A daily 53 minute ride each way to and from high school in a big yellow school bus can be tedious. There are many ways to fill the time: Sleep would be one, getting high, another. Reading or doing homework next to impossible on Quebec roads. 

Then there is doing stupid stuff. Yeah! That’s the ticket Stupid stuff! Woo Hoo! 

Young and stupid “gland jobs” as I refer to adolescents regularly like to flex feats of stupidity on a dare. 

Hanging a moon used to be a thing. Variations included a ‘pressed ham’ (butt against a screen) and ‘hanging a rat’.. (don’t go there). Hanging a moon means to expose one’s buttocks as a derisive commentary to the “moonee”.

We, at the back of the bus who thought of ourselves as badass (pun intended) had a perfect launch pad for mooning. The rear (also intended) door window.

We started off rather mildly by mooning cars for a second or two, barely(intended) enough to be noticed, but enough to get our own hearts pumping. After a while this grew boring and the novelty waned. Until Tony’s car was following our bus one day. 

Tony H. Was a geography teacher who we particularly disliked. He had an arrogant personality that conflicted with our teenage hubris like colours that clash. He was a prime target and merited two moons. My buddy Todd and I mooned in Tandem and made sure we were noticed. This elated us in that we had dissed a despised nemesis.

The next morning the boys of bus 41 were called to face the principal and a fuming Tony.

The inquest did not last long as the demand for the guilty parties to step forward was accompanied by the phrase “one had a yellow jacket”. Oops! I stepped forward, followed shortly by Todd. 

We were both suspended for five days in winter. Some punishment! We lived in a village that is a ski resort and we had season passes. We were forbidden from going out, but all our parents were working in the city and gone for ten hours a day. Enough time to hitchhike to the ski hill and back after terrorizing the weekday slowpokes on the slopes. 

This scenario is part of the legend of my childhood. 

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P.S. After I had finished my second stint of student teaching I felt I needed to make amends to teachers whose lives I had made harder. I drove to Lachute and rang the doorbell at Tony H.’s home. A lady answered the door and I asked to speak to Tony. She asked “who she should say is calling?”

“YOU’RE IAN HANCHET!!!!!” I may have gotten under his skin further than I thought. 

I had a short speech of regret and how student teaching gave me a new look on the job of teaching. I apologized for having been a dickhead and told him that our field trip to view real examples of landform geography was pivotal in my school experience and despite our clashes, his lessons lived on inside me. He and his wife were speechless, but appreciative and invited me to stay for dinner. I declined, making up some excuse. I was sorry for my previous behaviour, but we weren’t about to become friends.

Tony died this last June, over fifty years since this story transpired.