MR. HEUER

Mr. Heuer (Ric - was that short for Richard?) was a math teacher at Washington High School. I had him during my freshman year for algebra. His room was on the third floor, next to the computer room. He had a beard. He wore a suit most days. But I also seem to recall him wearing flannel shirts on occasion.

Mr. Heuer and I never really got along. I'm not sure why. He just always seemed moody and grumpy to me. There didn't seem to be much of a sense of humor eminating from him.

I don't have a whole lot of stories about him. But I do have a couple of things.

I sat in the second row from the right, the third seat from the front. Stephanie Gardner sat in front of me. The seat in front of her was empty. In front of that seat is where Heuer had a table with his podium on it. Anyway, Jeff Bodwin was on my left, one seat ahead of me. Jeff and I communicated on some level. And Stephanie was friends with Mindy Moore - who sat next to me, right behind Jeff. So Stephanie and I decided that we would ask Heuer if we could switch seats. So we bravely went to his desk in the back corner of the room, explained the situation, and were promptly turned down - for no reason. Nice. To hell with that! The next day, I got into class before Stephanie did. And I sat in her seat instead. When Stephanie came in, she said, "Burt!" But she quietly sat down in my seat as well. When Heuer came to the front of the room to begin his teachings for the day, he gave me an odd look. But he said nothing. I can only imagine that the wheels were turning in his head and that he remembered us asking if we could switch seats with each other. Could he have forgotten that he'd turned down our request?

A day or two later, Lee Jacquart (who was now on my immediate right) made his own seat switch, moving one seat over as well. When Heuer saw this, he kicked the table and screamed, "Lee, get in your own damn seat!" Ever the narc, Lee blurted out, "Well Burt and Stephanie switched." Mr. Heuer then said, "But they asked!"

So apparently Mr. Heuer remembered that we'd asked him for permission. But I guess he forgot the part where he turned us down. Perhaps he assumed there was no way we would defy him like that. So he must have surmised that he'd said it was ok. Wrong!

I recall one day that Randy Ertman fell asleep in class. When word filtered up to Heuer about it, he simply said, "Let him sleep." I think he was a bit annoyed though.

Read my entry on Shawn Rappley to learn how I barely passed the first semester, thanks to getting Shawn to do nearly all of my past-due assignments the night before the final day to turn them in.

There is one major event that happened in Heuer's class. It happened to me. And it's something I've never forgotten. Granted, I remember almost everything anyway. But this one bugs me to this day.

I did not excel in Heuer's class. Thanks to Shawn Rappley's help (cheating) I passed the first semester. Without it, I wouldn't have. By the second semester I was completely lost. It was straight F's across the board for the rest of the year. Anyway, Heuer knew I was lost by this time. It happens. So be it. Then one day he was working out some sort of complicated equation on the board. After he'd gone through several steps, he was near the end. And he said, "Then all you have left to do is add two plus two - which is what - Burt?" Now, keep in mind that those last four words he said very fast, trying to catch me off guard. Heuer assumed that I was not paying any attention to him, and would no doubt answer with, "Huh?" But Heuer be damned! Whether or not I was paying attention to the whole thing is highly debatable. I'm sure I wasn't. But at the very least, I heard him ask the "two plus two" part. So I blurted out "four!" Heuer then looked down on me, clearly frustrated that I came up with the right answer.

Now I ask you, is this proper behavior for a teacher? Here's a guy who purposely set out to embarrass me in front of my fellow classmates. Why? Is it empowering to show up a 14-year-old kid? Would it make him feel good to have everyone laughing at me? Does he enjoy making fools out of his students?

In my opinion, that was a really shitty thing to do - totally unprofessional. Fuck him! And fuck his feeble attempts to mock me. When I answerd "four," which one of us looked foolish then? I can assure you, it wasn't me.

From what I recall, Heuer wasn't the most popular of teachers in the school. He had a bit of a temper. And he could yell and scream at the drop of a hat. Like I said earlier, he didn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. He was basically a no-nonsense kind of guy. I have no memory of seeing him smile.

I never had Heuer again after that year. That worked out fine for me. He was still teaching there when I graduated. But I think he might be retired today. According to a traffic ticket he received a few years ago, he's 57-years-old today. And yes, his first name is in fact Richard.

I saw Mr. Heuer several times while working at the video store. I saw his wife more often though. They were always pleasant enough. If memory serves, they had a daughter - maybe multiple daughters. I'm not sure. Today Mr. Heuer and his wife appear to still reside in Two Rivers.