 years ago. This is going to suck.
*According to what I looked up online "My Ding-A-Ling" actually came out in 1972, but the original version "My Tambourine" came out in '68. I should tell him this in case some nerd comes out and corrects him.
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