HELL NO WE WON'T GO

Stressful Moments Become Funny Memories

It’s been over 30 years, and I’m still kinda wondering where in the world my banana bread went?

I’ve always been a last-minute type of person so I was really proud the summer I paced myself over two months, baking and freezing 11 loaves of scrumptious banana bread for our annual teacher breakfast. Other members of the committee were going to make huge watermelon boats of fresh fruit the actual morning of our back-to-school meeting.

You can imagine how distraught I was when I opened the freezer in the garage the evening before our first day, and I couldn’t find the banana bread. I almost fell into that chest freezer frantically digging under boxes of drumsticks and hamburgers, bags of broccoli and Texas Toast, containers of chili and tuna noodle casserole. It was gone! I accused my husband and anyone else within a ten-mile radius of absconding with my banana bread, but to this day, no one has admitted the theft. Anyone? Anyone?

To be honest, even though I taught for over 30 years, I was always anxious the first part of every school year — whether I lost my banana bread or not.

I wanted so much to make a good impression and do a good job.

I remember the time I was walking down the back hallway the first week of school, and I thought a group of students was laughing at me. When I called them out, several of them smirked, “Why would we be talking about you?” Right about then, I wanted to crawl into one of their open lockers and hide my insecurities.

And then, there was the evening one year when I went back to school for a Student Council meeting after taking a quick nap at home. I forgot I had taken my pantyhose and my slacks off together until I was walking into the meeting and my pantyhose were slithering out my pant leg like a Eastern Brown Snake. I almost died of embarrassment when the kids noticed the coiling nylon.

I have to admit I was kinda afraid one fall when I jumped in-between two huge football players who were facing each other down in the Commons. My legs were still shaking when one of them started laughing, “Mrs. Stoneburner, you look like a banty rooster thumping my chest like that.” How could he be laughing? It was serious.

There were other days I was just plain frustrated. How many times did I have to watch a video about blood-borne pathogens? Why did I have to check the restroom for smokers and lockers for pop cans? After all, I was trying to teach English.

Thankfully, one thing I learned as I’ve gotten older is most of those stressful moments from my younger years make really, really funny stories today.

For several years now a large group of retired high school and middle school teachers/coaches have been celebrating the first day of school at a “Hell No We Won’t Go” party hosted by Pete and Connie Miller. Our first few years featured cardboard-like pizza and corn for lunch in remembrance of our cafeteria days. We added Jell-O shots as a little rebellious move. Ha!

Connie Miller, Marsha Barnes, Laura Harrell, Jan Stoneburner, Jan Bair at this year’s HNWWG party.

Photo by Becky Vaughn

Each year we have so much fun reliving our old experiences — using our new perspective. The time I almost fainted using my barehand as a tourniquet seems funny now. Or the time a kid streaked down the back hall or a parent told me he could teach better than I could brings a lot of laughter.

Oh, and the day we got to experiment with our first computers brings some real chuckles. We thought we might end up in jail back then. No one told us that whitehouse.com was a porn site.

As a younger person, I spent a lot of time upset, worrying. Maybe it’s because I cared so much, and I thought I could change the world. I don’t know. But they say older people are less stressed because they can regulate their emotions better, have shifted their priorities and have learned how to navigate stressful situations through life experiences.

I’m pretty sure that Bobby McFerrin was right when he wrote the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” It just might be a good idea to play the McFerrin song over the intercom at the beginning of every school year. Because

Life goes by so quickly; it’s too short to fret away.

It’ll Be OK.

~~~

“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called everybody, and they meet at the bar.” —Drew Carey