Musical Memoirs Gets a Makeover with KISS 

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Okay, I’ll admit: I was once a KISS fan.

Maybe it was the cool makeup. Perhaps the funky boots. Or possibly even the blood-spitting Gene Simmons, who – rumor had it – had a cow tongue grafted onto his own.

Using wooden spoons as microphones, my friends and I would often lip sync their song “Calling Dr. Love,” sometimes changing the lyrics to reflect funny things about people we didn’t like.

“Calling Dr. Love,” like “My Sharona,” “King Tut,” and “Whip It,” was one of those songs written for adults but which also appealed to kids. And as 1980 grew close, I needed music to get my mind off of school.

Because, technically speaking? I got three F’s on my first report card — though one of the teachers that flagged me said I was improving, so I sort of counted that as an F+.

While I did improve most of my grades, I did wind up flunking math. But it wasn’t my fault. I had this awful math teacher named, uh – we’ll say Mrs. Jeffries.

Mrs. Jeffries wasn’t exactly the lovable sort. In fact, there was a rumor that she once slugged a student who threw popcorn at her. Today I sort of doubt that since teachers who slug students generally get canned. And I don’t remember our school having a lot of popcorn around.

But at the time it was very believable, given that Mrs. Jeffries had once threatened to kill me.

Admittedly, I was doing something I shouldn’t have been doing: I hid another kid’s Trapper Keeper.

I know – you don’t mess with another kid’s Trapper Keeper. But I was young and dumb. And, honestly? It beat doing math.

When Mrs. Jeffries saw that I wasn’t paying attention to her, she scolded me in front of class. Embarrassed, I waited until she turned around, and then I muttered something that sounded a lot like, “Oh, shut up.”

But apparently I said it louder than I had intended. Because Mrs. Jeffries abruptly stopped, turned and glared.

“What. Did you say?”

I’m pretty sure I saw fire coming from her nostrils.

“I’m gonna have you for the rest of the year, Pemberton,” she said, her face taking on the wrinkly, sinister image of The Beast. “And I’m going to have you for summer school. . .”

Then she pointed at me with a dagger finger and spat: “You die.”

I know. You think I’m making that up. Because teachers don’t usually say things like, “You die.” But I swear on top of your mother’s grave she did.

Funny thing was? When the teachers went on strike Mrs. Jeffries was pictured on the front page of the local paper, heading the picket line.

I wanted to call the school board and say something like: “Teachers who threaten to kill kids don’t deserve pay raises!” But I didn’t. Because no one would believe a trouble maker who got three F’s on a report card.

Besides, if Mrs. Jeffries could get me out of school for two weeks – while she stood in the freezing cold, carrying a sign — maybe I could endure a death threat or two.

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