My first day of high school was hijacked by Mr. Meadows, my freshman history teacher. He was all anyone talked about, particularly before lunch. As soon as I began to hear the stories, I looked at my schedule and lo and behold…Meadows, 9th period. Great…
He was the teacher boogieman to end all teacher boogiemen. His stock-in-trade was World Cultures. His method of torture…an organized, disciplined, no-nonsense, no down time classroom. Lord help you if you didn’t memorize your “fact sheets” every night. It was a sink or swim class. Come prepared or pay the consequences. Sometimes there were consequences when you did prepare.
Mr. Meadows took no prisoners which is probably a bad way to introduce a Vietnam war vet whose lesson might include tips on survival tactics, “When in the jungles of Southeast Asia, don’t eat the mangoes. They give you the trots.” It was clear that under enemy fire, this might be very important, sound advice.
History teacher scare tactics can be very effective and clearly Mr. Meadows had the routine down pat. It took several weeks of classroom time before we finally realized that there was no real danger although infamously, every semester he would go around the room and tell everyone what their grade was and a quick assessment of your strengths and weaknesses. He was always on target and I don’t think anyone was brave enough to complain about the public shaming, it was a different time.
Eventually I graduated high school and went off to college but still had a friend in high school who told me Mr. Meadows was quite ill. I believe he had prostate cancer likely from exposure to Agent Orange. I went with my friend to his house to visit and sat for over an hour listening to him and some of his more recent students talk about history factoids with no real chance to jump in and change the subject. I regret I didn’t try harder.
As we were getting ready to leave, Mr. Meadows asked me quickly how I liked college and that was the last time I saw him. He didn’t look good and I haven’t located an obituary but I doubt he survived a great deal longer unless there was some amazing recovery but in the late seventies/early eighties, cancer treatment was still a bit medieval. Maybe I’ll happen upon someone someday who knows what happened to him.
To this day, he was one of most memorable, influential teachers I was ever fortunate enough to have, he was a super hard worker and despite what you might think, he was very respectful of the students, the students who deserved it anyway. That was not as common as you would hope, as a late Baby Boomer, we paid the price for a lot of what went on years before. I’ve written about Ohio State having an aura of exhaustion when I started, you’d think a Vietnam vet teacher would at least be wary and maybe on guard but I guess, as one vet told me, “I have a warm bed, good food, and nobody is shooting at me.” Perspective.
PS: Mr. Meadows, you were wrong about the song “Katmandu.” It wasn’t Cat Stevens, it was Bob Seger. We knew you were wrong but were too intimidated to speak up without solid proof at hand. Were you testing us?
Khatzkel Did It 