WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL TWO RIVERS WI CLASS OF 1989

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

MR. SCHMID

Mr. Schmid (Paul) was the computer teacher in high school. His room was up on the 3rd floor, next to Mr. Heuer's.

I had Schmid during my junior year. I don't recall if it was the whole year, or just the second semester.

Mr. Schmid wore glasses, and seemed like he was always sort of grumpy. He appeared way too serious all the time - like he was in a state of constant constipation. I'm not sure I ever saw him smile.

I sat in the front row. on the far right. I believe Wyatt Wood was on my left. I have to thank Wyatt for his help in that class. He would often let me "borrow" his disk, in order to copy a program for our assignments. He did get mad at me once though, when I borrowed it without asking him first. He simply told me not to do that again - unless I asked. Wyatt bailed me out of consumer economics my senior year as well. Good guy, that Wyatt.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who "borrowed" assignments. One day after we'd all turned in our disks, he handed out a piece of paper, and asked that everyone rewrite the program that they'd turned in the day before. It was a very short, simple program. But many people (including myself) didn't know it. Busted! He never said anything to any of us. But I'm sure he made some sort of note in his gradebook about it.

Anyway, I never really cared much for Schmid. But I never had a problem with him either. Save for Wyatt, I was a mute in the class. So I wasn't a problem to him. About the only incident I can recall, didn't even happen in my class. I heard that in another class, Schmid was doing something on the board, when he asked fellow graduate Greg Flemal to pick a number between 1 and 100. Greg answered with "69." How incredibly juvenile. But I love it! After the class chuckled, Schimd apparently went off on him, saying stuff like, "I bet you think you're funny, don't you?" Whatever. I for one appreciate the childish humor there. I think Scott Jaklin is the one who told me that story.

One day in class, Schmid got on his soapbox, and started preaching about the Lions' Club - which he apparently was a member of. He talked about the importance of cornea donations, which the Lions' Club was sponsoring. I have no clue where that sermon came from. But he went on and on about it for 10 minutes.

In 1990, I got a part-time job selling tickets to the Capitol Civic Center for the 1960's group "The Vogues." Ever heard of them? No? Well no one I called had either. They had a minor hit with a song called "Five O'Clock World." Anyway, some of the proceeds were going to the Lions' Club cornea donations program. Hello! Instead of going down the names in the phonebook, I called Mr. Schmid. I thought I had a sure sale. I read him my script. Then he simply said, "Not interested." Bastard! I think I had that job for three nights. I sold one pair.

I don't know where Mr. Schmid is today. He may have retired. He may not have. But he's not in my high school any longer.

1 Comments:

At Thu Jul 13, 11:01:00 AM PDT, Blogger karmadog said...

I had a good time in Schmid's computer class. I actually thought he was a nice guy, and a good teacher.

I think he retired early, because all those teenagers were driving him nuts. I can understand.

 

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