Every Town Excerpts, Chapter 19.
Excerpts from Every Town Needs a
Castle by Dwayne Hunn
Author and Pharmer Hunn ends up bumping more than heads with KOCH FAMILY
MONEY AND ARMY… throughout this chapter.
Maybe it started with the goateed coach on the football field.
Football’s Field of Dreams
....
What I also brought to the football field was a fresh goatee. Several weeks into coaching, I was surprised to learn that Glendora High’s 21 coaches had taken a vote as to whether coaches should have goatees.
I was told the vote was 20-0. I guess I was told this so I could invest in Gillette blades, but instead I thought like a disturbed teacher, or upset linebacker..
First, I
asked some coaches why, since I was a coach, I wasn’t invited to this electoral
smack down. No satisfactory answer was given.
Second, some of my classes were asked to describe how Jesus, and several other historical luminaries, was depicted.
Third, in a couple Letters to the
Editor in the local papers, readers were asked if they
would endorse denying coaching rights to any of those historical luminaries,
such as Jesus, because they were hirsute.
This rookie teacher tried to make the case that what I knew about winning football and how I could coach kids had nothing to do with whether I had or didn’t have a well-kept goatee. To me, it may have been a teachable moment, but some in the community, administration, and staff weren’t ready to learn it.
So, I resigned as football coach.
Unbeknownst at the time, MCR posted this letter to the school principal, who replied;
“If Mr. Hunn had chosen to remain a coach, very conceivably we would have been left with a one man staff as the others (20) would have quit.”
Then the varsity basketball coach asked if I would consider shaving before basketball season started in order to coach the Sophomore Basketball Team.
Then a bunch of my players came to tell me of their teachable and learning moments. “Coach Hunn, we’ve decided we’re going to quit in protest.”
I was keen on these kids. I WAS NOT keen on these kids, who filled my classes over the years, giving up their high school football dreams. They listened and remained chasing oblong balls and rainbows on those halcyon fields of high school football green. At season’s end, they implored that I come to their banquet where they surprised me with a wood and gold plated Coach’s Plaque, which still sits on a wall at home. Thanks guys, if any of you are reading this.
…………
Emerging Nations
In my second year, with great fanfare, Glendora High School (GHS) decided to initiate a new team-taught required course, “Emerging Nations.” GHS students were now to learn about “The real world.”
Who better to include on the teaching team than a Peace Corps volunteer who had served and traveled in emerging nations, especially when he’s got a bevy of slides and stories to share? It was a good three-man team that had 100+ students per class. In exchange for doing the brunt of the presentations, which I loved, my partners did much of the stuff I liked much less – testing, roll taking, assignment checking, etc.
The comfortable, conservative, and almost all white GHS students loved learning about emerging nations. The class had a lot of student interaction that revolved around stories, slides, innovative assignments, and Peace Corpsish (PC) insights.
Around this time, I also started writing a series of lengthy
articles featured in the Glendora Press about life in
“Experience all the emotions so
you can sympathize with others.”
John Birchers hunt commie pinkos
Unfortunately, the powerful San Gabriel Valley John Birch
chapter loved neither the writings about life in
After awhile
the Glendora Press editor told me he was going to have
to close out the popular PC series.
Although Emerging Nations was a very popular class with students, it was cut after one year, which led me back to solo teaching. A proposal to introduce a required course, “Comparative Theories of Government,” found a similarly short-lived career, as one of my students pointed out in her Letter to the Editor of the Glendora Press.
Why would some powers in the community power structure want to expose students to Comparative Theories of Government, when a RPCV exposing them to the realities of emerging nations upset their simplistic, pristine view of the world so much?
The last paragraph of the Glendora Press Editorial “Glendora Pushing Backward” tartly warned what an ostrich’s approach to world affairs will do. Thirty years later, at the dawning of the 21st century, the world’s once undisputed economic and moral power is paying for an ostrich’s ignorance of world and domestic needs in trillion dollar spades and with too many lost lives and limbs.
If fingers and time allow, my next book will delve more deeply into how we could
recover from this backward approach and peacefully surge forward by
instead building homespun castles everywhere.
Upon my return to solo teaching, each of my classes was oversubscribed. Luckily, I had four or more teacher’s aides (TAs) per class to cover the roll taking, scoring, handout making, extra coaching, etc. jammed classes required.
Those classes also included lots of reading, discussions,
and guest speakers. One of those
speakers was the charismatic founder of People’s Lobby, Edwin Koupal, who was
using the grassroots initiative process to take on the big oil, auto,
pesticide, nuclear, and lobbying industries to clean
The Koupal’s
inculcated People’s Lobby’s working steering board of 40, of which I was privileged to be one, with such philosophies as:
“Complaining, demonstrating, marching, etc., doesn’t accomplish much.”
“This country runs on laws. If you want to change the country, write its laws.”
“Final responsibility rests with the People. Therefore, never is final authority delegated.”
…….
My March 13, 1972 NOTICE OF RECOMMENDATION NOT TO REEMPLOY PROBATIONARY TEACHER listed reasons such as:
· Lack of proper organization of work and presentation to pupils of subject matter…
·
Failure to comply with rules and
regulations and to submit records and reports as required…
· Lack of courtesy in contacts with pupils, co-workers, and community and lack of personal cleanliness and poor grooming…
These reasons evolved into
courtroom bantered charges revolving around:
· Ineffective teacher.
· Pro-black god, anti-white Jesus Christ.
· Typographical errors.
· Bad odor.
· Cuss words.
· Lack of proper patriotism.
To some the dismissal might be explained like this.
