School Day Pranks

Well, Bobby, I have never grown up and become a staid and somber man like many other people I knew. I have never looked at life as serious-minded hurdles that needed to be tackled. I still love playing games and tricks on folks who take life far too seriously. Let me tell you a tale when I was your age...

I remember, as a cheeky kid of nine years of age, reluctantly attending school.

I was full of simple mischief and fun. Nothing in comparison to what children do today with drugs and the like. Nonetheless, it still got me in hot water with my teachers, but I would always own up to any impishness I caused.

This meant I spent many happy hours outside the headmasters study waiting for his sadistic punishment. He was a beetroot faced character, permeated with the wrong kind of mean spirit…whisky, I suspected by his breath, but what does a nine year old kid know?

In those days (1914) we would receive a leather strap smacked against our hand or backside, six times. They called it 'Six of the best.' It stung for a few minutes, but I always went out singing a nice tune, whilst the headmaster fumed with exasperation.

I remember one instance, it was the start of a new term and we had the pleasure of a young, fresh teacher, who the class regarded as an idiot savant ... nicknamed Dopey, to us kids. It was a golden opportunity for me. Every lesson, he struggled to teach English to a class of nine year olds, who preferred to be outside playing games in the playground.

One day, early in the morning lesson, I asked him if I could go see the doctor as I felt an affliction coming on. Without question, he agreed and as quick as Jack flash, I ran out of school. There was a great circus and fun fair that just came in town and I wanted to enjoy the opening, free afternoon show.

As I was always honest, I did go down to the doctor's office, which just happened to be around the corner to the circus. I waited in the doctor's surgery (No appointment needed those days.) He called me into his office. I informed him "I've discovered two bumps on my head behind my left and right ears." After a careful examination he laughed at me. He was a good-natured man and liked my sense of humor.

He declared, "You are fooling around, aren't you. Those bumps have always been there, everyone has them. You are a cheeky little juvenile… Go home and bandage your head with vinegar and brown paper and keep it on for a month, without that saucy smile" he laughed teasingly. Well, I had the day off school and on the way to the circus, a new scheme was hatching in my cheeky mind.

The next day I came to school with my head bandaged-up and a very serious look on my face. Everyone was taken back for they have never seen my face looking distressful. I told the teacher "What I have requires careful, cautious treatment, so I need to sit at the back of the class and not be involved with any work." He asked me: "What have you got" and I replied; "The doctor said I must not smile for one whole month. The least that people know about my affliction, the quicker my bandages will come off. After the month is out, I will tell everyone about my affliction." He seemed a little puzzled, but replied "OK, you can tell me what affliction you have next month."

Well, for one whole month I sat at the back of the class and read my comic books with a sedated look on my face. I didn't do any homework and got off gym class. It was a month of pure unsophisticated loafing around. For a nine-year-old with no interest in school… Paradise!

I could not get into trouble for playing truant and had the teacher's blessing to do nothing but relax and read comic book stories. Money could not buy such cheer for a nine-year-old youngster ... Not that I had any money, apart from two pennies each week to buy my comics, and a bag of candy.

When you play tricks there always come a day of reckoning and when the month was up, the teacher called me out to the front of the class. With the head master by his side to hear my explanation, he demanded an answer... "Now then Levy," he said in a stern voice, trying to impress the headmaster who was looking grimmer than ever. "Tell us all what affliction you have been suffering."

As quick as a flash I whipped off the bandages, jumped up on the desk and shouted, "I have been afflicted with... CHUTZPAH!"

The class roared with laughter and to my surprise so did the headmaster and the teacher. I think they were glad to see me smile again. It did not stop the headmaster from giving me a hard clip around the ear and I almost needed the bandages.

That is a true story that happened almost ninety-one years ago. I am still a cheeky kid and I still have not lost the wisdom of a child who understood...

Life is far too short to be taken seriously. Even when we are made to do things we don't care for ... we can still make it fun!

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Author's Note.

Most of the story is true ... Apart from the facts I'm not hundred years old and my name is not Bobby!

When I left school aged sixteen I told the teacher, I will have a Rolls Royce by the age of twenty-six. He looked down at the holes in my shoes, patted me on the head and said, You have kept us all amused with your antics ... Dream-on Michael ...We wish you well.

Well, I did dream-on... I laughed and joked with everyone I met and enjoyed my first Rolls Royces when I was twenty-eight.

"It is not education that breeds success, rather, it is the success in the breed ...That educates others."-Michael Levy.