I got word today that Mr. Boyles, also known as “Ole Oscar”, head disciplinarian at Lithia Springs High School (my and many other’s alma mater), passed away today, April 17th, 2011. I had to stop and take a second and relay a funny story concerning the author and Mr. Boyles during my stay at Lithia Springs High…welll, funny to me I guess, not so funny to Mr. Boyles. I guess the best way to describe our relationship was “Hunter and Hunted” with yours truly being the furry one with antlers . We had an adversarial relationship, why, I’m not completely sure, but he was out to get me. I had numerous friends, close buddies, who had suffered under the tyranny of the massive paddle Mr. Boyles offered as an alternative to a 50 page theme for punishment administered for various sorts of in-school felonies. Everything from chronic tardies to cutting class, to downright disrespecting a teacher or fighting with a future best friend.
I knew one thing for sure, Mr. Boyles had it in for me and I had no idea why. My Junior year and LSHS’s first year open as a school, I became aware of Mr. Boyles presence. I remember being at an orientation before that year started, during two a day practices, and him coming to talk to us athlete types. I recall vividly being exceptionally tired and irritated while he was busy giving his “Thar’s a new Sheriff in town…and his name is Oscar Boyles” speech and not being either impressed nor concerned. My dad gave me the one reason I needed to never ever be a pain in someone’s, anyone’s ass, and that reason was this: because he damn well said so. I do remember not paying full attention to Oscar, breaking eye contact and glancing out the window silently vowing to not ever cross his path nor darken his door for purposes other than to say “Hi”. I looked back at him just when he said something about us not being treated special just because we were athletes, and him staring at me and asking if I understood him. My simple answer was ” sound’s like you passed English class, sir, and I understood you perfectly” followed by numerous laughs from my teammates. His face turned beet red and he gave me a look like he wished my mom could retroactively fill an infants grave with my carcass in it. I really wasn’t trying to be a wise ass, but I was tired and it was hot, and his singling me out fell on me wrong. Difference was, he was in charge of ass whuppin’s and 50 page themes and you did not want to be on his radar. All of a sudden I realized I was a large blip on his screen and he had a long memory, one I’d soon bear witness to.
For the entirety of my junior year and every time I’d round a corner, there he’s be…eyeballin’ me like I had gone on a secret date with his best girlfriend. If I stepped out of a classroom to take a leak, he’d be right there checking my credentials and talking in that same disgusted voice I’d recognized when Ward Cleaver, Beaver’s dad on “Leave it to Beaver” would address Eddie Haskell on any level. I think I even got a rash of crap from him for having a miscellaneous penalty in a football game for mercy’s sake. I’m just kidding of course, but I realized he had it in for me. I guess the “passing English” comment landed on him wrong and he held a grudge. I did managed to get through my junior year with no trips to his office. I did have a close call, accidentally calling a certain teacher who it was rumored was a Sears underwear model and a little effeminate by the nick-name every student called him behind his back. I did have to go to the office for that infraction, but luckily Oscar was on vacation that week. I got a quick parent teacher conference accompanied by an apology from me and that was that. Mr. Boyles did corner me post vacation and tell me how lucky I was that he was gone that week. I asked him what in the world I had done to offend him and he got red-faced again and wide-eyed, mumbling something about wise-assed kids and lack of respect these days. Let me make this clear, I addressed him with respect when he addressed me, it was the way I was raised. All of my friends were raised respectful also. Even the “bad” kids.
My senior year rolled around and me and my senior buddies were kings of the world. We had our minds made up that we “owned” our last year in school, meaning we were going to create some serious mischief with the freshmen class being our target. We did the standard stuff, handing out swirlies to the freshman football players, wedgies by the dozen, water balloons and general hazing as we saw fit. We managed to figured out how to get all the way on top of the school via the press box that looked out over the future football field and the current basketball court. There was a hidden door and we managed to sneak a key from our football coaches office to gain entry to the elevated position where we could do all manner of good and evil, depending on where you were currently standing I guess. Our favorite activity was to get trash cans full of water and dump them on the freshmen boys gym class while we were supposed to be having gym class ourselves. We threw numerous items upon the unwitting heads of those poor chaps, some that I cannot repeat here as some of the liquids were downright unpleasant. We’d do our deed and haul ass out from the roof of the gym heading straight to our coaches office to discuss football games and strategy, about the time Oscar would come stormin’ in thinking he was catching his man…or men. One of our coaches, Coach Davis, was a defensive coach and he always covered for us, lying to Oscar like a seasoned pro. Oscar’d quiz us as he walked out the door while Coach Davis shooed him out like a house cat underfoot, much to Mr. Boyles displeasure.
