MR. FENCL

Mr. Fencl (Doug) was a reading teacher at L.B. Clarke. He was kind of a small man. The two characteristics that stood out on him were his folded chin and his nasal voice.

I first had Fencl in 7th grade. Our class had him for third hour. Fencl was a bit of a pushover. But if you pushed him too far, he would snap. If you read my entry on Kevin Dehne, you'll learn the story of how Fencl repeatedly smashed Kevin's head into the chalkboard. And if you read my entry on B.J. Lutterman, you'll see my story of how Fencl choked me. Yes indeed, in my entire scholastic history, Mr. Fencl is the only teacher that ever choked me. When he finally let go of my neck, he gave me a huge slap across the face for good measure. What a guy!

One can argue that those of us who faced his wrath certainly had it coming. But a more effective argument could be made that teachers simply shouldn't resort to violence against 12 and 13-year-old kids. Oh well.

Some of my favorite memories from Clarke come from Mr. Fencl's class. I wrote about this in Kevin's entry as well. But I can tell it again. Fencl's room was next to Mr. Trembley's. They were divided by a big curtain. A backroom connected the two rooms. When someone got in trouble in class, Fencl would banish us to the backroom. I believe Kevin got banished more than anyone else. But I took a number of turns back there as well. Anyway, when Kevin was banished, he had a habit of climbing up on the shelves, and peaking his head up and looking through the window, out into the classroom. Of course Kevin would then make faces or taunt Fencl - or whatever juvenile thing he could come up with. Of course the majority of the class would laugh. An annoyed Fencl would turn around. But of course Kevin's head would have ducked down by then. And if Fencl tried to go into the backroom to catch Kevin, he'd find Kevin clamly sitting in his desk - having jumped down before he could get back there. I of course took it one step further. Sometimes I would laugh and point even when Kevin wasn't doing anything. Fencl would see me and then try to catch Kevin in the act again. I was a bastard, to be sure. But hell, when you're 12-years-old, that's quality entertainment. It frustrated Fencl to no end.

Sometime during that year, Fencl missed a week of school when his brother suddenly died. I don't know why I remember that.

Sometime during 7th grade, I read an article about Steve Martin. As a kid, Martin apparently had put "Out of order" signs on some of the bathrooms in his school. I thought that was a fabulous idea. It didn't really catch on. But one day in Fencl's class, I placed one of those signs on his pencil sharpener. Fencl knew I had done it, but let it go. He obviously didn't care, seeing as he let the sign stay. Well, sometime in the middle of class, B.J. Lutterman went up to sharpen his pencil. B.J. had no idea that I had placed the sign there. So he started questioning Fencl about what to do. Fencl thought B.J. knew about the origin of the sign. So he got mad at B.J., thinking he was just playing with him. Fencl kept telling B.J. to sit down. But B.J. kept saying that he needed to sharpen his pencil. B.J. had no clue why Fencl was behaving like he was. He was oblivious. Finally B.J. sat down, confused and exasperated.

One other quick memory I have from his class is that we would routinely pass our papers to the person in front of us, and grade them during class. Fencl would then read our names in his gradebook. We would then have to tell him what we'd gotten on our paper. (No lying and cheating EVER went on there. Oh no...) Quite often, we would have two papers graded at a time. So when he called your name, sometimes your grades would be "A, C." And whenever someone had a grade of "A, C" Kevin and I would shout out "D, C." We were obviously paying homage to the band AC/DC.

I must have failed part of Fencl's class that year. Because I found myself in summer school. On the first day, I was happy to see that my partner in crime Kevin was also there. The two of us sat in the hall talking for the first 20 minutes of class, before Fencl happened to wander out and took notice of us. He sent us into class. For the next week or so, anytime Fencl called on Kevin, Kevin would respond with, "Umm... where are we?" Kevin was insistent on doing nothing. And he did it well. Finally Fencl simply kicked him out. I didn't see Kevin again until 8th grade. I on the other hand kicked ass in that summer school class. It was filled with a bunch of idiots, and "dumbed down" to match the profile of the rest of the class. Fencl even commented to me at some point, saying something like, "You're doing so well here. Why did you behave like such an animal during the school year?"

I had Fencl again in 8th grade. I hung out with Mark Schreiber in that class. Dave Kanera was also in there. Dave was annoying as always, trying his best to impress the 7th grade girls who were also in that class. My lasting memories from that class are of Jeff Salstrand spitting on Mark nearly everyday. Class of 1990's Ryan Gilbert was also in that class. Or was it Gus Landt? Perhaps both of them were in there. Anyway, they (or he) used to plead with Mark to complain to Fencl about Jeff's constant spitting habits. Mark never did though. When Jeff wasn't spitting on him, the three of us got along pretty good.

Sometime during the second semester, Fencl got tired of me and removed me from his class, sticking me in Mrs. Mehan's. That was my last encounter with the man. Although I do remember one other incident from that year. From Mehan's room one day, we all heard Fencl go nuts. He wasn't mad. He just got extremely loud and crazy. The entire wing was laughing their asses off. I don't know what came over him that day.

On the last trip that Kevin and I took to Two Rivers, we stopped to see Mr. Franke. Franke told us that Fencl simply got burned out as a teacher, and quit. Instead he got a job in the tire department at Fleet Farm. I believe he's still there today. Although he's probably at or near retirement age. To the best of my knowledge, he still lives in Manitowoc.