Great Balls of Fire


When we first started getting computers at Orem High School, the library got about nine or ten just to be in the library. That was a really great thing. After a few weeks, this announcement ended up on the library door and on the main office door “Whoever is taking the balls of the mice needs to replace them.” The old mouse on the first computers had a ball that rolled around on the mat to make it work. After a good laugh in the principal’s office, it was determined that because I was friendly with her and was the newest administrator, I should go and talk to the librarian. She was a good friend. I explained to her that many people were taking her signs in a way she had not intended and recommended that the signs and announcements to each class be ended.  
Another story coming to mind is about the marble machine that my father made. The marbles would run from the top down a zig zag route to the bottom. All the young grandkids really loved it. Many of us who were much older loved to play with it also.
The marble game that I first remember was at my high school graduation. It was not my idea, but I was happy to join in. Everyone who was graduating was given a marble. The idea was when you got your diploma and shook hands with the district person passing the diplomas out, you would put the marble in his hand. It was kind of fun to see him trying to decide what to do with all of the marbles. Some of them escaped his control and went rolling away. It wasn’t too bad since we were graduating on the track and football field.
Carl J. Stubbs from the 1977
 Orem High Yearbook 
Somewhere along the way, early in my teaching career, before becoming an administrator, some students asked me what we did for fun at graduation. Unfortunately, I told them about the marbles. When it came time for their graduation, they fine-tuned the procedure and handed the lady from the district a penny. There were sixty-nine of us graduating from Boulder City High, but around seven hundred graduating from Orem High. I don’t think that they could find that many marbles.
I knew, the first time I heard one of the pennies drop and roll across the floor of the BYU Marriott Center, what was happening, and I knew where the idea had come from. How do you put an expressed thought or idea back into the bottle? The answer is that you can’t. If you think that was the end of it, you would be just a little bit wrong. It didn’t take the administration long to track down the origin of the idea. I was told to be a little more selective about what I shared with my classes, especially the yearbook class. After that, each class was a little more original with their antics at graduation.
Another event that year took place when Neal Barth had been complaining bitterly about the lack of support for the drama department by the high school administration and the district. He continued for some time to be quite vocal about the lack of help.
Towards the end of the school year the district would tell you what your teaching assignment would be for the next year. I had copied a letterhead from the district and put a letter in his box telling him he would be teaching at a combined Jr. Sr. high on the far west side of the lake. When he pulled the letter out and sat down on the couch in the teachers’ lounge to read it, he just went white, and then it looked like he was tearing up. We had been friends and had run the Colorado River together in the summer. I felt horrible. I didn’t think that he would ever believe it, but he had. I had to tell him right then that the letter was a fake. He was relieved, but it took him a few minutes before he and I were friends again. Oftentimes a good joke at the expense of another person is just not a good idea.
You can see that many of my thoughts today are pretty disjointed, but that is how my brain is working today.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some of My Testimony

Image
November 2019 Carl Stubbs As a young man, I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps as far as the Church was concerned. He had a strong testimony of the gospel, and he instilled that belief into me by his example. There were many people in my life that helped me along the way. I soon learned that the Church was true, but that all of the people who were members were not always so, including myself. Some of the men that were influential in my life besides my father were Frosty Traasdahl, Karl Snow, Glenn Snow, Jake Williams, Bert Whitney, M J Christensen and Bishop Cheeseman. I’m sure there were others, but these are the ones that come quickly to memory. One that I met prior to my mission was Alma Sonne who was the one that called me on a mission. I have always believed that the Church was true and have known that all of us are not exempt from the temptations of the world. I believe that we are all attempting to do our very best with the abilities that we have been given. As I went...
Read more

The Board of Education

Image
As I watch several of my children who are in education work during this coronavirus, I see them using the internet to reach their students. This writing will probably let you know that I started teaching many years ago. I will help you out with that. The first year I taught in public school was 1968. It was at Orem High School. Carl Stubbs in classroom D-2, 1985 In my room, D-2, the chalkboards were black. Not long after, it was determined that green was a much better color, easier for the students to see. I was not teaching there long before they came in one summer and put in the new improved green boards. They were still called blackboards by the teachers and students. These boards worked just fine for many years. I should deviate from the story of boards to let you know that my penmanship is not good. In fact, it is terrible. In fact, I remember in college I would take good notes, but have to hurry home and type them before I forgot what they said. I had a difficult time...
Read more

Kansas

Image
Written on October 12, 2020 As a young man between eighth and ninth grade, I had the opportunity to go from Boulder City to Kansas to work on my uncle’s farm. I say given the opportunity, but I was really just shipped out. His farm was in the southwest corner of Kansas. Looking back after sixty-two years I realize that my parents, my dad, in particular, wanted me out of town. I’m not sure why, but I guess I was not all that enjoyable to have around. I can’t even remember the name of the little towns they lived by, but I remember the farm. I suspect that my uncle Harry and his wife Inez were not that excited to have me there, but they treated me ok. I was there for about three months. They had two sons who were older than me. Duane was eighteen and Manley was about twenty. An old wheat truck like the one on my uncle's farm I got to work on the family farm driving a tractor, a large wheat truck, and a 1947 Kaiser-Frazer car. After work and on the weekends, I was allowed to driv...
Read more