Mr. Souffard, My High School History Teacher,
Is Saying He Flunked Two Kids Last Year Because in the Final Written
Exam on the American Revolutionary War They Stopped Writing About History
and Started Writing Nasty Rumors About Him, Thinking He'd Never Read
Their Essays
(So We'd Better Be Careful, He's Warning Us)
(continued)
I wonder if it's true. It couldn't be, could it? That's what the colonists
must've asked themselves previous to the night of April 18, 1775, when
General Gage, a British officer with an American wife, determined that
the rebels were storing ammunition and weapons in Concord, about eighteen
miles outside of Boston. But really now, I wonder if it is. And if it
is, it makes me sick. I mean, look at him. He's way over forty. Fat,
bald, and hairy. The guy's an ape. I mean, come on! Which zoo did the
school board spring him from? And the worst part is he thinks he's really
teaching us something. The only thing he's taught anyone, apart from
the fact that Dr. Joseph Warren, head of the Boston Committee, sent
his two best riders, Paul Revere and William Dawes, to Lexington and
Concord, is that you don't even think for a second that you're back
in high school and that you can romance teenage girls and diddle around
on the side, man, especially when your wife teaches home economics in
the classroom right across the hall! So, yeah, if what they're saying
is true, I guess we've all learned something from this in the steeple
of the Old North Church, rowing Revere safely across the river in a
boat to Charlestown. They're saying, "One if by land! Two if by
sea! And one in the oven!" They're saying that he's already fired,
that the school board's already given him the axe for sure and that
he's only finishing out this year. The worst thing is that they're saying
it was Amy Bendix. Yeah, Amy Bendix. I mean, I just can't see them together.
You know, come to think of it, I just can't see any overweight, forty-plus
track coach/history teacher with any girl my age. I mean, why him and
not one of us? What about me? I mean, I'm no Adonis, but I've got to
have some over-the-hill, has-been high school history teacher beat,
don't I? Come on! I mean, Amy Bendix? Amy, what were you thinking? It
blows my mind, there, in the early morning mist that rose up from the
village green like true love and pride from the hearts of those few
rebels in Lexington, where seventy intrepid Americans faced over six
hundred stalwart British redcoats. Captain Jonas Parker, the commander
of aw it makes me sick. What do they think they're doing giving us a
guy like this for a history teacher. He's a pervert of the worst kind
of the American troops, sang out the order, his voice ringing loud and
true like the Liberty Bell: "Stand your ground, men! Don't fire
unless fired upon! But if they want to have a war, let it begin here!"
And here it began.
As a result of the "shot heard 'round the world," seven American
soldiers lay dead in the rose-colored circles of sunlight that fell
like liberty on the Lexington village green, including Captain Parker,
and the British militia marched on to Concord. Later, though, because
of American reinforcements from Acton, Bedford, and Lincoln could it
really be true it makes me sick, the British were forced to retreat
into Concord and back to Boston, suffering heavy casualties along the
way. I mean, Amy Bendix! She's a goddess! What could she possibly see
in him? Having lost 273 men and the hearts belonging to over 89 half-decent
high school juniors and seniors, Amy Bendix and the British retreated
to Boston, battered but not defeated. Seriously, she's a goddess-cheerleader,
drill team, homecoming queen. All that and more. And what's worse —
well, what's more, I guess I should say — is that she was a friend
of ours. You know what I mean? She was one of us, you know? And sure,
she's hot. Yeah, sure. And yeah, most of the guys I know have said they
wouldn't mind bouncing her from here to Boston, but that doesn't change
anything. And herein, surrounded by a troop of Massachusetts militiamen,
the British were forced to stay, blockaded by Americans on land just
as they had blockaded the city by sea earlier. Yeah, it's true; I know
it is; it's got to be. But why him? Why the over-forty ape history teacher?
I mean, look at him, which led to the crucial skirmish known as "Bunker's
Hill," a direct result of the meeting of the second Continental
Congress on June 15, 1775, look at him, ordering all continental forces
to be raised "in defense of liberty." He's an absolute ape,
a classic example of a narcissistic troglodytic pseudo-pedagogue with
a saggy rear end, herniated disc, and fallen arches, still hung up on
the free-love sixties. The general chosen to lead the troops was forty-three-year
old George Washington, a Virginia delegate and veteran of the French
and Indian War, who was about the same age and ten times the man our
history teacher is, even though both are great figures in history, in
a manner of speaking. But before General Washington could take charge,
the American troops, led by Israel Putnam and General Artemis Ward,
prepared for the battle of their lives.
