A Watkins Legend

Here’s the next installment in the “Sunday Story” series.  Don’t search for a great political point or moral lesson to learn.  It’s just a story – enjoy!!!

There are lots of things that we used to “get away with” that are no longer “appropriate”.  Admittedly, many of those needed to end.  But there are a few that while not “acceptable” in these modern days, were fun and nostalgic, and make for great stories.  And the statute of limitations has run out.  This one’s for the class of 1979, now proudly turning sixty – Wow – you guys are getting OLD!!!

A Farm School

When I first came to Watkins Memorial High School it was in 1978.   I was a twenty-one-year-old, first year teacher and Watkins (and the whole Pataskala area) was a different kind of place back then.  The community was just on the cusp of changing from agricultural to suburban.  Today’s acres and acres of housing developments were farm fields, and what was then called the High School, is now the “old” Middle School, soon to be leveled. 

Back then, the Future Farmers of America grew a couple of acres of corn behind the school, and one of the big events was “tractor day”.  Many kids still lived on farms, and drove their big green or red tractors to school to parade around the parking lot.   The Principal and his Assistant controlled the building with the business side of a paddle, with few kids suspended or expelled.  They took a beating instead.  And for many of those kids, it wasn’t the paddling that was the worst punishment.  “Just please, don’t tell my parents,” was often the plaintive cry.  “I’ll get twice as much at home”.  

Like many schools of the time, the senior class had a series of “pranks” to mark the end of their high school careers.  One year, they dumped dozens of live chickens into our school courtyard, each with a teacher’s name-tag hung around its neck.  The poultry wandered for a few days, as no one wanted the responsibility of gathering them up.  Another year a Volkswagen Beetle (minus the engine) was dragged over the roof and dropped into the same courtyard.  Luckily, Watkins had a healthy vocational education department back then.  The welding class made it a project to cut the Beetle into pieces and bring it out.  

The Deal

Most of the pranks were pretty harmless, though the Volkswagen did damage the roof on the way over.  And that’s because there was an unspoken agreement between the Senior Class and their government teacher.  As long as the class could “kidnap” that teacher, they really didn’t do much harm to the rest of the school district.

When I took a Government teaching job at Watkins, I really didn’t have any idea that was part of the deal.  I was a student teacher there the year before, but I left before Senior week, doing my own graduation rituals at Denison University when all of that was going on.  So I was a bit surprised when my mentor and fellow teacher, Gary Madden, let me know that a kidnapping was definitely in my future.

I was twenty-two by May, living in a small apartment on the north side of the village of Pataskala.  I had some idea when the seniors would be looking for me – it was traditionally the night before the Senior assembly.  In fact, the “high point” of the assembly would be to bring the “captured” faculty in for display.  But I determined that I could avoid this by simply locking myself inside of my apartment, and watching my 1962 portable black and white TV.  At least, that was the plan.

Knock – No Warrant

Around 7pm there was a “police-like” knocking on the front door of my second-floor apartment.  I glanced through the window, and saw our star shot putter, standing at the door.  Well, at least I saw part of him – he was north of 300 pounds, a state qualifier, and I  really just saw a wall of a man-boy standing blocking all exit from my home.  I wasn’t planning on going out, but if I wanted to, there was no exit.

So I just told him that I wasn’t opening the door – and assumed that was that.  What I hadn’t prepared for was our hurdler forcing open a window and coming out of the bedroom.  Before I could react, he had the front door open, and he, and the shot putter, and a multitude of other seniors were in my very small living room.

Now I was a track guy, but I had wrestled for several years.  So we had a good tussle in the living room.  But, out-muscled and out-manned, they soon pulled out a pair of handcuffs, cuffed me behind my back, and dragged me out of the door and down to the parking lot.  I remember my neighbors enjoying the show as I bounced down the wrought iron stairs – thanks a lot!!  The Seniors threw me into the back of a car, and off we went.  The driver then realized that he needed gas.  So they drove up the street to the Duke Station, and got a fill-up.  

