Thursday, June 28, 2007

 

Cooper and Linville - Relationships with Lowell Wiggins

Cooper - I always thought Wiggins was a really good guy, because whenever somebody called the school to hire a kid, he always sent for me and Don Ossinger. Some people said we looked alike, so maybe he thought we were both Don and didn’t really direct the favoritism to me, but I don’t like to quibble when someone gives me a gift horse. Now I know that a lot of bad kids like Linus didn’t like him because he was in charge of discipline, but to be a discipline problem somebody had to let you in their group and nobody ever did. It is hard to get caught doing stuff if you have to do it all by yourself. Actually, it is hard to think up stuff to do. I didn’t even know the Moose Traps existed.

Linville - I must admit we thought Lowell Wiggins was a twit but, he had a job to do and you may as well pick someone nobody likes anyway to administer the discipline. The last thing on our minds at lunchtime was eating. One day during lunch hour, Winschell and I were nosing around nooks and crannies which were generally off limits to students. We stumbled onto some passageway that led up to a trapdoor which, in turn, led up to the area above the roof of the auditorium. It was a huge dark attic of sorts and we lit matches or our lighters to find our way around up there. We got quite disoriented at first but, before panic set in, I said, "Follow me, Winsch! Stay close and don't step between those joists 'cause it's about 40 feet down to the seats." (I liked hanging with Winschell because he always let me be the boss.) We formed the Dark Dungeon Club and dues were your lunch money. Some guys couldn't afford it, (they preferred to eat lunch instead,) so we swore them to secrecy before letting them resign. I finally got us across the entire width of the auditorium ceiling and discovered a narrow opening above the attic wall between the studs, just barely big enough to slide our skinny asses through into a room which looked like an unoccupied faculty office of sorts and was kept locked from the hallway. We could open the door from the inside but we peered through just a crack before we exited to make sure no faculty members were snooping around. After that, we started charging kids two bits to take the tour with us. I think we had damn near $50 before we got caught and they were waiting for us in the room we used to exit through. Wiggins wanted to expel us for a week. I thought, oh shit, my dad isn't gonna like this! I think Leonard Johnson intervened and let us off if we promised to keep our noses clean. Johnson was one hell of a guy. We were lucky to have him. Anyway, Wiggy is offering you a godamn job out of one side of his mouth and kicking my skinny ass out of school with the other. What a two-faced jerk! I bought my red basketball shoes at the book store with some of our proceeds. They sure looked good with my red junior high basketball uniform. I think Winschell bought us some cigarettes and French fries after school with his share. We were hungry having been too busy for lunch.

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