Then it happened.
My best friend and I snuck out of class (our teacher let us go to the store) and we were in his sweet 57 Chevy. We went to the Stop and Go up the street from school, planning to make our return when class was changing so we could re-enter class without the possibility of being suspected of leaving school grounds. Oscar happened to be walking through the smoking section located on the student parking lot side of the building by the auto shop and lunchroom just as we were hauling ass out of the parking lot. When we retrieved our goods from the Stop and Go, we headed out the door and there stood Oscar, grinning like a jackass in a briar patch. Apparently he’d jumped in his Volkswagen and decided he’d follow us to be damn sure he’d caught his men. Of course, we were off school property and Boyles couldn’t so much as ask what we were doing there. We were both surprised to see him, but we looked him in the eye and without saying a word got into my buddies 57 and hauled ass out of the parking lot boiling the tires and snatching the gears, making our way swiftly back to the school grounds. We hustled back to the coaches office where Coach Davis wrote us a retroactive pass to be off school grounds “to retrieve my football cleats”… a total load of crap. Oscar protested that we were only at the store, noting that my house was nine miles away. I stated that we discovered my cleats in the car when we were headed to my house and stopped at the Stop and Go for gas. We got away with it much to the protest of one Oscar P. Boyles. He was not a happy man and I had made him, or was involved in making him, look bad…again. He obviously held onto the “English class” comment for my benefit and this, well, this was the cherry on his chocolate sunday, the ice cream type, of his displeasure of all things Jim Hall. He was so red-faced when we bested him that I was sure he was ready to fight me. I knew right then I was on thin ice for the rest of the year and needed to be careful. Really careful.
It was my last quarter of high school, just a few weeks before I was to go on to college and play the college football game I had mastered for the majority of my life. I was staying under the Oscar P. Boyles radar, cruising along quietly, looking forward to getting out of there and on to bigger and better, or, more different things. I was running track to keep in shape and I enjoyed jumping on the Olympic sized trampoline located in the lower gymnasium. I got so proficient on the tramp that I could do double front and back flips and get massive air jumping high enough to grab the plumbing pipes and hang on. I was a teacher’s aid for my favorite teacher, Mr. North, and he gave me a pass to go and chit-chat with my football coaches, him not caring what I did and where I was. Thing was, I could duplicate his signature perfectly, and still can to this day, signing every hall pass and some reports for him. I had a hall pass that I produced and signed Mr. North’s name to. I was hanging off the plumbing when Mr. Boyles walked into the lower gym. He immediately asked me to “dismount” and come to his office. I obliged him, thinking I was in the clear, no harm no foul.
Wrong.
Mr. North told Oscar I regularly signed his hall passes for him AND there were no coaches in the lower gym and I was jumping on a piece of school property without proper supervision. Trumped up charges at worst and revenge for him at the best. He offered me the standard punishment, or so I thought, 50 page theme or three licks with the EQUALIZER, the paddle he used on male students. I told him I’d take the licks. He then informed me that my theme would be 100 pages or I’d get FIVE licks. I assumed the extra two licks were for his English class and the Stop and Go incidents, us staring knowingly at each other about my past “indiscretions”. I petitioned him to let me think about it for a few minutes just for the drama of the event and decided on the licks versus the theme. He noted, in a somewhat bellicose tone, that I would not graduate if said theme was not turned in “prior to” and was delivered as a coherent theme. It was to be based on the evils of disrespect, chewing gum, rock and roll music, communism, excessive alcohol consumption, short pants, twinkies, and any car with dual exhaust.
I realized Mr. Boyles was itching to bust my ass with his paddle and theme be damned.
I agreed to the licks on the spot. He asked me to please remove all objects from my back pockets, which I did, and “assume the position”, both hands on the desk. I looked at the picture hanging on the wall over his chair and I’m sure I saw him grinning in his reflection, his face clearly in view behind me and eyes glowing red and shiny, savoring this moment he had so hoped for. He asked me not to look back at him while he was administering the punishment he had so wanted to deliver my way over the years. I looked as he mysteriously reached down, as if to be retrieving a paddle he’d fashioned just for me. I guessed he had a wood shop behind his house and spent his evenings carving and sanding paddles with the names of most of my friends on them, each with its own special case, but mine with a red velvet lining and “JIM HALL” carefully carved in Old English script across the face of the paddle, perfectly spaced so JIM would be on one cheek and HALL on the other. I’m exaggerating, of course, but you catch my drift. He wanted my ass and I was finally his. My time had come and it was time to pay the piper, the fat lady was about to sing, Oscar was about to bust Jim Hall’s ass and maybe retire. There was no getting out of it. Now I want to make it clear, my football head coach used to give me three “all-purpose” licks every Friday, him knowing I was up to something but never sure of what. On this day my butt was about to receive five of the hardest licks I had ever gotten and I knew it. I braced myself and had an epiphany that would change our relationship for eternity.
