police

Friday Follow-Ups

October 3, 2009
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Just some follow-up on some things I noticed I’ve left hanging. *Still haven’t heard from the DA about my possible vandalism charge. Wait…I never finished that story, did I?  (Here’s the beginning of the story.) After the cop came to the school and didn’t get to talk to me, he came to my house the next day, Saturday. I get attitude from the git-go. He says the guy who almost ironed me wants to have me charged with vandalism for making a dent in the side of his truck with my wristguards. Lucky it wasn’t my head, and you’re interviewing me in a hospital bed. Vandalism is a misdemeanor. I won’t go into details, but it wasn’t exactly a pleasant conversation. But the bottom line seemed to be that, with no witnesses except those involved, he had a he said/he said sort of thing on his hands, and was trying to get me to crack and confess. When he left he said he would write up his report, and then the DA’s office would decide whether there was a case or not. Great. The statute of limitations on charging me is two years. The incident was in February. Supposedly, according

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“Teach”

August 30, 2009
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“Teach”

Back when I was in school, we had an expression that sort of rolled all together into one word, the expressions “I told you so,” “Ha ha,” (as in Nelson Muntz), “what goes around comes around,” and teaching someone a lesson (in the street sense, not the school sense). We called it, Teach! “Man, that was a teach when Mr. Jones asked for my hall pass…and I had it. He sooo wanted to bust me, but I was ready.” Or more currently, “It’s quite a teach when those house flippers who thought they could make an easy buck in the crazy real estate market with someone else’s money get burned.” Or, “I did some teaching on the golf course yesterday.” (Actually I don’t golf.) Or when you’re having an argument and you’re proven correct by outside evidence or a third party. Teach! We also used to add a little flourish by curving the index finger into a hook, and twisting the wrist as we said it. Tayeeech! Today they used the word schooled, but it just isn’t quite so versatile and all-in-one, in my humble opinion. Anyway, yesterday I did some teaching to a police officer. (Yes, it’s been quite

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Flash(way)Back II

February 12, 2009
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Ok, back to my story.  So after the fine phone call that started my Friday, I go up to the office to let the secretaries know that a representative of our city’s finest might be paying me a visit. First they think I’m joking, they they start razzing me, “Cops comin’ for you again Coward?” “Same same since seventh grade.” “What?” It was 1974, and I was late for school. I hate being late. For anything. Even school, even then. I was riding my bike as usual, and in 1974, we didn’t wear helmets, let alone worry about which side of the road we were riding on, and we thought stop signs were for cars and losers. Today, the road I was on the wrong side of is 4 lanes wide, and the light I ran controls one of the busiest intersections (the cross street is 6 lanes now) in my old hometown. Back then, it was a mere 2 lanes (plus the turn lane) I was crossing against the light. I got across without a care, though that was probably because I didn’t look. I was looking a block ahead, and I could see them lining up outside in

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Flash(way)Back

February 6, 2009
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Today the cops came for me at school. Wow, that’s a pretty dramatic opening for a teacher blog entry. With any luck*, visions of God-knows-what are flashing through your head right now. “What did he do? Did they haul him off in handcuffs in front of his students? OMG, will his next post be from the cooler?” The reality wasn’t quite so dramatic, though the front office staff got quite a charge out of it. Actually, it was only one officer. And he left his number, instead of leaving with me. But it took me right back to when I was in seventh grade. That was the last time the cops showed up for me at school. Yep, this post isn’t about my class or teaching, this is all about me. I got a phone call at school at 7:30 in the morning. This in itself is a bit unusual, because I don’t really talk on the phone (no, I don’t own a cell phone – and never will), and most people know not to call me. Even the office staff knows (if it’s not an emergency) to send a runner, instead of

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Random Featured Post

Quizzes for Dummies?

A few years ago, while we were reading Outsiders aloud, I was about to give them my usual “reading check” type quiz to make sure they were following along, thinking about what we’d talked about, connecting the literary terms to the examples in the book, etc. I can’t quite remember what my inspiration was (probably just to throw them for a loop like I like to do), but I decided to let them “cheat.” My quizzes on the books and stories we read are always open book, but this time I told them they could take the quiz, not only open book, but “open mouth.” I told them they could talk about the questions and answers as much as they want in any way they want, and decide however they want to, which of the answers to choose. “You can share what you know…or not. You can decide whether to heed the wisdom of the group…or not. You just can’t lie. You can’t knowingly tell everyone the wrong answer on purpose.” One class that day came up with the name Quiz for Dummies. The rest of the periods thought that was a little “mean,” so we’ve stuck with Open Mouth. [...]

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Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989.

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