The sixth-grade teacher left the room, and the air was filled with wadded up sheets of notebook paper - it looked like it was snowing on a day when it was 95 degrees outside. However, when the teacher returned to the room, three of us were standing with the crumpled paper in our hands. She immediately called our names and told us to go to the principal's office. I don't know what the other boys were thinking, but I was not shaken because the principal was one of my dad's best friends. Unfortunately, he was out of the office and the vice-principal was in charge. Let me describe this man. He was on the short size, fairly big, and his right hand was missing most of the fingers due to a firecracker accident in his youth. After we explained why we were there, he pulled out a desk drawer and lifted a wood paddle out of it. The paddle was about two feet long, one inch thick, and four inches wide. He sat the paddle on the desk, turned on the PA system, picked up the microphone and said, "Mr. Melvin, Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown (the last two names were changed to protect the identity of the guilty) seem to believe it is OK to throw wadded up notebook paper in the classroom. I want the school to know it is not." He then laid the microphone on his desk, invited me to stand next to it, bend over, grab my ankles, and then proceeded to give me three licks with the paddle. After each lick you could hear the sound echoing down the halls. Boom, boom, boom, boom. boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom. boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom. boom. After he had administered the licks to the other two boys, he said, "Are we friends now?" Are we friends now????? Frankly, he could have asked us if pigs fly, and we would have been in complete agreement. I find it hard to believe a single sheet of wadded up notebook paper flew through the air at the elementary school again for quite some time.
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