Table of Contents
Foreword Shannon Whibbs 11
With Special Thanks 15
How Did I Do It? 17
A Note to Teachers 19
Introduction 21
My Frantic First Year at Northern Secondary School 23
1 On the Run to Fourteen Classrooms 25
2 The Day the F-Word Popped Up in Class 27
3 My First In-Class Movie Was a Disaster! 29
4 The Day I Fell Asleep in Class 32
5 Cartoon Maps on the Blackboard 34
6 Three Cheers for Jim McQueen 39
7 Keeping Lessons Fast and Lively 41
8 She Was Only Fired Twice! 44
My Next Nine Years at Northern 45
9 The Man with His Face on Our Ten-Dollar Bill 47
10 Engine Transplants Before Heart Transplants 49
11 Her Dog Had Fleas 52
12 History Teacher Pumps Gas at Local Station 53
13 Effective Writing for Nineteen Years 56
14 A Turkey Almost Landed on the Moon 59
15 "Flushed With Pride" 60
16 "Cooks, Gluttons, and Gourmets" 62
17 Julius Caesar Was in My Class! Cleopatra, Too! 63
18 Pronouncing Ancient Greek Names 67
19 Where Has Ancient History Gone? 68
20 The Story of Henry Heme 69
21 Master of Originality 71
22 Marking … Marking … Marking … 74
23 The Great Bicycle Race 78
24 Robin Hood at Massey Hall 80
25 Reading the Dictionary One Page a Day 82
26 Catching a Streaker… 89
27 See This Piece of Chalk? 91
28 Spelling Mistakes 92
29 September a Special Month 97
30 Memory Power 99
My Twenty-One Years at North Toronto Collegiate Institute 103
31 Arriving at North Toronto 105
32 Are You "Sesquilingual?" 106
33 Letter from Pierre Berton 108
34 Two Visits to Stonehenge in One Day 110
35 "Stayin' Alive" in the Stone Age! 112
36 Hi-Jinx 1979 114
37 "See You Later, Exfiltrator!" 117
38 Five Hundred Years of New Words 118
39 Get Ready for a "Sherkout"! 121
40 Elvis: Live from the Grave! 127
41 Were You Born in Farch? 130
42 Memorizing "High Flight" and Other Poems 131
43 Where Do You Come From? 134
44 From Model T Ford to Mustang Convertible 136
45 The Grapes of Wrath 140
46 Did Columbus Really "Discover" America? 143
47 Guidance Report by Air Mail 145
48 From Robert E. Lee to Lee Iacocca 147
49 Interview Your Grandparents 149
50 Three Students "Moon" a School Assembly 151
51 Rock Around the Block! 152
52 A Most Unusual Question 155
53 Voting on Date and Format of Test 156
54 "You're Giving Me a Zero?" 159
55 "I Hear You're Writing a Screenplay!" 160
56 History Jokes I Told in Class 163
57 Alexander the Great Died of a Fever… 165
58 Wardrobe Changes in Thirty-One Years 166
59 An Italian Motorcycle in My History Class 169
60 High School Reunion in 1966 172
61 Reciting the Alphabet Backwards 176
62 How the Future Became the Past 179
63 When I Was in High School … 181
64 No Smoking! 182
65 Three Magic Words 184
66 My First Call on a Cellphone 186
67 My Farewell Address 187
Life After Teaching 191
68 "Are You Still Working on That Screenplay?" 193
69 "David Letterman Calling!" 195
70 My Former Students Pop Up Everywhere 199
71 Rocking Back and Forth 201
72 Cab Ride in Toronto 202
73 I Pay Less Than $20 for Gas 203
74 Who's Afraid to Go to Mars? 205
75 William Shakespeare or William Sherkspeare? 206
76 Farewell to Jack Layton 208
77 In Closing… 209
The Cars We Drove in High School 211
