Back To School - Episode 8

Summary

The Musers The Podcast - Episode 8: Back To School

Release Date: August 13, 2025

*Hosts: George Dunham, Craig “Junior” Miller, and Gordon Keith
Network: Cumulus Podcast Network

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Introduction

In Episode 8 of The Musers The Podcast, titled "Back To School," the trio—George Dunham, Craig “Junior” Miller, and Gordon Keith—delve into the multifaceted experience of the back-to-school season. Balancing humor with insightful commentary, they explore recent educational policy changes in Texas, reminisce about their own school days, and discuss the evolving landscape of student life.

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Texas School Law Changes

The conversation kicks off with an overview of new educational laws in Texas that are set to take effect this school year.

1. Total Cell Phone Ban (02:04 – 03:48)

   Gordon Keith introduces the topic by highlighting the total cell phone ban in Texas schools, extending to all personal communication devices:

   "Total cell phone ban in school. So it's not just cell phones. It's also personal communication devices." (02:04)

   Craig Miller echoes support for the initiative, citing its potential benefits in reducing distractions and improving educational outcomes. George Dunham contrasts this by humorously lamenting the loss of daily phone interactions:

   "Don't you get with it, man. We need our phones and we need them now." (02:47)

2. Display of the Ten Commandments (10:31 – 12:35)

   The hosts discuss Senate Bill 10, which mandates the display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Gordon Keith criticizes the blurring of church and state:

   "It's a little weird to me. The thought behind the Ten Commandments and trying to teach that to kids is probably not a bad thing." (10:51)

   George Dunham adds that while the commandments promote basic ethical principles, their imposition in public schools could lead to disputes:

   "It does blur the lines between church and state." (10:52)

3. Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Education (12:35 – 15:04)

   Gordon Keith introduces Senate Bill 12, which bans the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation, shifting from an opt-out to an opt-in system for sex education:

   "Senate Bill 12 bans teaching gender identity and sexual orientation and requires parents to opt their children into sex education." (13:03)

   The hosts reflect on their own uncomfortable experiences with past sex education programs, expressing skepticism about the efficacy and appropriateness of current policies.

4. Ban on Certain Food Additives (15:12 – 16:17)

   Senate Bill 314 aims to ban specific food additives in school lunches. Gordon Keith lists the prohibited substances, including Brominated Vegetable Oil and Potassium Bromate:

   "Ban certain food additives in school lunches... Brominated vegetable oil, Potassium bromate." (15:25)

   George Dunham concurs that reducing additives is beneficial, acknowledging broader implications beyond just schools.

5. Introduction of Financial Literacy Courses (16:17 – 19:27)

   One of the standout changes discussed is the requirement for financial literacy courses:

   "Teaching financial literacy is a great addition. It's something that's been missing for decades." (16:17)

   Gordon Keith reminisces about his own lack of financial education, sharing a personal anecdote about working without a Social Security number due to parental oversight:

   "I worked for no pay until that first paycheck I got, which was great." (16:37)

   The hosts unanimously agree on the importance of financial literacy, emphasizing its necessity for preparing students for real-world challenges.

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Personal School Experiences

Transitioning from policy discussions, the hosts share nostalgic memories of their own school years, highlighting both amusing and poignant moments.

1. First Day of School and Parental Involvement (22:02 – 26:14)

   George Dunham recounts the emotional difficulty of dropping his child off at kindergarten:

   "To me, it's the first day of kindergarten, which I thought, oh, my gosh, I don't know what this is, but this is awful." (23:55)

   Craig Miller and Gordon Keith add their own stories of parental anxiety and the evolving nature of parental involvement in schooling.

2. Note Passing and Yearbooks (06:25 – 17:54)

   The trio nostalgically discusses the art of passing notes in school and the significance of yearbooks. Gordon Keith humorously laments the decline of handwritten notes due to digital distractions:

   "I need to shred them and burn them because I hate myself in them." (07:11)

   Craig Miller shares his habit of preserving notebooks and scribbled ideas, while George Dunham notes the rarity of keeping such memorabilia today.

