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In high school, I was a horrible student in chemistry. Okay, maybe not “horrible”, but a C student. I was still very glad that my chemistry teacher, Mr. Buff, came to my 45th class reunion last weekend. He retired from teaching over twenty years ago, but he’s still active and well.
I had to ask him if he remembered the tear gas.
In my junior year, Mr. Buff showed us how to make a relatively tame kind of tear gas. Far from deadly, it still made our eyes water and our lungs burn a bit. Being high school guys, we challenged each other to see how long we could stay in the room with the doors and windows shut.
I asked Mr. Buff if he recalled this, and he did indeed. And he told me that if he was teaching now, he never would have done such a thing.
Then I told him a story he didn’t recall. We were allowed to choose individual experiments from a book. I decided to make Sterno. I mixed the ethanol and methyl alcohol and acetone and other stuff in a beaker, and the solid Sterno formed. I pulled some out and put it on the asbestos pad. And set it on fire.
As the Sterno burned, more formed in the beaker. Being the barely C student I was, I reached into the beaker. I tossed the new Sterno on the burning Sterno. And the flame ran up onto my hand. I waved my hand above my head and fortunately, though the alcohol on my hand burned, my hand didn’t.
Mr. Buff seemed a bit aghast that he let this take place in his classroom.
There were a lot of unsafe things that happened in classes back in the day, particularly in the shop classes.
I can’t help wondering if forty-five years ago, students’ fingers were in greater danger, but their minds were a little safer. What do you think, Ricochet readers?
Discussion (18)
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Mr. Buff! Love the name and the story. It's a wonder all us boys didn't die before the age of 20.
Our chemistry guy was Mr. Strack. He taught us how to blow stuff up real good.
Gratuitous sidetrack- Our shop teacher, Mr. Zerby, was missing a couple of fingers.
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Too bad there wasn't more of the lead-up, but I couldn't find anything better.
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Science teacher in Jr High was Mr Doyle, he was well-known for always jingling keys in his pocket.
The metal shop teacher was intact, the older wood shop teacher was missing a few, and his thumbs could bend back at unbelievable angles. His name was Mr. Bate, whose school joke name should be obvious.
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Although I took both metal shop and wood shop, which included making a table for my mother with a lathe-turned central post, my only "incidents" occurred in science/physics class. Due to a 2.2 Kv (I think it was) transformer for the Millikan Oil Drop Experiment.
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Chem teachers were the best! Mr. Bergdoll, like your Mr. Strack, taught us how to blow stuff up real good. Like throwing metallic sodium into the pond.
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