Chapter 11: Poets at Heart

Mr. Bland was just about the most popular teacher ever tohit Inverness High School.The girls liked him because he was young enough to fit into their daydreams and old enough not to have pimples. The guys liked him because he left their girls alone, which was also a big reason the parents liked him.The other teachers liked him because when he used the faculty lounge, he cleaned up after himself. The principal, Mr. Mucker, liked him because he didn’t sign the famous petition that would’ve made ol’ Muck-Muck a ditchdigger for life. Jock Buffone liked him because of his nervous twitch, which made him a perfect target to imitate. Billy Bauman liked him because he gave out A’s and B’s like they were candy.The school board liked him too, probably because everybody else liked him.

​Gary Albrecht’s and my problem with Horace Bland traced back to the fact that he lacked a sense of humor. His problem with us traced back to the fact that we forced him to go against his principle of never giving a student anything worse than a B.