3. Favorite Teachers and Educational Impact (38:11 – 46:37)

   Each host talks about teachers who left a lasting impression. Gordon Keith praises his fourth-grade science teacher for igniting his passion for literature and science:

   "She ignited my love of literature and she ignited my love of science." (43:19)

   Craig Miller fondly remembers Mrs. Booth for her dedicated tutoring, and George Dunham shares her appreciation for Ms. Talley’s kindness:

   "She seemed like she cared about every individual student." (41:16)

4. Corporal Punishment in Schools (47:11 – 53:30)

   A significant portion of the episode reflects on the now-abolished practice of corporal punishment. George Dunham shares a traumatic experience of being paddled by her bus driver:

   "He pulled the bus over and someone said, hey, George is going to get a lick." (49:16)

   Craig Miller and Gordon Keith add their own stories of school spankings and the authoritarian nature of past educational environments, contrasting it with modern disciplinary approaches.

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Reflections on Modern Education

The hosts contemplate the current state of education, acknowledging improvements while critiquing ongoing challenges.

• Bullying and Mental Health Awareness (21:35 – 22:02)

  The conversation touches on the increased awareness of bullying and its long-term effects:

  "Half of 80s movies are about bullies... now there's some awareness of bullying and the horrible, traumatic damage that it does to kids." (21:40)

• Ethics Education (18:37 – 19:27)

  Building on the legislative changes, the hosts advocate for the inclusion of ethics education in schools:

  "We don't teach ethics as a consistent part of the curriculum, and that needs to change." (18:51)

• The Evolving Role of Parents and Teachers (46:42 – 53:30)

  The dynamic between parents and teachers has shifted, with parents often acting as "defense attorneys" for their children:

  "Today's parents are basically defense attorneys, as opposed to parents when it comes to conflicts at the school." (47:11)

  This shift is contrasted with the more authoritative teacher roles of the past, raising questions about the balance of power and responsibility in modern education.

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Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, the hosts express mixed feelings about the back-to-school season—ranging from nostalgia and sadness to hope and optimism for future generations. They highlight the importance of adapting to new educational policies while learning from past experiences to create a supportive and effective learning environment for children.

Looking ahead, The Musers The Podcast announces a new mini-series titled "What We Love," where each host will delve into their personal passions, promising listeners more engaging and heartfelt content in upcoming episodes.

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Notable Quotes:

• Craig Miller (02:27):
  "I think it's the best thing they could possibly have done entering this school year."

• George Dunham (05:56):
  "It's a huge distraction and especially in our state. We're still 44th in the country in education."

• Gordon Keith (12:35):
  "It's only Abramic religions, I guess. From Abraham."

• George Dunham (23:55):
  "That's the saddest day of my life."

• Craig Miller (42:00):
  "Mrs. Booth took special care with all her students. She would come over to our house and tutor me in math."

• George Dunham (50:04):
  "I was being a jerk, and he pulled the bus over and someone said, hey, George is going to get a lick."

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For more engaging discussions and unforgettable banter, subscribe to The Musers The Podcast on your favorite platform.

Transcript

[Craig Miller]

Do you guys remember the movie Back to School?

[Gordon Keith]

No.

[George Dunham]

Remember?

[Gordon Keith]

Tell me about it.

[George Dunham]

That was one of the best documentaries ever made.

[Craig Miller]

I was looking at the cast. It's 40 years ago that movie came out, and most of these actors, outside of Robert Downey Jr. And Adrian Barbeau, I think, have all passed away, including.

[George Dunham]

The late, great Rodney Dangerfield.

[Craig Miller]

Yes.

[George Dunham]

Hey, that's what I call marine biology.

[Craig Miller]

Was it a good movie?

[Gordon Keith]

I don't understand.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, it was funny. It's funnier than half the crap that's made now.

[Gordon Keith]

Oh, God. There's some clouds outside. You want to go outside?

[George Dunham]

Yeah. I'm gonna go yell at that one right there. That cloud's got it coming.

[Gordon Keith]

Go get it, George.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Okay.

[Gordon Keith]

Give it hell.

[Unknown]

The Musers, the Podcast, Episode eight, Back to School.

[Craig Miller]

Welcome to episode eight of the Musers, the Podcast. I'm Craig Miller.

[George Dunham]

I'm George Dunham.

[Gordon Keith]

And I'm gonna be Gordon Keith. George just hit himself in the face with a microphone.

