Douglas Adds: To fully appreciate the scene, you have to visualize that we were marching and that, when the deposit came shaking out of Dierkowitz's leg, there was immediate disarray with all the 3rd graders piling into each other as the ones in front broke ranks to avoid stepping in it. You also have to picture that Mrs. Sundberg, banging away at the piano, was totally oblivious.
Carl Dierkowitz was mentally retarded and though he was in 3rd Grade with us at the time of the infamous turd drop, I wonder if he was actually older -- for one thing, he had an unbelievably bad case of acne for an 8 year old boy.
Carl Dierkowitz was mentally retarded and though he was in 3rd Grade with us at the time of the infamous turd drop, I wonder if he was actually older -- for one thing, he had an unbelievably bad case of acne for an 8 year old boy.
Mr Snyder, our janitor, was summoned to deal with the crisis that lay before us and like the Superhero he was (not counting the drooling and the constant stream of blasphemous vulgarity) with only broom and bucket of sawdust in hand, he made that streaming load completely disappear. This was our first scientific evidence that sawdust had the same property of a black hole. Unfortunately we couldn't apply the sawdust to Carl himself to get him to disappear as he was a victim of childhood measles and the result was that he himself was quite a mess.
Douglas Adds: Ah, childhood measles, not acne. That makes more sense. I should mention that I don't recall the deposit as"steaming," but rather as dry, somewhat ovoid turd-lets. But Edward was closer to the scene . . .
In my memory, the Wildwood janitor at this time was "Munchy" Myers, who didn't have a tooth in his head but was constantly working his jaw up-and-down with his lips partly open so that you'd see his horrible grayish bleeding gums. Unlike Mr. Snyder, who Ed describes to a "t," Munchy Myers was never heard saying even one word. Both Myers and Snyder were highly adept in the wielding of the magic sand.
Edward Adds: I certainly defer to Douglas on the actual texture and content of the droppings as after witnessing the delivery I was swiftly on my way to the door. Had I known I'd be chronicling the event 40 years later, I would have performed a more meticulous analysis of the effort, assuming one could do that and still keep a sufficiently safe distance. You just don't realize the significance of events like this when your kid.
Doug may also be right when he said it was Myers who wielded the sand/sawdust of life to remove the contaminate. Snyder was such an iconic figure that I suspect I may be giving him more credit than he deserves. Clearly he was a dominate force, one of the most memorable janitorial staff of all time. He certainly had a significant effect on the faculty (who avoided him like the plague except for Jack Cronin, his drinking buddy) and students (who feared him as well loathed him). Clearly if there is a janitorial hall of fame, it will be Snyder who set the standard for disgusting eating habits and in the foul language department. Someone had to keep that boiler popping all winter long and he certainly was the man. And with regard to the use of magic sawdust, no one made vomit, urine and feces, that students tended dispense from time to time, vanish into thin air (and the air was indeed thin and in short supply) with less style then Snyder.
Mrs. Sundberg marvelled that, "The floor was now so clean you could eat off it", prompting the now famous Harry Temple quote of "go right ahead" This then lead to heated exchange in which Harry's Man from UNCLE paperback books that he was keeping in his desk were confiscated, forcing him to tell her to "Go to Hell" and resulting in a dreaded trip to the principals office. Sadly, if it wasn't for the paperback books that we could buy through the student book club magazine, providing Man from UNCLE paperback books and other popular reading materials of the day, I am quite certain that at least another third of the 8th grade graduating class would have been illiterate (we know that Antonia Vinerotos the Greek girl that only Maria Vosnos could communicate with was illiterate as was Maria Vosnos herself, Mark Alveshire, by choice as for some reason he was a devout Viking, and several others whose names we cannot say - sort of like Harry Potter only in this case because we'd break out laughing).
Douglas Adds: The seizure of Harry Temple's Man From Uncle paperbacks clearly was an abuse of power on Mr. Sundberg's part and may even rise to the level of "High Crime and Misdemeanor."
An additional tie between us and Mrs. Sundberg was that Mrs. Sundberg's daughter was later to be our waitress at the Sandpiper restaurant in Bailey's Harbor Wisconsin. The tie was considered detrimental to our futures when after paying the bill Doug realized we were a bit short and had to tip her a Mr. President Coin Game token from the Shell gas station and one cent. Unconfirmed reports were that her low earnings from that tip forced her into a life of prostitution, drugs, gambling and a series of bad relations with local black men. However, we later discovered that there were no local black people as it was colder than hell there in the winter so we inferred that she made a full recovery.
Douglas Adds: Still, Sundberg's daughter got off easy -- at least from us -- compared to whoever at the Howard Johnson restaurant at Touhy and Caldwell had to clean out the "bottomless" coffee pots into which Ed and I ritually deposited our left-over dill pickles and ample amounts of pepper and salt.
Edward Adds: An excellent point though who is to say whether the coffee pots were ever actually cleaned. Given the clientele of said Howard Johnson, the additional of a relish to the coffee may have actually added to the dining experience. Howard Johnsons at that location was well known for numerous cases of food poisoning. Until now, I never realized that we may have played some small part in that, though I feel we shouldn't rush to grab credit without being able to substantiate the claim.
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