Final Exam

In June 1980 I gave my final exam as a high school teacher. Pretty simple. I gave my students 20 random questions to choose from--how do they feel about boys who wore shirts with alligator logos on them, what was "a fag" (the routine insult of the day), how would they most like to die...or vice versa. All they had to do was write for 90 minutes on one or all of them. I came upon the archive recently...here's a sampling. To paraphrase Bill Simmons in another context, "Yep, there were my students." Take it away, kids...
The most disgusting thing I have ever seen was a movie. This movie was really degrading, it was groce (sic). I left half way through it. This movie did every sick thing you could think of. It was pure pornography. If I had any say in it Walt Disney should have been locked up for producing it. That’s right! You guessed it: Snow White and the Seven Drwaves. Just for starters, I’ll list the names of the seven dwarfs. There was Sleazy and Wimpy, Burp and Slurp, Dill and Doe and last but certainly not least Leather.The story goes something like tis: One daty while the dwarfs were on their way back to their cottage they nboticed smoke billowing oout of their chimney. Now Leather was kind of a take charge dwarf so he sent Burp and Slurp ahead to check it out. Now Burp and Slurp were groce, beer guzzling swine. They stunk and were  vulgar and disgusting little creatures, but other than that they weren’t bad guys. When they peeked into the cottage they were shocked to see Snow White, the slut of Enchantment Land. She was in there with 3 guys and a Clydedale all at once (Don’t worry, Dan, I’m not the kind of guy to get groce on you). Well, these two little horny dwarfs hurried back to tell Leather and he was a very with it dwarf so he got out his plutonium reactor and blew the shit out of the cottage, Snow White, her three studs and the horse. Now these dwarfs were cheap. They were about as cheap as dwarfs come. What they did was go through the rubble and scrape up any kind of flesh they could find. (This is the part that totally freaked me out, it was so groce). They fed the burned flesh to Tinker Bell. I threw my popcorn out the window, started my car, put the speaker back in the rack, put the car in drive and changed the TV to 60 Minutes, which is on oppositye to The Wonderful World of Diusney every Sunday night at 7:00. –M.H.
The dumbest thing I ever saw anyone do was my father to marry my stepmother. It was the most dumbest mistake of his life and he don’t even realize it. I feel like Cinderella, only with 4 stepsisters and 1 stepbrother. The only problem is there’s no ball to go to and no handsome prince, especiallyn this town or state. Oh, well, better luck next year. –K.S.
How do I want to die? When I die I don’t want any pain, but I want to go out dramatically. I also would really like to die at work. –P.R.
What qualities do I despise the most in my peers? I wouldn’t say I have any peers. I don’t have a chance to and wouldn’t want to anyway. – P.R.
I want to die in my sleep so I won’t feel any pain or know in advance that I’m dying. I want to be sleeping one minute and dead the next. K.G.
The most disgusting thing I ever saw was Mike E hanging from a rope beating off. I went down to his house one day to get something and asked his mother where he was. She said he was down in the barn with his cousins. As I started that I way I saw his cousins, but Mike wasn’t with them so I asked where Mike was and they said with a sort of smirk that he was down in the barn. When I sent to the barn I saw Mike half naked with his point straight up, suspended by a rope. When I saw that rather disgusting and comically scene I started to laugh. I guess Mike must have heard me because soon after that he came running after me with his pants on. –D.C.
What I like about living in the Upper Valley is that it’s peaceful. Where I live there is only 3 people that are close so we can turn up the stereo as loud as we want without disturbing any of the neighbors. Another thing I like about living in the Upper Valley is that in Plainfield we only have one cop, so the chances of being caught doing something illegal is pretty low. That means you can sit around drinking your beers without worrying. What I also like about where I live is that it’s secluded, but still not very far from Lebanon and Windsor. –D.C.
I’ve thought about dying a lot. I know quite a few ways I wouldn’t want to die. One big one is ants. I had a bad experience with ants in Arizona. Ever since I’ve cringed around a bunch of them expecially the big ones. I’ve never been too afraid of spiders or anything. I’ve even held a tarantula. –K.P.
If a nuclear war broke out, I’d try to find the perfect place of courser. Jim Jones had the right idea. He found the nine safest places in the world and he built Jonestown at one of those places. Once I got there, I would dig down deep just in case. –K.P.
After much consideration I have decided that I would like to die trying to find the answer to life or by getting laid too much. Probably the latter. –T.M.
The high point of this school year is this Final. Even though it’s easy, you have to think about it. What you’re going to write and does it make sense and to make it last for 90 minutes all takes a lot of work. –K.S.
The low point of this school year was the other parts of the year. All of it before this Final. –K.S.