january 1981.
The van. It had the chassis of a two ton truck, very tough springs.
I'm getting a job in MPSŠC, just behind the corner from 13., and would start after the winter break. So I started some kind of cleanup - that one bum hatter who insisted on skipping my classes (see below), including the one I jumped into to substitute for someone absent, which got him overboard the legal limit of 42 unouthorized absences (measured in 45 minute class sessions), I started the process for expulsion. Can't go wrong if you stick to the law. Eventually we both got out of this school same week in february. The schools had a bit of a staggered schedule, so to avoid crowding the streets, so classes at 13. would begin thirty minutes later or earlier, and their winter break would be one week earlier. So it turned out I still worked there one week in february, before switching.
Yes, we could smoke in the staff room.
I also took the praktika once and made a round of shots. Must have been a monday, when I worked all day - in the morning at the cast out division.
Then in the afternoon, back at the main building, my own class. The girl with the midi skirt will later turn out to be sister of the wife of the owner of EnergoPro. Small town indeed.
No tap in the classroom, so the orderly had to go to the toilet to wash the sponge, which never happened often enough.
We actually took a bunch of photos all over the class, also in the yard at the (smoke) break, including separate ones of me with the three hatters.
The hatters were a special matter - there was a hat factory in the city (see hats), quite old, and they needed a couple of dozen hatters from time to time, and this school organized a class every other year. These three guys (actually four - but the fourth one refused to be in the same class with them, saying he'd never complete it if he was together with them, so he was in my other class, the tailors) failed it the year before and had to repeat. However, there was no way anyone would organize those six or ten hours a week for their special hatter classes, so they'd be free to go home those hours and they'd just have to pass exams on that at the end of the year. These classes would usually be later in the afternoon, being held part-time by engineers from the local industry, which made the mondays stick out, because on mondays they'd have mostly general subjects, plus two of mine at the end of the day. Ouch. Two of these three guys generally tried to rough it out, but this third one had a peer pressure problem. His village was practically on the romanian border, the last class ended at 19:05, his bus would get there perhaps around 20:30 or later, and he'd appear, with all of his 190cm and the schoolbooks in the village tavern to have a drink with his pals. Who would then mock him to death over his "such a big hunk of a guy and still a highschooler" status. Which he tried to avoid by skipping my monday class whenever he could.
Some time in december, as he approached the then legal limit of 35 absences, I organized a parents' meeting, just to keep them informed on how the class was doing. I sent invitations. This guy somehow was at the door when the postman came, and recognized my handwriting, and knew what's inside. Knowing how he stands, he just dropped the whole envelope into the furnace, but his mom saw it. She pressed on him to tell what was the letter. The cheaper confession he invented on the spot was that it was from his girlfriend in Novi, who got pregnant.
Didn't see him much afterwards, maybe once in a decade or less. Last time I spotted him in the crowd on 31-XII-2017.. Then heard from that actor who was in the class that he died the next year.
Mentions: 13. april, 31-XII-2017., EnergoPro, hats, MPSŠC, Novi Sad, praktika, in serbian