[Craig Miller]

That's a good way to start. You okay?

[George Dunham]

Yeah, I'm okay. Missed my tooth.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, half your tooth's gone.

[Craig Miller]

Hey, we're still going. They didn't pull our podcasting license after the first seven episodes, so that's good. They say that if you can make it through seven episodes, that you are very likely to make it through at least eight episodes.

[Gordon Keith]

They say that, yes.

[George Dunham]

All right.

[Craig Miller]

We're on course.

[Gordon Keith]

We're on pace.

[Craig Miller]

I think we're doing well.

[George Dunham]

They say it.

[Craig Miller]

This is the time of year that kids are going back to school. So we thought for episode eight of the Musers, the Podcast, we'd do a back to school podcast. As I recall, it was both one of the worst days of the year, but also one of the more exciting days of the year. And we'll talk about our experiences going back to school as we get deeper into this episode, but we thought we'd start with what's happening in our state. Our podcast is based in Texas, and there are some new laws that go into effect for kids going back to school this year that might be a good place to kick off this discussion.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes. So there's some that I think are great. There's some that I think that we're going to disagree with. First of all, the one that I think is the most impactful and that is here in Texas, and this is being done across the country. Total cell phone ban in school. So it's not just cell phones. It's also personal communication devices, so the kids can't do the workaround of. Yeah, My Apple watch or the iPad you have. It's personal iPads, not the school issued ones, but yeah. So a total ban on these communication devices and going around the studio here. I give thumbs up to this one.

[George Dunham]

Oh, really? Why don't you go yell at that cloud out there?

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, I know.

[George Dunham]

Don't you get with it, man. We need our phones and we need them now. And I don't need a teacher sweating me about using my phone to text my girlfriend.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. Or to post on Soch.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, I got a Soch.

[Gordon Keith]

Hey, check it out. Salisbury steak day.

[George Dunham]

No, I think it's a good thing. I think these are a huge distraction and especially in our state. Are we still 44th in the country in education? I mean, let's, let's start doing something to at least try to get the kids engaged and, and get better.

[Craig Miller]

I think it's about the best thing they could possibly have done entering this school year. And this happened faster than I thought. Told you guys, I read that book, the Anxious Generation last year. It's a must read for any parent. And, and it talks about how when the smartphone, the iPhone in particular hit the market, which was 2011, somewhere in there.

[Gordon Keith]

Oh, I think it's 2008.

[Craig Miller]

Wasn't it 2008? Maybe it was.08.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, 0708.

[Craig Miller]

That right after that, that's when all of these terrible things that started happening to adolescents in particular, the numbers started to skyrocket. Depression, suicidal thoughts, self harm, anxiety, digital addiction. And from that moment, they can't point to anything else that led to a rise across the board in all of those really disturbing categories for kids. So they linked it to. That was when kids had the Internet in their hand, could take it anywhere they went, including school, because schools didn't care if you were sitting there on your phone during class, which I just can't imagine that that was a thing, but it was. And it really increased the social anxiety and the pressure for girls. And what it did for boys was they became addicted to gaming and porn. And none of that is good for kids who are trying to learn. And so the author of this book, in fact, said the number one thing that needs to happen is they need to ban cell phones in schools. And so I think this is a great step.

[George Dunham]

I do too. One of my kids is in the business. His company that he works for does Internet security for school districts and it applies to tablets that they get. But a thought occurred to me. I don't think it applies to phones. So you're worried about kids Going to sites that they shouldn't go to. If you don't have the cell phone and if they do have some sort of tablet that is school issued, there's not just his company that does this. There's a lot of them out there.

[Gordon Keith]

That prohibits them from going to forbidden sites.

[George Dunham]

Forbidden sites. And also what they're looking up and you can, you know, they feel like they have prevented maybe some suicides and school attacks with this technology. And if. If that doesn't apply to phones, then, yeah, I think it's a really good thing that they're not using them.

[Gordon Keith]

Can you imagine if we had had cell phones when we were kids going to school? That's all I would be paying attention to.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

You know, I do. Something that has to have gone away is note writing. Y' all remember when notes were a big thing in school and you'd pass notes and there were girls in class that would just. Notes just went back and forth between these girls and. And you'd get tapped on the shoulder and somebody would stuff a note in front of your face and motion for you to hand it on down to Michelle. That was at the end of the line.

