At Hooper Alexander, we had a young Health / PE teacher named Mr. Long during fifth grade. He was a nice enough guy, but when playing ball with us younger fellows, he bragged about how he was faster than us, blah, blah, blah. I’ll never forget two incidents of payback that Mr. Long experienced.

 We were playing football on the sand play field and Mr. Long broke open and was making a beeline for the goal, thinking he was going to score. Out of nowhere flew little Jimmy Newton (later moved to Alabama ). Jimmy was hell-bent on stopping Long. Nearing the goal line, Jimmy launched himself like a missile, perfectly wrapping up Long at the knees, bringing him to an abrupt halt. The school boys went wild (smile). Long was embarrassed, needless to say.

Mr. Long drove a little red Renault, the French answer to the VW bug. He was parked behind the school one day a few yards from the cafeteria trash dumpster. Ten or twelve of us jockeyed the car over and carefully wedged it between the school building and the dumpster. Word had it that it took Long a “long” time to maneuver the machine out of its confines.