Lards and Moles, Moles and Lards
David Molina
The Servite High School faculty during our four years as high school students during the late ’60s was an odd collection to say the least. A marmalade salad consisting of Servite friars and lay people, most of whom would not last very long when faced with a Mongol horde of uncivilized eighth graders who never rose much beyond that level. Barbarians who aped the Lord of the Flies during a retreat wherein they beheaded an unfortunate cat. Ne’er Do Wells who admired and emulated Charles Dickens's villains more than his heroes. Yes, we had our fair share of Fagins, Heeps, Sykes, and many Artful Dodgers.
The faculty list was constantly in a state of flux given these conditions, compounded by the extreme penury guaranteed by working at a private Catholic high school during the 1960s. The friars' vows of poverty were shared by their lay companions, and most moved on, both friars and lay persons, when they found a way out.
Yes, Servite High School was a first-class, Charles Dickens-style workhouse, but with the tables turned. The Orange County enfants terribles took every opportunity to exploit the hapless, feckless adults.
Mr. Speas, Mrs. Phinney, Sister Agnes, Charles Smith, Mildred Roche, Brother Jiles, and Father Grimes, all were easy targets. There were a handful of teachers who managed their hordes with some success. The typical countermeasures featured a.) kinetics, such as a slap, a swat, or “The Grip!”; b.) banishment, such as a walk down the hall to the Principal or Dean of Discipline, detention after school collecting garbage. c.) humiliation in front of your classmates.
That last one was the most effective, but could occasionally backfire.
Ed Quinn was a force of nature - the most brazen, cocky, “how many moles, lard!” paraplegic who ever rolled wheelies through the hallowed halls of Servite. Despite his claw-like frozen fingers he could twirl a test tube, yell out “Cushing, how many moles?, and then blow up anything he wanted. His front lab table was his kingdom, his domain, and he enjoyed chemistry experiments, particularly ones that produced explosions, fire, and smoke.
As a high schooler, he undoubtedly was as good a hell-raiser as any of our best, even after the crash that broke his back and put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. That never slowed him down.
Ed drove a Hot Wheels Camaro that was improvised to drive hands only. A colleague asked Ed if he could help him get into his Camaro. Ed shot back, “Hell no, I’m running late. I can’t have you slowing me down!” Ed slid into the front seat slick as a salmon jumping upstream, dumped his two limp legs on the floor of the driver's seat, and in a single turn of his torso he seized his wheelchair with his curled-up fingers, folded it, and flipped it in the backseat as smoothly as a jiu-jitsu blackbelt would.
Ed expressed his fondness for his students by calling us “lards,” and his term of endearment for us as a group was “a bunch of lards.” He had a habit of calling out a student’s name at random. “Magula, any questions?” Or “Heywood, what’s the valence?” I suppose it was his way of keeping people on their toes, to pay attention. But I found it annoying when he would call my name. “Molina, what’s on your mind?”
I didn’t have anything much on my mind, definitely not chemistry. Probably I was listening in my head to the long version of the Doors Light My Fire organ solo. You can’t imagine how many hours I spent tapping my imaginary keyboard on my desk and playing that song during my four years at Servite. It was the only way I survived the long hours in the classroom.
So I was kind of cranky to be roused out of my trip. I knew if I said “nothing” he would jump on that. So instead I asked a question that I thought might be useful to a Servite sophomore.
“Can you create a fart in a chemistry lab?”
He wasn’t expecting that, and I could tell he was a little taken aback.
Unsettled by my question, he said maybe, probably.
I continued. “How would you go about that?”
Still off the beat, he muttered something to the effect that one could get a sample from a gas chromatograph which would show the different elements and amounts, and then mix them.
I was satisfied with that and went back to my organ solo.
Mr. Quinn was still visibly shaken by my question and ended the discussion by saying something in the way of “Well, I hope you are asking questions with the right intention.”
Mr. Quinn never again asked me one of his questions, which I was grateful for. Mission accomplished. Or was it?
I didn’t realize until years later that he must have taken my question as a rude commentary on his physical disabilities. Hitting under the belt was certainly not my intention. Owning a canister of lab-made fart gas could have been a game changer. But judging by his reaction I guessed that he must have deemed me a real A-hole. That was the reason he never messed with me again.
It is long justice for me now, decades later, to realize he must have thought I was that evil. Most likely he had done far worse things in high school and knew I was too stupid to be evil, just another jerk.
Long lesson learned:
Don’t be a barbarian, nor a ne’er do well… a person who acts without consideration.
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