[George Dunham]

All of a sudden you were a courier.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, you were. Everybody was couriering notes back and forth.

[George Dunham]

But those went viral, too. If the teacher ever found that you were.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Would you like to read that to the class?

[Gordon Keith]

And it's like complaining about her. Hey, is Ms. Johnson's ass gotten bigger this year? But yeah, notes. Did you guys keep notes from your high school and junior high days?

[Craig Miller]

No.

[George Dunham]

No letters? Notes? No.

[Gordon Keith]

Did you? Yeah, I still got all.

[Craig Miller]

Really?

[Gordon Keith]

Absolutely.

[Craig Miller]

How did you keep them?

[Gordon Keith]

I just always kept them. I would always be the one that preserved my. I was always running a presidential library. It seems like my whole life I've been collecting my own letters ready to rebuild the.

[George Dunham]

I can't believe that those haven't been shredded or burned at some point or thrown away.

[Gordon Keith]

I kept them. They're embarrassing, too. I need to shred them and burn them because I hate myself in them. But, yeah, there's no way that kids still pass notes like that. Maybe now with the cell phone ban, they'll start up again. But I don't think that anybody knows handwriting anymore.

[Craig Miller]

Right?

[George Dunham]

They don't. Can they still read lips? Like girls could have conversations across the room. Yeah, reading lips, which I still can't do. I don't know how they did that, but yeah, they could carry on conversations.

[Craig Miller]

Like that on the phone topic. Do you guys have an age that you think is appropriate for kids to have their own phone.

[Gordon Keith]

18.

[Craig Miller]

That's kind of what the author of that book said.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. But man, I would say most elementary school kids you see now have them.

[Gordon Keith]

Oh, yeah.

[George Dunham]

By seven, eight, certainly nine.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. And it's always the same thing. Well, when the school shooting happens, I want to be able to exchange information with my kid. That's always the reason.

[George Dunham]

And that is so tragic that that is such a top of mind topic.

[Gordon Keith]

Didn't you have the conspiracy theory that big cell phone companies were the ones creating school shootings in order to make parents buy their kids phones?

[George Dunham]

No, that wasn't my theory. I don't have a theory. But as a parent, when my kids were in junior high and high school, like any other parent, I worried about that. And I couldn't believe that I was. That I had to worry about it. That that is a thing and that schools are such a target. So are churches and other places that are supposed to be safe and that we have to spend so much time. Now we hear we have drone technology that's supposed to take out attackers.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

And it's just amazing that that's where we are now. That we spend most of our time talking about how do we secure the school. It's just ridiculous.

[Gordon Keith]

And the way to secure the school is to give your child a cell.

[George Dunham]

Phone, but then have them pack it up when they get there.

[Gordon Keith]

Where half the school shooters plan their shooting on their cell phone. So I'm not sure. It may be a net negative.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

We have friends that give their kid a flip phone. An old flip phone.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

So they can call, but they can't get online.

[Gordon Keith]

You know another thing I wonder if it's gone away because of cell phones is carvings on desks. That was a huge deal when I was growing up. You'd get an old desk that had a wooden top and people would carve their name in it or they carve their initials and whatever spare high school girlfriend they were going to break up with in two weeks in the desk. But now it's like, do kids even need to pass time like that anymore? When you got a phone that you can play a game on or you can text your friends or you can gamble on your. When you're going to have your next orgasm or whatever teenagers are doing these.

[Craig Miller]

Days, they gamble on that.

[Gordon Keith]

I'm mixing a few vices together.

[George Dunham]

Did you do that with a pin or did you have a knife?

[Gordon Keith]

Usually was. The compass was a great tool.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. About that weapon.

[Gordon Keith]

But now who's going to need to do any graffiti. I mean, we just did it to pass time.

[George Dunham]

Right.

[Gordon Keith]

But now you got a better option? Cell phone. Although they're taking it away.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, me too.

[Gordon Keith]

Another one. Next issue is the Ten Commandments. Here in Texas, elementary schools and secondary schools are required to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom starting this school year. And it has to be at least 16 inches by 20 inches. Big.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. I don't get this.

