Insane Elementary School Teacher Profile: Mr. Wallace

I'm an extremely random thinker -- I literally can go from thinking about critical Web issues one second to thinking about juggling vasoline-coated strawberries while dodging lasers the next second. It never stops until I go to sleep. (Hence the name, WeirdWebGuy)

On that note, I was going to finally display the Bert Halloween party pictures...and right as I was about to, I had a conversation with Brooke about violent Elementary school teachers. That made me think of Mr. Wallace, who in my humble opinion was easily the most violent elementary school teacher to walk this planet. I have multiple stories about his dastardly, yet darkly hilarious deeds, and I thought I would tell everyone one of my very favorite Mr. Wallace stories..(this one doesn't really highlight his violence like others do, but it's funny)

OK, first some background: The grapevine told me that Mr. Wallace was a Vietnam veteran who whose helicopter was shot down, and that there was a possibility that he became a POW. In addition, due to unknown circumstances, he was dishonorably discharged from the military and could not leave the confines of Sayreville, NJ. Part of the fun of growing up in Sayreville was sharing Mr. Wallace stories with your peers. In fact, it didn't matter whether you knew someone or not -- Mr. Wallace, through his uncontrollable and appaling episodes of violence against kids, provided a natural social bond that sometimes forged friendships lasting a lifetime.

Naturally, he was given a job at Wilson Elementary School teaching art to grades K-6. (In the olden days, elementary schools had grades K-6, Middle school 7-9, and high school 10-12) The amazing thing was that everyone seemed to know about his spasmodic violence, yet he continued to teach art to little kids year after year after year. The lesson:

Now, on to my story: it's entitled, "Make Your Own Band"

OK, so Mr. Wallace gave us a project in 5th grade called "Make Your Own Band"...we had to design an album cover of a band we came up with using our imaginations. Actually, this was a very cool project.

But there was one problem -- when I was a kid, I knew ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about music...Well, popular music, that is. All I did was play Nintendo, and everything I knew in life, from morality to music, came from Nintendo games.

So I looked around and saw some pretty interesting album covers..My 5th grade art class friend, Minhaj, came up with "The Tarantulas"....my other 5th grade art friend, Rob, came up with "The Machine Guns".....This was a key moment for me, because I was incredibly shy at that point in my life, but I had a fertile imagination. Once I saw that other kids started coming up with strange stuff, I decided to be brave and use MY imagination to the fullest..

I finished my album cover and walked towards Mr. Wallace to show him and get it graded....He takes a look at it..........STARES at it for about 20 seconds.......his face slowly convulses into a look hybrid of annoyance/utter confusion. Then he turns to me, as he read the name of the band:

"FOOD!!???"

Yep...that's what I named my band....And on the album cover were the band members (4, I believe) dressed in different costumes of food, much like the Fruit-of-the-loom commercials of years past. One guy wore a grape suit, another a banana suit, one a hot dog suit, and the other I think a hamburger suit.

I responded to Mr. Wallace, while trembling, "umm....umm...ye..yea..yeah...ye....yeah.....!"...I thought he was going to slap me, but instead, he just shook his head in disgust, as he started reading the track listings. All of the titles had something to do with food, like "Hot Dog Heaven", and "Mustard Lane".

However, the one that got me in trouble was called, "Hamburger Hill"....

The amazing part about that was that I knew that Hamburger Hill was a real wartime event. I didn't realize that it was relevant to Vietnam, though. I actually intended on giving the album an anti-war song, so in retrospect, I'm very proud of my precociousness.

So Mr. Wallace gets to Hamburger Hill, and he snaps immediately, "YOU CAN'T DO THIS!!"...I said, "What do you mean?".....Then he screamed, "HAMBURGER HILL WAS REAL. DON'T F*CK WITH ME, GOT IT??!!"

I was scared out of my mind, but somehow, I managed to nod in agreement, and I ran to my desk, barely holding back tears.......I did get a B, though, so I learned that using a wartime event as a pun means losing a letter grade and and nearly getting beaten to a pulp.

This was just a warm-up story....Others truly display the insane violence of Mr. Wallace...mwahahahaha!!!!

BTW, next week I'll be in Atlantic City from Monday-Thursday, so I won't be blogging.....Have no fear my readers! Even though you don't believe it now, you will survive the coming ordeal! Waiting for you will be Bert pictures!