WIERD BETH

In thirty years of teaching, easily the strangest class I ever had was 5th period Geography around 1982. This class was dumber than a doorbell but we made it fun. The class was made very interesting by a girl named Beth. She was nice but pretty clueless about everything but liked attention. The class was loud, right after lunch and all and whenever we had a discussion, Beth would raise her hand. Everyone knew she would say something stupid so whenever she raised her hand, everyone yelled "shut up". Then Beth would ask some dumb question and everyone would roar in laughter. Then a boy named Kenny raised his hand and said he had a nickname for Beth. I said what is it? He said we should call her "WIERD BETH". I said no, we can't do that(but it sounded good to me) but then Beth stands up and says it was fine with her so the rest of the year, everyone called her WIERD BETH. This class hardly would do anything and most of them were flunking so one day I had an idea. These guys would always like to arm wrestle when they came into class so I told them if everyone (even WIERD BETH) could get their work done by 12:45, I would organize an arm wrestling tournament in our class. IT WORKED. The last month or two, we had arm wrestling tournaments in my Geography class for the last 15 minutes almost every day with the tournament draw sheet on the board. We were way out in the portables so I wasn't worried about the administration coming out. The crazy thing is, the undefeated champion was a girl. She was a rodeo type with a circle mark on the back pocket of her blue jeans from her chewing tobacco can.(no kidding). We would put two desks together and everyone would stand in a circle and cheer it on. It got really loud and one day the Spanish teacher next door actually came over and opened the door and saw everyone roaring. It was a little embarrasing but who cares. Four years later, WIERD BETH came back to see me after she had left Lodi High. I was teaching Freshman Health & Safety at the time and it was in the Fall and I had the door open doing notes on the overhead projector. So in comes WIERD BETH but she didn't walk in the door-she rode into the room right in the middle of class on her bicycle (riding it). So I introduced her to my class as a former student named WIERD BETH. She smiled, left, and said good-bye. I'll never forget WIERD BETH.
P.S.-I actually ran into WIERD BETH about five years ago at a banquet. I recognized her right away and told my wife, "you're not going to believe this but there's WIERD BETH". 20 years after the bicycle incident, we both recognized each other and I went over to her and we had a nice talk. I love running into former students and players-especially people like WIERD BETH