Santiago High -Taking German

September 1970 I started High School in Garden Grove and the absolute best thing about it was that the school was so much closer to home than either Eisenhower Elementary or Doig Jr. High. It literally felt like it was just around the corner and this was awesome. Unless it rained, now weather was not an excuse to get a ride to school and that sucked.

I remember being amazed at how large the campus was and the number of people that were there everyday.  I also remember the warnings, from upper classmates, to stay out of the Seniors way as they seemed to enjoy sticking Freshman into garbage cans. The funny thing is that in the four years I was there, I never saw it happen and only heard it happening one time, so maybe the Senior’s goal was just to scare the crap out of Freshman. If so; it worked. I know my entire Freshman year I  kept a low profile and kept looking over my shoulders.

As part of my preparation for college, I was required to take 3 years of a foreign language and as  I was planning to become a scientist or engineer, I chose German. So on the first day of class I walked into my German Class and immediately knew I  had made the right decision. German was taught by Mrs. Jenkins who I didn’t even notice that first day. The only thing that mattered was she introduced our German 1 class to the student teacher who would be teaching us that first quarter. From the moment I saw her Mrs. Jenkins voice switched from English to Charlie Brown Adult. All I heard was wah wah wah wah wah.

This also turned out to be my best quarter of German as well. The teacher was blond and beautiful and just the right person to get a geeky Freshman interested in the language. This also was the class that probably defined my entire pending high school life. The poor teacher was trying to get the entire class to make the hard h sound in German, which sounds like you are getting ready to spit. She had the class standing in the front of the room and told us that we should place our hand in front of our mouth to feel the air being expelled as we made the sound. As she walked down the line she had each of us do it. When she made it to me I put my hand in front of my mouth, made the hard h sound, then looked at my hand, said ‘ewww’ and then wiped it on my shirt. The entire class laughed except for the teacher. She just looked at me and moved on.

Looking back I have to feel sorry for Mrs. Jenkins. She had to put up with me for four years and I wasn’t the most cooperative student. While I wasn’t the lead tormentor, the true class clown took the classes with me, I gave her enough headaches. It was probably my Junior year and I was part of the Junior class spirit team. For Homecoming week we were tasked with helping the Junior class win the week long competition. One of our efforts involved playing properly themed music over the PA system before school and during breaks. I lead the effort, which meant I had the cassette tape recorder with the music on it. Also as we had picked the Pink Panther (colored Purple for school colors) as our class mascot so I had the Pink Panther song on the tape as well. One day I had the tape cued up to the Pink Panther music when I went to German Class. I stuck the machine under the desk and forgot about it. Until I was bored. Mrs.  Jenkins was at the front of the class lecturing us on something when I had a brilliant idea. As she was walking back and forth at the front of the classroom, I reached under the desk and hit play on the player. The first few notes of the Pink Panther theme song played and I quickly shut off the tape. Mrs. Jenkins looked around the room, while the class giggled, trying to figure out where the music came from. I was able to get away with that stunt just one more time. On the third attempt she caught me leaning over and quickly claimed the tape player until class was over.

My Senior year for homecoming week, one of my buddies and I spent the entire week our of German class, with the excuse that we were doing decorations for the Seniors spirit week. Actually what we did was leave class, climb on the school roof and run around for 50 minutes everyday. But hey we won spirit week!