The Boarding School Episode

~ Gottfried

At boarding school, you had to wear your name across your chest and your back. And it wasn’t because your name was difficult to pronounce. I once found myself in a situation where two boys who went by the same initials were debating over a piece of clothing. My truce? I created a roster for each of them to get a run at wearing it.

After spending six years in boarding school, comedy becomes a survival gene. The truth is, if you don’t laugh you’ll most likely cry. You’ll learn to laugh at your own misfortune. I remember shouting loudly to my friend that I couldn’t understand why my teacher was so upset and that maybe it had something to do with the fact that i was taller than her. The entire time she was behind me.

Unless you have been to boarding school when you were very young, it is impossible to appreciate the delights of living at home. Being a boarder makes you excited about the prospect of eating real food. High school is already very intense for everyone, but at boarding school, because you’re there 24 hours a day, everything gets magnified.

I have a theory that if you’ve got the kind of parents who want to send you to boarding school, you’re probably better off at boarding school. At boarding school there isn’t much time for much of anything except education. Teachers used to be filled with pain and angst at the thought of granting us recess to play. They even attempted to regulate play. Like referees.

If you survived your parents turning up late on visiting days in boarding school, or your father showing up late with no goodies and then proceeds to scold you for your performance, what is a heartbreak to you? I think it is criminal that a parent doesn’t come visit on visiting day. You’re literally the only ray of sunshine in the child’s life and you decide to bail? Arrest them!

If you want to get a good education, go to a private school. If you can’t afford it, you can try a public school. Your child will at least be street smart. If you want an educated criminal, send him to boarding school. Every year the teachers will tell the graduating set that they are the worst they’ve ever seen. The most depressing set of words in boarding school?

“Lights out”

©️ Gottfried. All rights reserved

20 thoughts on “The Boarding School Episode”

  1. Dear Lord Seems The Closest i Got To Boarding School in Life
    Mr Gottfried Was Private Second Grade Blessed Sacrament
    Catholic School Then Financed by my Paternal Grandmother

    Yes The One Year at age 7 my Mother Lived in my Father’s City
    Tallahassee While She Worked in the Federal Prison System

    (Trivia Note: my Father in Law Enforcement Guarded Serial
    Killer Ted Bundy in Tallahassee He Said He Was the Only
    Human Who Made the Hair stand up on his Arms Similar
    Notes Were Provided By His Law Enforcement Buddies

    Hmm As the Dude Seemed to Be Able to Shape Shift His
    Appearance Even Seeming Much Taller or Shorter by
    Adjusting His Posture Along With Facial ‘Personality
    Expressions’ too Yet of Course Yes i Digress) Back

    To Catholic Private School in 1967 the Year that “Sgt.
    Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” Album Cover Came

    Out With that Stone Bust Long Face Soaking Up the Wisdom
    From All the Artistic Audience of the Burial Grounds Service True

    (Another Trivia Note: Change R to U in Artistic and Ya Get Autistic

    Personally Hehe i Switch Hit)

    Just Another ‘Day in the Life’

    Private Catholic School Felt
    A Little Bit Like Hell to me Lost
    in the Big School on The Autism
    Spectrum after 1st Grade in a Small
    Elementary School in Walking Distance
    From Our Old Home on the River Front

    Downtown

    By the Railroad
    Trestle Shaking
    The Concrete Block
    Foundation of the Wood
    Frame and Floor Home Yuck

    Yuck One of the Worst Parts is We
    Had to Visit my Grandmother’s Home
    After School Until my Mother Got off From
    Work She Couldn’t Be Bothered By 7 Year-Old
    Children As She Stayed Busy Running A Nursery
    Business From Her Home so She Sent Us DownStairs

    To Take Naps on Cots With the Tiny Tots Even though
    WE WERE WIDE AWAKE oh dear lord that felt like Prison then

    Now i Enjoy Putting Myself Down For Afternoon Naps Pure Heaven Resting in Peace

    my Grandmother Wasn’t Particularly Warm Before i Was Born When my Mother
    Visited Her at the Nursery a Baby Was Crying on A Cot and my Mother Went to
    Pick up the Baby to Provide Comfort and my Grandmother Told Her to Put that

    Baby Down
    Or It Will
    Never
    Learn
    How to
    Stand on its
    Own Two Feet

    True Probably in Part
    Explains my Father’s
    Inability to Emotionally
    Connect to Us or Any of His Wives

    In Four Marriages Two out of Four to the Same Woman

    Anyway me and my Sister Got Anemic She’s on the Autism
    Spectrum too It Was So Stressful to Us We Couldn’t Eat Lunch

    So my Mother Took Us Back to the Small Town and Small Elementary
    School Living in my Maternal Grandmother’s Home Down Town on the

    River Front Positive Aspect of the Catholic School More Advanced Learning
    Setting me up Far Beyond What 3rd Grade Offered in the Small Town the