[Gordon Keith]

Hugh Giorgio on his religious diatribe. Because I thought you were for this.

[George Dunham]

No, because it does blur the lines between church and state. I do think that if we are going to put something in a classroom, I don't think the Ten Commandments are that offensive. I think we can agree to most of those. At least seven out of ten. Maybe you shouldn't kill eight. Yeah. How you treat your neighbor and all that. But it does blur the lines. And I could. To me, it's just another thing for us to fight about. In our case, this is our state where we will fight about it. But I'm sure they'll have these in other states as well.

[Craig Miller]

It's a little weird to me. I agree. The thought behind the Ten Commandments and trying to teach that to kids is probably not a bad thing. I grew up going to Catholic schools, so we had religion everywhere in our schools, but they were religious schools. They were parochial. We had religion class every day of my life, my childhood. But these are public schools. And I just think that's weird, forcing religion in a public school or any public place.

[Gordon Keith]

And do they only do. I don't know the. I haven't read The Senate Bill 10, which is the one here in Texas that makes this a requirement. Do they allow other religions also to have put up their list of 10 guidelines or rules or.

[George Dunham]

I don't think that would be.

[Gordon Keith]

Can the local Wiccan put up there witches read.

[George Dunham]

That's not 10 commandment. So I don't think so.

[Craig Miller]

That's what's weird about this. Because yes, the answer is a hard no.

[Gordon Keith]

It's only abramic religions, I guess.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

From Abraham.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

He wasn't the guy that went up there and got him, though. It was Moses that drew the short straw that had to go up the mountain. Moses Malone. Sinai, yeah, it was Moses Malone.

[George Dunham]

He carried the 76ers there.

[Gordon Keith]

And didn't he bring down like 15 commandments and he dropped one of the tablets or something?

[Craig Miller]

Very funny scene.

[Gordon Keith]

Something like that. All right. And Then Senate Bill 12 bans teaching gender identity and sexual orientation and requires parents to opt their children into sex education. You know, before I think the old policy we were coming up. You could opt your kid out. Is that the case? Couldn't you done that? Like you could opt your kid out of the sex education portion, but now you have to opt in to it. And you know, when I think back to growing up, I don't remember the fifth grade. Boys go into one auditorium and girls go into another one.

[George Dunham]

Yes. That's the way we did it.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. That's the way everyone has that experience. And for some reason I don't remember that. I wonder if my parents opted me out maybe.

[George Dunham]

Opted out?

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, because I would have opted into going into the girls one. That's the one I wanted to learn the most about.

[George Dunham]

I just remember that being really uncomfortable.

[Gordon Keith]

What?

[George Dunham]

And all the boys. Nobody could handle any of the terms. Any of the film sessions that you had to watch. Mr. Lob would lose control. It was just awful.

[Gordon Keith]

Mr. Knob would lose control.

[George Dunham]

Lobby.

[Craig Miller]

I only remember one sex ed class and I think I was maybe sixth grade and we were all in there together, boys and girls, and they ran a film and it taught you some of the very basics. And then it had a very close up view of a childbirth. It showed a child being born. So it sticks with me today.

[George Dunham]

You're not ready for that in fifth grade. I don't know why we have to go there.

[Craig Miller]

No.

[Gordon Keith]

Jelly filled baby head parting meat curtains.

[Craig Miller]

Bingo.

[Gordon Keith]

You know what? They probably did that in order to scare you. It wasn't to teach you about childbirth. It was to scare the girls and.

[George Dunham]

Be part of this. Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

That they were like, I'm gonna have to play some serious goalie here maybe.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. You're not ready for that in fifth grade.

[Gordon Keith]

And the sex films, it seems like when that they show showed kids back in the day, weren't they so watered down you still couldn't make exact sense of what was happening here?

[Craig Miller]

Right.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. I'm still a little confused on it.

[Gordon Keith]

Oh, no, dear George.

[George Dunham]

It's very confusing.

[Gordon Keith]

All right. And then Senate Bill 314 here in Texas. I think this is a good one. Ban certain food additives in school lunches. And they listed seven additives. Tell me if you know what any of these things are. Brominated vegetable oil.

[George Dunham]

No.