I looked again at the reflection in the picture and Mr. Boyles planting his feet, winding up his swing for my punishment. It was no secret that Oscar could swing a mean paddle, evidenced by the numerous “tough guys” I’d see teary eyed after their meeting with Mr. Boyles. Him swinging the Hickory fashioned paddles with holes drilled in them for better aerodynamics and better ass planting when it landed on ones buttocks. I noted that Mr. Boyles got a two-step start when he was loading up for my ass cracking revenge, him practice swinging like a rookie baseball player in the show for the first time, bottom of the ninth, full house, bases loaded and down by three runs. He intended for me to remember this for the rest of my life. In a few minutes. we both would…remember it for the rest of our lives I mean. I reminded him that a witness was required, but he insisted that Mr. Warnock, the residing principal, was on his lunch break. Mr. Boyles started his wind up yet again and took his first step towards my backside and I did indeed see a huge smile on his face as he moved in my direction.
When he started his down stroke, I timed my “reply” perfectly. I moved out-of-the-way at the very last second saying “I’ve decided to take the theme instead”, and all I saw was Mr. Boyles swinging for the proverbial fence and missing me completely, tumbling over his desk to my amazement knocking every thing off of it and I mean everything, as he half dove, half tumbled his way over the large Mahogany desk he conducted his business upon. I remember the sight of his khaki’s and the bottom of his black shoes and stark white socks disappearing as he dove over his desk, knocking his large chair over and making the biggest racket I had ever heard in my life up to that point. The next thing you know, I hear a huge commotion outside Mr. Boyles door and in storms the principal, Mr. Warnock. About that time, up springs Ole Oscar from behind his desk and he has his fists balled up, starched white short sleeved shirt completely untucked with all his pens out of his shirt pocket and black horn-rimmed glasses all askew, red faced yet again and ready to throw down with yours truly. I just stood there, shocked at what I had just witnessed, never dreaming he’d fly over the desk. We had talked in detail in our Physics class about momentum and it’s effects, but this was a first hand lesson I’d not soon forget. I thought he’d just stop his swing and we’d renegotiate my punishment, knowing he’d not be happy but have to comply just the same.
About that time Oscar came from around his desk with his fists loaded, and Mr. Warnock says “Mr. Boyles! You have forgotten yourself Sir!” freezing him in his tracks, red-faced and fuming mad, but back to reality. Mr. Warnock spins to me and says “Mr. Hall! Explain!” I noticed that there were about twenty faces in Mr. Boyles door, students and faculty, and Mr. Warnock turned to them and shouted “Back to Work…NOW” and slammed the door behind them. I then explained the situation to him in full, telling him I had decided to write a theme rather than take the licks, and the next thing you know Mr. Boyles was flying over his desk and up he comes looking like he wanted to fight me and then this. It was the complete truth as far as Mr. Warnock knew. Boyles did not deny it, even saying he had not followed proper procedure by bringing in a witness, namely Mr. Warnock. I told Mr. Warnock I requested a witness but was refused, repeating the exact words Mr. Boyles told me concerning our Principals late lunch eating habits. Mr. Warnock asked me if I felt like he should notify the authorities concerning this matter, me thinking I was in some deep shit. Turns out I wasn’t, Mr. Boyles was for his actions. I told him absolutely not, but I was not going to write a 100 page theme and I had to have his assurance that I would not be harassed by Mr. Boyles any more that year. I actually felt sorry for Oscar when Warnock instructed him to apologize to me for the incident. I assured them both that I was on cruise control and flying under the radar, preparing mentally to move on to Troy and College football. Of course, by the time I’d gotten back to my class, the rumor was out that Mr. Boyles had tried to fight me and I’d flipped him over his desk, all bullcrap but it was out there in the old timey internet, the dependable rumor mill.
Mr. Boyles was actually friendly to me for the rest of the year and I felt like we connected on some strange level. He was at graduation and he shook my hand after the ceremony. I visited the school a time or two in later years and when I’d see him, he’d smile and wave and be sure to shake my hand when we’d meet. I never saw him again after a few years, and deep into my college major and football as an occupation. I saw his obituary on Facebook, learning he was an Auburn War Eagle and a WWII veteran. I knew he was a good man and also knew he had a family that loved him and will miss him.
He was quite a hunter, that Old War Eagle.
Rest in peace, Mr. Boyles, rest in peace.