As we were sitting there, a Pataskala Police cruiser pulled in.  I saw my chance, and yelled loudly, “Officer, there’s a felony kidnapping in progress, Help!”  The officer came over to the car, looked at me in the back, and then turned to the boys and said, “You know I’ll need my handcuffs back after you’re done”.  It was only then I realized the whole community was in on the plan.  Any chance of escape was up to me.

Picking Up Gary

Our next stop was at Gary Madden’s house in Summit Station.  The seniors just went up to the front door and demanded that Mr. Madden come outside.  I sat in the back seat as Gary, his wife and kids came to the front stoop.  Gary’s wife was laughing, but his kids weren’t so happy about all these folks who wanted to take their Daddy away.  And Gary wasn’t going easy either, a wrestling match soon broke out in the front yard.

I thought that was my chance.  It was 1979, and the car windows all worked with cranks.  So I cranked down the back window with my teeth, and as everyone focused on Gary in the front yard, I managed to worm my way out of the car. My first mistake – my hands were still cuffed behind me, so when I came out the window there was no where to land except on my face.  But out I went, got to my feet, and began to run into a field across the street.

I heard the shouts, and knew my captors discovered my break-out.  Now, I was a pretty fast runner still, only a couple of years from my college sprinting days.  But we never practiced sprinting through chest-high weeds with our hands behind our backs – it was awkward.  In the end though, it wasn’t that I got caught, at least by the kids. What I hadn’t counted on was barbed wire.  A fence brought me to a very dramatic halt. Then my pursuers unpinned me and dragged me back.

So now it was two of us against the Senior class of ’79.

Barn Wrestling

They only had the one set of handcuffs, and I don’t remember how they bound Gary up.  But we were taken back to one of the kids houses, right across from the school, and dragged into their barn.  By now it was dark, but the barn was lit, and the seniors laced the handcuff through the wheel of a tractor.  Gary was on the outside, I was on the inside.  The Seniors left, I suspect to enjoy some beverages (the legal age in Ohio was eighteen at the time, though I don’t think that really mattered).  And we were alone.

Our first plan was to roll the tractor down the hill to the road.  So we started to move the big Red Massey-Ferguson out of the barn door.  That didn’t last a quarter turn before I realized that, as the “inside man”, I was going under the wheel.  We managed to get it stopped before any crushing occurred.

Our second plan was only marginally more successful.  All our activity with the handcuffs made our wrists raw and bloody.  When the Seniors came back, Gary and I put on our best “whine” about how much they hurt.  The Seniors, truly concerned that we not be permanently injured, let us loose.  They’re mistake.

We both made a break.  I remember struggling with multiple kids before being pinned down.  A Senior wrestler that I sparred with muttered “stop fighting or I’ll break your arm”.  I responded “break it.”  He had more sense than I did at the time, and released me.  Meanwhile Gary had a garbage can lid and a length of chain, keeping the Seniors at bay like some medieval Warrior (instead of the Native American Watkins Warrior).  It was a long night of wrestling, laughing, swearing, and challenging the Seniors – and we didn’t manage to get away.

Senior Assembly

The next morning they dragged us across the street to the school, ready to handcuff us to the gymnastics balance beam in anticipation of the Senior Assembly.  But they turned their back to discuss how to attach us for just a moment – and we were gone.  We did have one advantage:  we knew the school even better than the Seniors, all of the back rooms and hiding places and interconnecting doors.

 We managed to make our way to the shop class, and found the tools to cut the handcuff chain.  The Seniors had some explaining to do to the Pataskala Police – they cried to us later, “Did you have to cut them?”.  And so as the Senior Assembly began, we marched in with the faculty – smelly and dirty from wrestling on a barn floor, but proudly free from captivity.  

Gary became the Assistant Principal the next year – and there were two more years of “Seniors” all by myself before I moved to the Middle School.  But that’s another story.

The Sunday Story Series

Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21

Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21

A Track Story – 2/7/21

Ritual – 2/14/21

Voyageur – 2/19/21

A Dog Story – 2/25/21

A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21