[Gordon Keith]

Potassium bromate. Propyl, Paraben. Azadicarbonamide. I nailed that.

[George Dunham]

No. It sounds like a decent idea though. I don't know what we're feeding our kids now, but it's probably not good. And it probably does have to. Way too many additives. But that's an. That's more than just our schools. We all go to the grocery store and buy those type of products.

[Gordon Keith]

And then finally, just a couple more financial literacy courses requiring that. That's a good idea. Very good idea of teaching that. And then they did eight and a half billion dollars in public education funding, teacher salary and things like that here in Texas and everything. But the big cultural issues that, of course are beyond Texas are Ten Commandments, gender identity and sexuality teaching, and then the cell phone ban. Those are the big cultural ones.

[Craig Miller]

The financial literacy thing, I can't believe that we haven't been teaching that to kids for 100 years. Why. Why are we just now putting that on the books?

[Gordon Keith]

I don't know. I just found. Yesterday, I found my old paychecks from my first job. I made $3.80 an hour.

[Craig Miller]

Not bad.

[George Dunham]

Was that the job that you didn't get paid for six months because you didn't do the paperwork?

[Gordon Keith]

That is the job, yes.

[George Dunham]

That's amazing.

[Gordon Keith]

Because I didn't have a Social Security number. My parents, after I was born, you know, now I think that the hospitals, they shove those Social Security papers right in front of the parent, so you have to register for our government where they can surveil you.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

But my parents never got me a Social Security number. So I started my job, first job, when I was 16, and I didn't have a Social Security number. And the people that hired me said, hey, okay, you need to go down this week, you know, and get yourself a Social Security number. And typical me, I put it off to the next week, the next week and the next week. And pretty soon six months had gone by and I'd worked without a paycheck. They couldn't issue me a paycheck until I had a Social Security number. But I was too lazy to go down and get one. And so I worked for no pay until that first paycheck I got, which was great. I'm like, this is the greatest job ever. Look how much my paychecks are. Because it was six months of back pay.

[Craig Miller]

So were you financially illiterate?

[Gordon Keith]

Extreme. I still am, and I'm proud of that.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, I think. I don't know what's taken so long in that. And the Ten Commandments, if you want to put that in a classroom. We brought this up on a radio show. Why don't we teach ethics or at least talk about what's right and what's wrong? And we don't really talk about that much, at least in my education. I didn't. My kids, they never had a class like that. How you treat people, what's. What's wrong with that? I don't know.

[Gordon Keith]

I'm still thinking about financial literacy. Something else I don't understand now. Okay, think about this. Financial literacy on adults. How many adults do you think understand marginal tax rates?

[Craig Miller]

Very few.

[Gordon Keith]

Like, I think I was in my 20s, mid-20s before someone explained it to me. And, and it made sense. Like, I just thought that once you moved up to a higher tax bracket, all of your income was taxed at that level. Yeah, that's something. You know what it is, George?

[George Dunham]

It's very marginal.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, that's right. It's marginal. Yes. Stuff like that. Compounding interest, all those things that were so mysterious to me that I had to learn as an adult because my education did not teach me. So financial literacy should be thumbs up.

[Craig Miller]

Yes.

[Gordon Keith]

And yes. Teaching ethics in school should be a requirement. I'm assuming Craig got that in Catholic school.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, I was going to say, when you're taking a religion class every day, they're teaching, teaching that somewhere in there kind of daily.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

They're teaching you right from wrong. Be nice to your neighbor. Do the right thing. Help your community. There, There is a lot of that. We had community service programs, you know, that the kids were made to take part in.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. And I know they have. Some school districts have stepped forward and they have like a. A day where they have just that it focus on how you treat people. And it's a program to where, okay, we're going to put these kids over here and we're going to put these kids over here and they're treated differently. And then you try to figure out why were they treated differently? It was because they had a certain type of pant on or something like that. And then you realize, okay, wait a minute, we treated them differently because of this. And it just gets the whole thought process started. My kids were in a program to where it was almost like a truth session to where he said, have you ever been abused?

[Gordon Keith]

They made kids say that in front of other kids.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. And they would step forward. Have you ever had this happen to you?

[Gordon Keith]

Like sexual abuse? Kids had to talk about that in front of them.

