Nanaimo District Senior Secondary School

[Nostradama]

I second the motion regarding Mr. Les Dickason being a super super guy. I was lucky to have him as principal at Cedar, for his 1 and only year as principal at CJSS. He was a very hands-on principal, getting to know the various students.

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I had Glen Plueckhahn at NDSS for Chemistry. I remember his Aussie accent, his quiet humour (which we found a bit peculiar, at the time).

Naming no names, but a teacher who had an Aussie accent and his wife went on holiday once to Israel, and a war broke out. Might have been with Egypt, I'm not sure. But very, very close to the Israeli borders. Mr. and Mrs. X were driving a rental car, and there were Israeli soldiers with automatic weapons slung over their shoulders by the side of the road, hitching rides home on leave. I didn't realize until then how small Israel is. He described it to me as being "like we were about at the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver, and the front lines of the war were in Richmond." Mr. X and his wife, always up for an adventure, were picking up these soldiers and giving them rides in their rental car. Took it very calmly that he got caught up in an unexpected war. But then he would. I'm just surprised he didn't have a battle plan all drawn up, point by point, in great detail, to deliver to the Israeli government. It would have been typical of him. And he'd be the first to admit it.

[grommet]

for all of your stories. I'm really enjoying reading them....

[Nostradama]

Smokey, Smokey, Smokey, you were involved in that? Before my time at NDSS. But if you were involved, and if it belonged to the person I suspect it might have, I'm amazed you're still alive.

The lady who ran the photocopying room, before the very first budget cut and we actually had a photocopy lady, drove a Mini Cooper that had a Union Jack Brit flag painted all over it. As in, it looked like someone had just taken a giant flag and draped it all over the car--it wasn't a series of small flags, just one big one. And this was one ferocious lady. I loved her. We all did. But you just didn't mess with her. It must have been something to do with photocopy toner fumes, but she had plants all over the room, and they seemed to flourish. Looking back, they probably absorbed a lot of the fumes from the multi photocopiers at NDSS at the time.

But, boy oh boy, if you messed with her car, I'm surprised that you survived without grievous bodily harm.

I remember my first year of teaching, when I finally had my own car, a little tiny Austin sedan, third hand, and a bunch of Grade 12 boys lifted it up on blocks. I was so clueless, and I couldn't see the blocks, and I couldn't figure out why no matter what I did, my car wouldn't move. God, what a fool I was. But then I was young, and I'd never had my own car before, and was rarely allowed to drive my Mom's.

[Flugel Horn]

One day at NDSS, while waiting for my French-11 class to start, I foolishly goofed around and climbed out the 2nd floor window, which was over top of the main-entrance roof.

I used the "T" of the "Nanaimo District Senior Secondary" sign as a ladder step. When I came back in, my weight pushed the "T" off it's nail, and so for the rest of the school year, the sign said "Distric"

The Vice-Principal, Mr. Gibson, came up to the classroom and said "Where's the T-Bird?".

Stupid thing for me to do, but funny to look back on it. I didn't get into much trouble from that incident.

[Nostradama]

One day at NDSS, while waiting for my French-11 class to start, I foolishly goofed around and climed out the 2nd floor window, which was over top of the main-entrance roof.

I used the "T" of the "Nanaimo District Senior Secondary" sign as a ladder step. When I came back in, my weight pushed the "T" off it's nail, and so for the rest of the school year, the sign said "Distric"

The Vice-Principal, Mr. Gibson, came up to the classroom and said "Where's the T-Bird?".

Stupid thing for me to do, but funny to look back on it. I didn't get into much trouble from that incident.

Knowing him, he probably thought it was pretty funny, but couldn't just let it go. Nice guy. I can remember a couple of times people pulled off something that was pretty funny, and he basically couldn't wait to get them out of his office so he could have a good laugh. Probably the only thing that bothered him was the chance that you could have killed yourself. You would have made a nasty mess on the steps, when you think about it.

But I remember a kid pulling something really terrible, although I don't remember exactly what it was, and Ron Gibson was so mad that he drove down to the guy's Dad's work and told him all about it in front of several of the Dad's co-workers. And he yelled while he was describing what the kid had done. All I can remember was that it was something so awful that the other students were really upset about it, too. We can all remember things that the one really rotten person would pull that nobody thought was funny or OK. It was one of those kinds of things.

Years later, with a not-too-popular vice-principal whose office was underneath the room that was at the front corner of the building, right over that vice-principal's office, kids used to tie long pieces of fish line around a small pebble, and then feed it out the window, so that the pebble would tap on the vice-principal's office window. It was one of those subjects where students are on their feet moving around quite a bit, so the teacher never noticed what was happening. Drove the vice-principal nuts for weeks until he discovered what it was. (Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.) I knew what was happening, but I didn't like him, so there's no way I was talking.

[Nostradama]

Anyone else remember the kid who tried to shoot up the parking lot? It turned out that he was a kid living on Wakesiah with his grandparents, after he'd been kicked out of school in Calgary, wasn't attending school here, so he had lots of time on his hands.

He started out by shooting out some car windows in the Woodlands parking lot, and then headed to NDSS to do the same thing. After a couple of shots at NDSS, Larry Miller and Bob Thomas (replaced Bob Golob when he retired) actually headed out to the parking lot. I'm glad I wasn't in the staff room on a spare when that happened. I don't think I could have gone out there to see what was happening. I don't know what happened out there in the parking lot, but by the time the RCMP arrived, Larry Miller and Bob Thomas had the kid under control. Thinking back, we should have made up a couple of phoney medals to give Larry and Bob.

What pissed us off was that the headline in the next day's paper made it sound like he was an NDSS student, and he definitely wasn't. Made us all look bad, and we had nothing to do with it.

[Flugel Horn]

According to a classified-announcement in today's Nanaimo Daily News, former? NDSS librarian Bill Boyd has his 40th wedding-anniversary today.

Happy Anniversary, Mr. Boyd !

[Nostradama]

According to a classified-announcement in today's Nanaimo Daily News, former? NDSS librarian Bill Boyd has his 40th wedding-anniversary today.

Happy Anniversary, Mr. Boyd !

My God, either he married late, or he's younger than I thought he was. No wonder I thought he never seemed to age!

[Flugel Horn]

Sad news:

Former NDSS Librarian Bill Whiting passed away on Nov.1st. He was 78 years old.

[Zelley]

In 1966/67 there was Miss L Johnson and Miss P Johnson.