This is the Day the Banana Slugs Have Their Picnic

“Don’t worry. My husband will do his Hannibal Lecter face. That would keep anyone away”

The client glances at me and quickly looks away slightly ashen. “That would certainly work,” she says. “But that’s just his normal one! Do ‘the face’, Mark.” I comply, assuming a grotesquely sinister half-leer and bulging my eyes. The client has to steady herself. Once recovered, she agrees that ‘the face’ would be a pretty major deterrent and we head off for the shoot.

A few words of explanation might be in order. Although we rarely if ever do location shoots, we have been persuaded to do some fashion photographs for an exceedingly shy would-be model. The venue is a bit of forest near Sacramento. Although private, it is popular with walkers at weekends and the owners don’t think it worthwhile putting fences and signs up. The model will be wearing a slinky evening dress and is very self-conscious. My job is to carry the heavy equipment and to stand guard. Everything set up, I find a moderately comfortable stump near a crossing and start to peruse ‘Foxe's Book of Martyrs’ - perfect reading for an early summer morning. It is midweek, so I don’t think we’ll be disturbed. It soon transpires that I was wrong. After twenty minutes or so, a couple of dedicated walkers approach. Backpacks, robust walking boots, woolly socks - the lot. I suppose I could have simply told them the area was private, but inspiration strikes and a slightly different tactic springs to mind. If Anthony Hopkins doesn’t work … this just might. For some reason, they don’t so much as glance at me so I greet them with wild enthusiasm. “Have you heard about the banana slugs? They are great … you lick them and they are totally hallucinogenic! There are oodles of them down there and they are all just waiting for you.” This is, of course, an utter fib. No self-respecting banana slug would be seen dead within a few hundred miles of the place; it is far, far too dry. But my new acquaintances neither challenge my limacological knowledge nor slacken their pace. Strange as it might seem, the pair appear more horrified than enthused about the prospect of a close encounter with the fictitious slugs. I decide to appeal to the woman’s maternal instincts. “They are just so cute! It’s the way they lie on their adorable little yellow tummies and wiggle about like anything. You simply must, must see them”. The only result of this is that they accelerate a bit and shoot past me. I have to warn the photographer and her self conscious model. I burst into song at the top of my lungs: “If you go down to the woods today you are sure of a BIG SURPRISE …” This works. The model has just time to vanish just before the unfortunate walkers sprint by. The poor dears may not have seen any examples of ariolimax columbianus, but I can’t help feeling I gave them a pretty interesting woodland experience.

Teachers-at-Arms

 

It was about 7.40 AM and I pulled into a Starbucks as I was driving to San Francisco. There was a slightly sinister fellow wandering about the carpark dressed in military camouflage and wearing dark glasses. It was only when I got out of the car that I realised he was carrying something that looked like a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). In a split second I was crouching behind my vehicle stick in hand and shaking from a rush of pure adrenaline (cowardice). What to do? The coffee shop was too far and my phone was in the car. I concocted a desperate plan - he must surely have seen me so I’d wait till he was within range, jump out and bash him senseless with my stick. I cautiously looked round the back of the car and was horrified to see him levelling the RPG in my direction whilst staring menacingly. Terrified though I was, I continued to gaze back while praying to St. Jude. The man released some sort of catch and his device started to blow leaves. Now, although there may be some humour involved in my retelling it, my purpose is not to amuse - I have a serious point. Like most teachers, I have absolutely no military experience and wasn’t even a boy scout. The man was foolish to wear an army-style outfit, but he was utterly innocent and was only perceived as a threat due to my ignorance and my fervid imagination. Had the government provided me with a weapon, I am almost sure I would have used it especially if I thought I was protecting students. Stress would have prevented me from shooting to maim rather than kill and my clumsiness would have endangered other innocents. As a guest in your country, it is not my place to talk politics, but I can’t help feeling there has to be a better way than arming educators.

Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear to Tread

So, a 64 year old albeit strangely youthful Englishman cheerfully strolls into this fortress-like high school in Bayview, San Francisco. It is more than a little imposing: slightly rusty chain-link fencing reaching into the sky, formidable security gates, guards and simply oodles of cameras.  Had it not been for the leafy surroundings and the improbably neat, colourful little houses, I’d have been reminded slightly of a maximum security prison in Britain like Dartmoor or Wormwood Scrubs.  The views of Hunter’s Point and the Bay are pretty nice though.

I go in search of the office, which seems to be locked up.   I eventually gain ingress and chat to the cheerful receptionist.  Rather improbably, it appears that I’ve been assigned to the gym  - I was rather hoping for English or History.  I hobble up to a couple of amazingly tall young gentlemen shoving balls into a kind of net-like thing. 

“Awfully nice to meet you.  Is this what is known as baseball?”

After a little confusion while they sum me up, the kids are extremely warm and welcoming.  They patiently explain that it is something called netball.    One politely asks about my age in a slightly convoluted way:

“I am not asking how old you are or anything.  But how long before you are a hundred?”

I perform a relatively rapid mental calculation and tell him that I’ve got a good 36 years to go.  I ask why he is so interested. He tells me that when I have reached a hundred I get to meet the Queen. I refrain from mentioning that by that time she will be pretty elderly too.

The weeks pass and I look forward to each day.   The students are a bit wild but tractable.  They constantly try to mimic my accent - usually by saying “hey mate” with a somewhat Australian intonation.  Whenever I walk across the ‘blacktop’ I get high fives and fist bumps. 

In class I have my helpers - the tall chaps I met on the first day.  At the end of one lesson, I suggest that they tidy up a bit,.  Nothing much happens, but then a helper translates my request: “The little old guy wants you to clean up your Mother F***** Shit!” I could have hardly put it better myself.

Sadly all this is coming to an end.  My wife has discovered that I am working in one of the most dangerous places in the Bay and is extremely nervous.  The other day, I was waiting to meet her in an adjoining park - a fellow teacher drove by and shouted that  I was ‘frigging’ mad and should get back inside the school posthaste. It seems that there are regular robberies and even shootings in the area.    

“I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled …”.  Were I younger and more vigorous, I should stay.  These children need help.