Tutoring French in London, Ontario, 1967
I was good in French; in fact, I was good at school, the academic part anyway. In phys ed or manual training, I was what my father kindly referred to as a dead loss.
Back in the day, being an honours student was a catastrophic blow to any red-blooded dude’s self-esteem: one needed to be on the football team and/or be handsome and cool to really make the grade. In fact, getting good grades led to being mercilessly bullied or shunned. It just didn’t pay off.
Except at one brief, shining moment in Grade 9, the year we began taking French.
Now for most of my schoolmates, French was flat seltzer, and the classes were about as popular as an edema or a root canal. Dispensed by full-fledged Francophones like Mr. Orr or Mr. Wildfong, French was the Achilles heel of many a long-suffering teen, who found the classes, based on memorization and rote learning, to be tedious and pointless.
I had a good friend, Jim Fisher, for whom French was the equivalent of Chinese water torture. He just couldn’t get it.
His dad, a feisty Scotsman with the most wonderful Scottish burr, felt that French would be Jim’s demise. His son’s fate was sealed. “He wonae be anythin’ but a garbageman, Bob,” Mr. Fisher informed me.
It was to save his offspring from such a vile fate that Mr. Fisher hired me to tutor Jim.
I loved this unexpected gig! Not only did I pick up some extra cash to squander on junk food and illicit cigarettes, but I also got to hang around at my friend’s house, whose folks were kind, loose, and funny, in sharp contrast to my own cranky, oppressive parents.
And Jim was a joy to tutor. He became a master of mnemonics, essentially tricks to jog one’s memory in a pinch. So, for example, having to memorize the word “matelot” (sailor), Jim reasoned that sailors “mate a lot”…and voilà, another word mastered before the upcoming provincial exam.
Jim passed the exam, no doubt with low-flying colours, but pass he did, and I can assure you that it isn’t he who collects your trash.
Your friend,
Robert
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/
