Two Speeches That Were Never Given

“Just another ripple on my lake of irritation,” I can almost hear custodian Luke muttering this as he hiked up the stairs to the third floor at Bellingham High School. For some reason the drinking fountain was plugged.

My best friend in middle school and high school was Chuck. Both he and I were in Boy Scouts together and became Eagles the same year. Chuck’s dad, who besides being a gunsmith and a shift worker at the local plywood mill, was also our Boy Scout Leader.

Now, Chuck wasn’t his real name but that’s okay because he called me Chuck too. Actually, the name came from the Charlie Brown comics. Peppermint Patty called Charlie Brown, Chuck. Maybe it was because one of us acted or looked like Charlie Brown or had the luck of never quite being the winner, that we called each other Chuck. At any rate I preferred it to being called Snoopy.

It was our freshman year and both Chuck and I signed up for Speech Class which was a requirement to graduate. Each week we were required to present a different type of speech and on this particular week, we had to do a demonstration speech. Usually, they were done on Thursday and Fridays, so we had three days to prepare.

Chuck only lived four houses away from me, so in the morning the school bus would first stop at his house and then roll up to mine. It was Thursday and we were both to do our demonstration speeches. In my lap was a large box which contained a popcorn popper, the oil kind not the hot air style. It was taken without mom’s permission. Also in the box was a bar of paraffin wax and some packaging string. I was going to demonstrate candle making — although I had never tried it before. How hard could it be? In Chuck’s lap was a small box.

“What’s in the box?” I asked.

“Something I grabbed from Dad’s bench in his gun shop.” “Are you demonstrating how to make pop corn?”

“Nope. Candles.” I said. “Should be an easy A.”

THE FIRST SPEECH THAT WAS NEVER GIVEN:

Our speech class was after lunch. The class schedule was 45 minutes long with 10 minutes to get to the next class. Each speech could last a maximum of 10 minutes. Chuck was first up.

He walked confidently to the front of the class with his little box. The teacher sat in the back of the room. Even before he spoke, I noticed that he seemed very confident that he knew what he was talking about.

“Good afternoon,” he started as he reached into the box. “Today I am going to tell you the history of the Derringer.” He held the small gun up for the class to see. A Derringer is a small single shot or revolver hand gun which can be hidden in the palm of your hand. In this case, a 22 caliber.

Unlike today, it was not uncommon in 1969 to see shot guns and rifles hanging in the back windows of pickup trucks owned by upperclassmen who had their driver’s license, so when Chuck held up the Derringer, I thought “cool”. Nevertheless, the teacher thought otherwise and demonstrated her agility by swiftly jumping over chairs and desks to remove the gun from his hand.

There was no school evacuation. No police called. No punishment. All she said was, “You can come and get this from me after school.”

THE SECOND SPEECH THAT WAS NEVER GIVEN:

The last speech of the day was mine on candle making. As soon as I got to the front of the class, I plugged in the popcorn popper and placed the bar of paraffin in the pan for it to melt. The coils under the pan were red. I could feel the heat, but do you think the paraffin would melt? Now I am talking about candle making, which I have never done before, and showing the class how I would dip the packing string to form the candle if there had actually been any melted wax.

“Just another boil on my butt of happiness!” I thought.

Then two unfortunate things happened: 1) The class bell rang giving me ten minutes to get to the next class and, 2) The bar of paraffin went liquid.

The question was: What to do with liquid wax and no time to get to the next class? The answer was simple: (Since the statute of limitations has expired), I dumped it down the drinking fountain drain.

After school Chuck went to the teacher to retrieve his dad’s gun but since he had after school activities, he gave it to me to take home on the school bus. Once at home, my thought was, why does it need to go back to his house right away? So with a bag of 22 caliber shells in hand, I went to the beach to shoot logs on the water.

Remember I mentioned how a Derringer can be hidden in the palm of your hand? I loaded a shell into the chamber, pulled back on the hammer, pointed the gun, and looked down the barrel. My pointer finger was wrapped around the end of the barrel. If I had pulled the trigger, my finger would have gone skipping across the bay which would have made it very difficult to play a full chord on the piano. Later, after firing a few shots into logs, I returned the gun to Chuck’s house. I don’t think his dad ever knew it was gone. The popcorn popper on the other hand had to be thrown out because every batch of corn popped seemed to taste like paraffin.

About 20 years ago, Bellingham High School was completely gutted and renovated. All the pipes and wiring were changed out. I understand that in the bowels of the new building, where the boilers are, there is a plaque with a pipe mounted on it. The pipe is plugged solid with wax. Inscribed on the plaque are the words: “Another ripple on my lake of irritation!”

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