Mr. Hunn, although extremely
popular with naive students, is an incompetent because he flunked 46% of his
students at a nine week grading cycle, failed to fill out forms properly, came
to a faculty meeting after playing basketball with students where we’re
positive he stunk both in the cavernous faculty/band room as well as on the
court; had typographical errors and cuss words in his stack of handouts copied
from books; and because he exposed his students to published concepts
questioning white and Christian superiority, and talked too much about poverty
and the cost of warfare; we are damn sure
he’s an evil commie and must be fired.
Some of my artful, ironic, and stealthful (acquiring the principal’s official stationery, distributing an underground student newspaper, etc. further developed their creative writing and poetry abilities, without any coaching by me, during the year of firing.
When these teaching travails were brought up around Pharm discussions, Michael occasionally responded about how difficult or impossible it was “To fight City Hall.” At least once that led Michael to suggesting, or was it urging, “Why don’t you just leave and do something else?’
….
Superman or…
It wasn’t long before I got to know some wonderful, stellar, non-Pharm characters that one needs in fighting City Hall or scaling outside world walls.
·
John Muraski, President
of the American Federation of Teachers
· GHS Counselor David Christensen and fellow teacher Chuck Scherf, who were un-intimidated in standing beside me against the administration.
· A raft of students who never wavered and some who cut school and a couple who even took the witness stand at my Hearing Dismissal, such as David McElwee and Diana O’Brien.
· And an LA version of Attorney Clarence Darrow.
John Muraski urged, and my Clarence Darrow required me, to write responses to everything in my personnel file, which I did in what I thought was a tart, cutting, and witty style. Of course, some of those writings had typographical errors.
With some of these writings in hand, John and I had a 30 minute meeting with a young attorney from the firm of Levy and Van Bourg, whom the AFT retained for their legal work.
As weeks went by, I also met with Paul Conforti, former Glendora High teacher turned attorney, who said, “If you want to win this trial, your attorney should be doing about 500 hours of discovery, interviewing a bunch of people, prepping for the trial…”
Part of the lack of such prep stemmed from the fact that this particular year was a heavy year for firing teachers. That probably had much to do with a freshly minted state law, which according to administrators, required teachers to teach to specifically quantified goals. That kind of teaching gears teachers to rote memory work and inspiring kids to choose A, B, C, D, or E, after you’ve proved your ability to guess between T and F on a paper test; but inspired students to learn little about deciphering between True and False in the Real World.
I wouldn’t be a standardized teacher.
My attorney, Jack Levine, was backed up trying to be public defender to a bigger batch than usual of evil, conspiratorial teachers who perceived teaching similarly. Such was the discussion Chuck Scherf and I were having in an empty teachers lounge when the phone rang for me. The caller introduced himself, and something like the following ensued.
“I’ve been reading your responses to the charges against you. Find your case very interesting. Jack Levine has been swamped with cases and I wonder, Mr. Hunn, if you would mind if I picked up this case instead?”
“Excuse me, did you say your name was Abe Levy?”
“Yes, Abe Levy.”
“Abe Levy, as in Levy and Van Bourg?”
“Yes, this is my firm. I have 40 attorneys working for me and…”
“… I don’t mind at all, Mr. Levy.”
Shortly, thereafter I recall meeting for about 30 minutes in
Mr. Levy’s office, which had a couple pictures of the star of the then popular
Billy Jack movies prominently displayed, After discussing issues around my
trial, we talked of his friendship with writer, director, and actor Tom
Laughlin who played Billy Jack in the same named movie, which in the 1970’s was
the highest-grossing independent
film of all time. Maybe that’s what
inspired me to see the Billy Jack movies, the star of
which remains a social and political activist to this day.
Weeks went by. With the trial date just a couple weeks away, Chuck Scherf and I were again sitting in an empty teachers lounge, I called Mr. Levy. I brought up what Attorney Conforti had said about the need to do 500 hours of legal discovery. I stressed that finding another job wasn’t my primary concern. Losing to phonies on phony charges was.
Mr. Levy politely listened. After I cooled down, there was a pause. Mr. Levy replied, “Dwayne, let me tell you something. I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I could go into that courtroom without knowing one God-damn thing and get the job done…
“I’ll see you Tuesday morning. Bring the stuff I asked you to do.”
When I hung up, Chuck noticed my stare into space and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Well, either I’m screwed or I got Superman for an attorney.”
Mr. Hunn, do you have representation?
The accusations filed against me were heard by Hearing Officer Helen T. Gallagher of the Office of Administrative Hearings in Los Angeles…
What about some of these charges?
Incompetent teacher
NOTICE OF ACCUSATION, March
23, 1972 The Respondent gave 46% of his students in his U. S. History
classes failing grades after the first nine
weeks of the 1971-72 school year.
….
Pro-black God, anti-white Jesus Christ?
NOTICE OF ACCUSATION, March
23, 1972 In January 1970, Respondent distributed to his pupils a typed page containing numerous spelling and typographical errors, as well
as the vulgar words "bullshitted" and "shit." The article also attacks religion.
…
Bad odor
….
Glendora School
School board meetings were held in a room that comfortably held about 50 people. When John Muraski and I arrived, we were stunned to find a line wrapped out the door and down the street. The Board decided to move the meeting to the gym at Goddard Junior High. As the Glendora Press reported, the meeting took over 5 hours, with 2 ½ hours in Executive Session.
There was, however, a back story to
the Executive Session that the press did not capture. According to my
grapevine, it went something like this. As the Board went into Executive Session,
Consequently, John Muraski tried to go into Executive Session too, claiming that “In fairness, Hunn should have representation to offset the County’s prosecutorial representation.”
County counsel claimed he was only present to explain the findings and Muraski should not be allowed in. The County won that argument.
However, as
It was not long into that Executive Session before