    Nun Teacher’s
    Also Awarded
    me a Certificate

    For Wittiest Boy at
    The School There Was
    no Google Then so i Couldn’t

    Look the Term up To Figure Out
    if it meant i was Smart or Funny

    It Seems i Was Naturally

    Strange Hehe and

    Funny That

    Way i Guess

    Naturally A
    Clown/Fool Didn’t
    Have to Try to Be Witty
    i Guess Hehe It Just Comes Out That Way HAha…

    Anyway Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas And All That
    Joy to the World

    Jazz

    For
    Real
    With SMiLes

    LoVE iN Peace For All…

    Peace is the Way to Life
    Hate is the Way to Death

    Yep
    Living
    And Dying too
    IN All Stuff Human Fear/Hate filled Wars

    Us Versus Them on the Highway to HELL!…

    True Some Folks Spend Their Whole Life in
    ‘That Boarding

    School’…

    Origin of
    ‘Bad
    Orange
    Man’ too Hehe…

    Once Again Ho Ho Ho!
    Merry Christmas LoVE iN

    Peace On Earth to All With the

    GreaTesT Gift the Present of Now…

    Yes We ALL Make the Best oF it Now or Do Not..:)

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    Reply

      1. Hehe Mr. Gottfried Speaking of ‘All Male
        Boarding Schools’ How in the World Did

        i Leave “Good Will Towards Men” That Old

        ‘Luke Platitude’ Out of my Christmas Wishes too

        Well It’s True
        We Come From
        A ‘HiSToRY’ in Most
        All Religion as Women
        Folk Worth Less than Men Folk

        And in that Way It Surely isn’t Good Will
        Toward Women to Suggest They Aren’t

        Competent Enough Human Beings to
        Speak of Spiritual Matters Their Self

        Yet True Hehe About a Hundred Years
        Ago or So at Least Women Got the Right

        to Vote Here True Though
        Now Women Are Beating
        Dudes in Almost Every Scholastic

        Achievement Around the World

        at Least in places they are

        ALLoWeD to Go to School

        It’s True When i Was Struggling
        to Get Someone Competent Enough

        to Finally Get the Full Retirement Due to
        me only Recently Including Back Pay All the
        Way Back to 2009 Where They Frigging Misplaced

        The First Nine Years of my
        Service True They Had to
        Cut me a Bit Fat Early
        Christmas Gift in

        August Hehe

        Yet Dear Lord i Dealt with
        So Much Frigging Incompetence

        For a Full 14 Months Finally getting it All
        Resolved And It’s True a Nigerian Woman
        Immigrant Who Truly Excelled in Competence

        Finally Got me
        the Pile of Green
        Stuff that Was owed
        All the way Back since 2009

        And As Far As Spiritual Matters That’s
        What i Write Free Verse Poetically as a Hobby

        And Typically only About 1 Percent of Dudes even

        Have what it takes to even understand the Metaphors i Use

        the 99 Percent

        Are Mostly Women
        Farther away From the West
        HeHe Restricted Left Brain Think
        Tank of Materially Reducing the World

        to Facts and
        Figures and
        All that Other
        ‘Mammon’ Stuff

        Indeed What’s Missing Most
        From All HiSToRiCaL SPiRiTuaL Text

        A Woman’s Touch

        Indeed mY FRiEnD

        i’ve Been Touched A Bunch Hehe…

        When Women and Men Aren’t Raised (Holding Hands)
        Together As Equal Now Before the EYes of God Nature

        What We Get is War and Death Ongoing Still Ongoing indeed…

        And or Dudes
        And Even
        Some

        Dudettes

        As Such Yes

        Playing Video
        Games And the Such of
        Cheap Instant Gratification in the ‘Basements of their
        Parent’s Home’ MiSSinG the SHow of ‘Real Life’ All Together…

        HeheR Yet
        That’s
        Just
        “First
        World Problems”..:)

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        Reply

  3. I went to a boarding school and I can totally relate to this. You got me where you mentioned that every year the teachers would tell the graduating set that they are the worst they have ever seen 😂😂😂 it never gets better.

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    Reply

  6. Well I can identify. I went to boarding school on one arbitrary Sunday afternoon for no apparent reason. Back then if you asked why you were told, “Y is a crooked letter and you can’t make it straight.”. So I didn’t ask. Visited? No. Boarding school was within walking distance from home. I had to visit, and only if someone was dying. That actually happened once. My beloved grandma died.
    Kind of obvious I was better off there. I was actually. The food wasn’t great but not bad and 5 other girls at my table were on diet so I ate their food. I put on a bit of weight, which was great because big boobs on a very skinny tall girl looks ridiculous!
    Play? Ha Ha. Convent girls don’t play unless it’s tennis or hockey, like it or not.
    But I did miss my mother’s cooking.
    I rather liked the lack of drama and the routine. Who knew I was autistic back then?
    Happy new year dear heart.
    This is the most I have written in months or weeks …. Long time.

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