On The Silly Side by Jimmy Del Ponte

This article first ran in the September 2, 2009 edition of The Somerville News.

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

It’s that time of year again. Reading and writing and arithmetic. This time of year used to make me sick. When I heard those commercials like “before you go back to school, go to Zayres,” my stomach cringed. It also seemed that we always discovered something really cool right at the end of the summer that was now cut short by school. One year it was extending the forks on our bikes, another year it was hanging out with a new group of girls on the next street. Sometimes it was playing football or Frisbee, but school always goofed it up. I spoke to a few of my friends who, like me, still get a nervous ache in their stomach whenever the beginning of the school year starts.

Both my kids are actually anxious to get back to school. Man, have times changed. I tried every trick in the book to get out of school, and I mean everything. We were playing hooky at my friend Teddy’s house when I was a sophomore at Somerville High. My pal Danny called in to the office disguising his voice, and saying he was Mr. Del Ponte. Whoever answered the phone at the High school said, “My, Mr. DelPonte, you certainly have a young voice!” I called back a second later and said, “James Del Ponte will be right in.” When I was still at St. Clements, I faked a stomachache to get out of school. There was actually nothing wrong with my stomach at all. I lied about the pain. My parents took me up Somerville High School where they removed my appendix. That will teach me to fake an illness, right? Wrong. I invented a mysterious pain in my leg to try to ditch a  few classes. My hypochondriac mother dragged me back to the same Doctor who found a mysterious “baker’s cyst” in the back of my leg and, voila, another operation. There was no leg pain whatsoever, but “Dr. Invento,” sold my parents two unnecessary surgeries. Sure there is a chance that there really WAS something wrong with my leg and appendix, but because of the reputation of this nameless Doctor, I seriously doubt it. There is a still a small stitch visible on the back of my leg that was “operated” on. The scar left by Dr. Create-an–ailment was so bad, that I actually called Jim Sokolove. They told me that too many years had gone by. It’s a good thing I didn’t fake a headache. I would have ended up with a lobotomy. I finally learned my lesson about creating imaginary illnesses in order to stay out of school. Bottom line was, I really hated going to school. I wanted to stay home and watch re-runs of Gomer Pyle and Yogi Bear cartoons. Anything but school. But it was different then – there were only a handful of nice teachers. I didn’t say ‘good’ teachers mind you, I said nice. Maybe it was difficult to be nice to a kid wearing bellbottom dungarees and sporting a David Cassidy haircut. Perhaps some teachers didn’t approve of our being in an organization called the Committee of Concerned Students and publishing a newspaper called The Inside Agitator. Teachers back then used threatening tactics to try to get us to conform. It was like prison. It made us appreciate the really good teachers all the more. Dick Gordinier, Julio Perno, Tony Fedele,  Mrs. Carafotes, Mr. De Angelis and Mr. Da Prato, to name a few. I could rattle off a few of the meanies too, but you know who they were. One former building master was partly responsible for my resigning as the high school drama teacher. After making my four years of high school miserable, this person was now going to be my “superior.” No thanks. I probably would have been close to retiring at this point in time. Anyway, I didn’t apply for the job, they came and asked me. It’s now all water under the Ball Square Bridge.

I still have nightmares that I am in school, facing an exam, with no pencil, and in my pajamas. I am glad my kids like school. For me it was a bad memory except for the talent shows and drama performances. They tried to make me repeat one class with the same blow-hard macho, head tripping idiot that flunked me the first time. That’s when I dropped the college course. HA HA!! I still went to college anyway! And I still carry a grudge against that jerk teacher.  I never needed his jive class at all. I have been counting on my fingers for years and it has worked out just fine! I would like to give my thanks and gratitude for all the great teachers I had over the years. I would also like to express my thankfulness for all the awesome teachers my kids have. A lot of my friends and former classmates are now teachers!

After working very closely with the Somerville School Department over the past year, I am happy to report that we are very lucky to have the best schools possible. Times have changed for the best and any student in the Somerville Public Schools can look forward to the best education they can possibly get.

So as my kids return to school, I will go back to laying out their clothes, preparing their snacks, forcing them to go to bed, prying them out of bed and keeping them off You Tube until their homework is done.