Pay Attention, Folks, cuz Mr. Hauschild Did

Ultimately, any tribute to BHS teachers in the 1960s must include some Mr. Hauschild anecdotes.  He was a multi-faceted guy: a semi-pro baseball player, teacher, coach, WWII veteran, state legislator and eventual town mayor.  According to his daughter Patty (shared during a loving tribute to her dad at his funeral in 2000), he was much more observant of, and discerning about, his (often smart-a$$) students than they realized.  Known as "Haus" and "Wayne-O  Potato" and other nicknames, he knew about them all, and chuckled along with everyone else.  Some memories here.....

One night at B squad basketball practice, we players were sitting on the bench listening to Mr. Hauschild ramble a bit.  (He was a good rambler.)  He had been thinking about racial equality, and wanted to share a bit-o-wisdom with us.  He pointed out that the SDSU basketball team currently had a tall (white) center...named Tom BLACK, and an African-American guard...named Maurice WHITE.  Haus figured (here it comes...) that "It all comes out in the wash, I guess."  We players all sat there and pondered that tidbit of race-doesn't-matter enlightenment before being whistled back out onto the court.  Maybe it's not Martin-Luther-King-Jr profound, but it got my attention and I still remember those words, 50+  years later.

Barry Buehler figures in two Haus memories.  The first involves the word "can't."  I had been warned by upperclassmen not to use the word "can't" around Mr. Hauschild, especially when it was preceded by the singular pronoun "I", as in "I CAN'T."  Haus did not like (to say the least) the lack-of-effort, defeatist attitude implied by such a phrase.  Barry made the mistake of saying it one time  --and only one time--  at basketball practice.  Mr. Hauschild jumped all over him, shouting loud enough to be heard in the far corners of the gym.  I heard the yelling from a distance and knew instantly what had happened.  I tried to think of some safer, alternative phrases one might use to avoid the explosion, such as "That may not be possible for me to do"  or  "I doubt my skill level makes that a realistic goal"  or  "My achieving that is questionable."  Luckily, it was just a mental exercise; I never said those words to Mr. Hauschild.  Why not, you ask?  Because he was always paying close attention, even when you thought he was not.

Case in point:  In junior-year history class, everyone had to write a "term paper" once a quarter.  Pick a subject, research it, write 5 or 6 pages on it.  Now, we all realized that was a heck of a lot of papers to grade in the space of a few days every quarter.  Did Haus actually read every one of those papers thoroughly?  The foot-high stack of research papers on his desk, waiting to be graded, argued more for skimming than close reading.  Barry Buehler thought he would do an experiment.  Right in the middle of handwritten page three, right in the middle of a sentence, no special spacing or punctuation, Barry simply wrote do you really read these papers.   See how that kind of sneaks past your notice without a comma, without a question mark?  The question did not sneak by Mr. Hauschild.  When Barry got the graded paper back, there in the margin, in typical teacher red ink, were the words, "Yes, Barry, I do."  Case closed.  Mr. Hauschild always paid attention.

And finally, a memory from the 1967-68 basketball season, from the bleachers during a B game.  At halftime, coach Hauschild and the B-squad players headed for the locker room, walking past us (again, smart-a$$)  A-squad guys.   Jim Arndt, a master imitator of teachers if ever there were one, had Mr. Hauschild's voice down cold.  Jim shouted out some phrase that Haus would use, nailing the cadence and pitch perfectly.  It seemed rather risky: imitate Haus right in front of him?  We players got very quiet.  Haus didn't show any sign he had heard an echo of himself; he continued to look down at the floor as he approached us.  He was wearing that pair of black glasses that routinely slipped down his nose.  When he got right in front us, up came his right hand, fist closed except for the middle finger, which jabbed the center of those glasses back up where they belonged.  A typical movement for Haus, sure, but...hey...did he do it with a special emphasis this time?  Did he just flip us the bird?  We weren't sure!  He kept walking right out the door, no break in stride, no change in facial expression.  We all looked at each other.  Did he give us the finger, or didn't he?  Did a smile cross his face when he got out in the hall?  No one ever dared to ask him. We will never know for sure.  But like I said above, Mr. Hauschild always paid attention, so there is a good possibility that...

I last saw Mr. Hauschild in July of 1999, when he graciously agreed to give one of his patented voice-over-background-music-from-a-cassette-deck talks to our delayed class reunion.  We thoroughly enjoyed that vintage Haus lecture.  Before he left the banquet hall, I told him we all expected the same thing at our 40th reunion.  Already pretty thin and gaunt from the cancer that would take his life at what we all now appreciate is the young age of 74, he said "Well, Robert...what will be, will be."  I remember what he said because I paid attention.  And I learned to pay attention because he paid attention.  Thanks, Mr. Hauschild.

Catching Up

Just had a wonderful 4 1/2 hour visit with Tom Osterberg and his wife Tammy.  Even though we have been only 40 miles apart for many years, our paths have seldom crossed.  Bernie Hendricks had informed me earlier this week that Tom had by-pass surgery recently, so Tom Bozied and I made plans to see how he was recovering.  Tom B., however, had some emergency business to tend to, so my drive over there was without company.  Upon arriving, we naturally talked about the surgery and his recovery, but also covered our grade-school, high school, and college years, as well as life in the real world.  We were almost able to solve all of the world's problems.

Our conversation reminded us how fortunate we were to have grown up when we did.  In our more youthful days, we were able to round up the neighborhood kids and organize our own games of baseball, kick-the-can, capture the flag, etc., or even create our own games.  We made up our own rules to fit the situations we found ourselves in.  Our parents didn't hover over us as a number of parents do today.  We felt in no danger while walking or riding our bikes around town.  Our parents let us be kids, and didn't micromanage our childhoods.  We were given a great deal of freedom, but were expected to use that freedom wisely.  For the most part, we probably did.

We also reminded each other of the memorable times we had in school, both in and out of the classroom.  Since all three of us had been teachers, we noted the differences that have taken place in education over the the past half-century.  We recalled, too, how some of our teachers made deep and lasting impressions on us.

We resolved to get together again soon, and perhaps to get a few of the locals to join us.