She Learned it During the Occupation

I’ve had my share of memorable teachers. There was the pedophiliac band instructor who followed young students into the music supply room with the predatory intent of a lion, quietly stalking a herd of young, wobbly legged gazelles through the grasslands of the Serengeti.

And who could forget the chalk brush hurling quiz master who would careen various sharp insults and blunt writing instruments off of your head if you happened to miss an answer on one of his numerous little surprise quizzes.

And I’m pretty sure that all the students from my grade 7 class are still trying to forget our former college biology teacher with his large collection of bottled fetuses displayed proudly across the rear wall of the classroom, including several well developed human embryos. What I wouldn’t have given back then for a separate lunch room… or a seat anywhere but in the back row. To this day I still have trouble eating with an audience.

Yet most memorable by far was my old French teacher Mrs. Krusse. I always kind of suspected she might have been some sort of German war criminal on the lamb, hiding out in my suburban grade 9 French class.

Clearly she was wrestling with the inner demons spawned forth from her earlier actions as a prison camp guard or possible civilian Nazi informer, which explained nicely the binge drinking during class time and wild accompanying mood swings.

She could scare the bejeezus out of you with a sudden spine wrenching ‘Achtung!’ or a burst of umlaut laden expletives that would make a Visigoth blush. But she also provided more than her fair share of entertainment value in the process.

The two most memorable things that she taught me would have to have been: 1. the nature of inverse relationships, and 2. how to drive a stick shift.

As the much speculated upon contents of her coffee thermos would begin to dwindle each day, the craziness in the room would increase in direct proportion. Assigned homework would be forgotten, while imaginary assignments would suddenly be remembered. On more than one occasion this resulted in the whole class being awarded zeros, as we were clearly all a bunch of lazy, good for nothing svine-hundts who never did our homework.

Most days class would start with a greeting of muttered obscenities followed by the marking of our real and/or imaginary homework. As the contents of the thermos disappeared the games began in earnest. She would usually vanish into the back room to ‘refresh’ herself, either forgetting completely about the class for the remainder of the period, or popping her head back out unexpectedly to bark at a random nearby student: “You…get your skinny ass over here. You look like you could pass for 16. Here, take my car keys and go get me some cigarettes. I smoke ‘Players’ and don’t go getting me any of that ‘Players Light’ crap. And if you so much as dent the fender of my car they’ll have to use the Jaws of Life to un-mangle your GPA by the time I’m done with it.”

Being in her class was like being a part of some sort of obscene parody of a bingo game. It was a weird sort of thrill ride where you never knew when your number was going to come up. It was fun while it lasted.

Eventually she and the pedophile got transferred – that’s how it was handled back in the day. Administration from different schools would trade dysfunctional staff members between each other like a couple of kids trading the 4th string players from their dog eared baseball card collections.

In exchange for the pedophile and Ms. Krusse we would up with the chain smoking metal shop guy with turrets, and someone that I still affectionately remember as ‘Sir Bath-Me-Not’.

It was ok as far as trades go. But the one lingering question about Mrs. Krusse that was never answered to my satisfaction was ‘How did a fugitive war criminal ever come to learn French?’ Perhaps it was during the occupation…

Mrs. Krusse, we barely knew ye.