Who is this BIG AL?

I was reminded a few days ago by a fellow classmate of Big Al. Apparently, we had created a monster while at Jr. High. I realized that our U.S. History teacher bore a striking resemblance to the character known as “Big Al” on the Country Bear Jamboree attraction at Disneyland. Mopey, drooping features. A sad, plodding approach to everything.

I look back on my days tormenting Big Al with mixed feelings. Part of me glows with pride at the adolescent torment we inflicted on that slow old man. Another part of me feels guilty that we, perhaps, cut at his very soul and drained every ounce of pride he may have had. What can’t be denied, however, was how funny it was and still is. A model student, I was not…

With that, I shall regale you with a tale or three:

1) Big Al would ramble aimlessly and tirelessly everyday. He would make a perfect NPR reporter as he was capable of making even the most interesting of topics amazingly boring and tedious. So we had a solution to make our lives more interesting. In the middle of his rambles, one of our fellow classmates would signal a countdown from three to one with his hand from the front row. And, after he reached one, a good half, maybe more, of the class would yell out “BIG AL!”. He would stop his rant on the Civil War or whatever and ponder his next move. For you see, if it was one jackass being disruptive, the solution would be easy. You could send him to the office. But when half the class yells “BIG AL!” at you in the middle of a lesson, what was one to do? He would ponder his next move but ultimately just resolve to continue his Civil War discussion as if nothing ever happened.

2) Exhaust the old man. Big Al’s classroom was adorned by enormous maps of every size and shape. Some were even coated in spitballs (but more on that later). Some days during class, we would play a game. We would try to tire Big Al out so that he’d resign back to his desk and fall asleep. How would we do this? The first person would ask him to point out a specific area or country on a map in the far back of the room. Big Al would slowly make his way back to the map and honor the student’s request. Then the next student would ask him a question about a map at the far front of the room. Again, the old man would amble up to the front of the room and point out the area in question on that map. Back, forth, left, right. This would go on and on – interrupted only by the occasional corn kernel shot at his ass via a Bic pen – until, ultimately, he was so tired he’d have to sit at his desk and fall asleep.

3) “Missiles”. Spitballs weren’t just spitballs to Big Al, they were “missiles”. “You kids you.. you quit shooting those ‘missiles’!” was what he used to mumble if he saw spitballs flying across his classroom. But just normal spitballs via a Bic pen weren’t good enough for that class. We took spitballs to new heights in Big Al’s class. We would empty a third of a box of Kleenex, ask to go get a drink of water or use the restroom and, instead, soak the tissue via the water fountain outside so that we had a “missile” somewhere between golfball and baseball sized. We’d distract Big Al and then WHAM it would hit one of his maps above the chalkboard leaving what looked like a snowcapped mountain range that stretched the entire length of Africa. Then, of course – once it dried – it became a source of even greater annoyance for Big Al when we’d gleefully ask him to identify the gigantic mountain range on his map.

4) The “Chicken Song”. Ahh.. This became something of a legend. One day during class, Big Al revealed that the first song ever recorded to a vinyl record was “The Chicken Song”. The lyrics of which are:

Chick chick chick chick CHICKEN…
Lay a little egg for me.
I haven’t had an egg since Easter.
And now it’s half past three.

I don’t know whether this is actually the first song ever recorded. But the second he mentioned it was on the first record ever recorded, immediately one of our hands shot up and the question was asked: “Do you own a copy?” – because “old” jokes never got old in Big Al’s class. My recollection is he said he did, in fact, own a copy. The follow up question, of course, was, “Can you sing us ‘The Chicken Song’, Big Al?”. I will never forget his response. It was comical. Like something out of a movie. He said: “Okay.. I will sing the song just this once. But you have to promise me you won’t talk about any chickens or I won’t hear any chicken stuff anymore. Okay?” Fighting back tears of comedic ecstasy, we all, of course, promised. But we knew deep down that he would never EVER live this moment down.

As he sang the song above in his droopy voice, it took every student in the class’ last bit of restraint not to burst out laughing. A few may have let a chuckle slip through. When he was finished, I don’t think it was more than 10 minutes that passed before the first CHICKEN reference was made. And it certainly wasn’t the last. Everything from inserting random clucking sounds or the word “chicken” itself into questions we’d ask him, answers we’d give him, drawings on the board, if we saw a photo in one of our textbooks that had a chicken in it – the more creatively you could work a chicken reference into the daily Big Al ritual, the more highly you were viewed.

My favorite chicken moment occurred in the library. I don’t remember the circumstances of how this photo came into my possession, but I remember one of our classes took a field trip somewhere. Somewhere there were chickens. And, of course, we understood that we needed to take a photo or two of a chicken for Big Al. But how to reveal the photo to him in such a way that would generate the most impact…I had this great chicken photo with me one day when Big Al took our class to the school library to work. He sat at a desk alone while everyone went off to various tables and basically screwed around for the period. Somehow we decided that the best use of the photo would be to actually give it to Big Al and somehow we had decided that the best way to do that was to get it, somehow, onto the hall pass he had. Now the hall pass, at that time, was a small clipboard to which the teacher would clip a pass excusing the student to use the restroom or go to the office or what have you. So we decided we needed to get the chicken photo onto the pass…

I don’t remember how it came to be but I was assigned the task of getting the chicken photo onto his hall pass. So I put the photo in my pocket, went up to Big Al innocently and asked him if I could have the hall pass to go use the restroom. He gave it to me, and off I went. What I really did was go outside the library and clip the chicken photo front and center to the hall pass. Now came the difficult part. I wanted to give Big Al this hall pass back – with a large photo of a chicken on it – with an absolute straight face when I returned to the library. This proved to be immensely difficult. I remember as I walked up to him, I looked at his droopy face, then down to the chicken photo, and I immediately started to chortle. Tears started welling up in my eyes as I fought back laughter and I casually handed him the hall pass back. He took the pass. Slowly turned it around and looked at the chicken photo. Then up at me nearly bursting with laughter. Then back at the chicken photo. I don’t honestly remember what he said to me, but I think it was something to the effect of, “Now, Phil… I thought we weren’t going to do any more of this ‘chicken’ stuff…”