[George Dunham]

Not necessarily sexual abuse, but have you ever been, what you would say, bullied? Or have you ever been, you know, treated to what you think is abuse by an adult? Have you ever wondered where your next meal is coming from? And the people that would step forward with the idea of, wow, I thought I was the only one that had that problem. And it was really a good thought process.

[Craig Miller]

And I can't believe those kids stepped forward.

[George Dunham]

Some didn't.

[Craig Miller]

That'd be hard for you, I would.

[George Dunham]

Think, you know, during the course of a day. And it wasn't all that. Sometimes it was. Have you ever treated someone in a really rude way? You know, have you ever bullied someone? Or have you ever felt like you've been bullied? You know, it wasn't all just real deep personal questions. But it got the kids to think. And maybe it wore off after about three days. But I remember thinking, I'm so glad that school district did that. Or at least you get the conversation going. But why don't we do that on a consistent basis as a part of a curriculum? I'm not an educator. I. As we're about to talk about. School was always very miserable to me, But I do think we spent so much time on matters that maybe we don't carry with us to adulthood, that I think you can make a very strong impression with kids and just something as simple as how you treat others.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. And back in the day, I don't even remember there being a stigma to being a bully.

[George Dunham]

No.

[Gordon Keith]

It's like half of 80s movies are about bullies.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

How funny they were.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. So at least now there's. There's some awareness of bullying and the horrible, traumatic damage that it does to kids. Yeah. School is a prison sentence to me. I feel bad for all these kids going back to school.

[George Dunham]

I do, too. It's a very anxious day to me.

[Gordon Keith]

Some kids love it. I mean, I've heard from kids say that I'm. I'm ready. I'm wanting to go back to school.

[Craig Miller]

Wow.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

Imagine that. Yeah. For me, it was, as I said at the outset of this exciting episode eight. For me, it was the worst day of the year because I hated school. But it was kind of exciting because you got to see if there were any new kids in your class, what your seating assignments were, your teachers, what they were going to be like. You had all your new. If you had a new lunchbox or something like that.

[Gordon Keith]

So that part was cool. I love shopping for school supplies and picking out the new lunchbox.

[Craig Miller]

There was a hint of excitement there. But in general, for me, it was a day of dread going back to school because I knew I had a long time before I was free again for the summer and could play.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. If homeschool was a thing when we were growing up, I would have pleaded My parents, please let me be homeschooled. I don't want to go to that prison as you guys described it as. And there was some, you know, I wanted to be around my friends, but all of it, from being lost in the classroom, from daydreaming in the classroom to. Yeah, the bullying aspect of it we've talked about a little bit a couple of episodes ago. Yeah, I didn't like it. And then when I started having kids and would take them, I was always anxious for them. And I don't think any of them were as freaked out by school as I was. And they all did really well. But I remember dropping off my oldest at kindergarten. My wife was at work, so I dropped him off. That was like, the saddest day of my life.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Like, oh, my God, my baby's going to school. And I cried all the way into work. And, yeah, it was a. It was a terrible, dark day. And I felt for him, oh, gosh, he's got to get. He's got 12 years of this.

[Craig Miller]

That's interesting you say that, because my mom always told me that the worst slash saddest moment of her life was when she dropped me off for first grade.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes.

[Craig Miller]

Because I didn't go to kindergarten. I went to first grade. And she said, watching little old me walk up the steps into that grade school.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, they don't know how to take care of him. Right. He can't go in there all by himself.

[Gordon Keith]

The last sniff of the umbilical cord is that moment when the kid goes into kindergarten.

[Craig Miller]

Same thing. She cried all the way home.

[George Dunham]

She said, oh, yeah, I cried all the way into work that day. And it got easier with our second one and then our third one who came along eight years later. He was very well adjusted. You know, he's going to games and he's going to pick up his brothers at school. So I thought this was going to be an easy one. And that one turned out to be the most traumatic for a child because that day my wife took him and he fell apart. And after she left, well, I thought.

[Gordon Keith]

You said that they were. Is this the one where he turned and asked her.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. The heartbreaking thing was, it's time for her to leave. I think they had, you know, coffee and donuts and things like that and, you know, make everyone feel good. This is kindergarten. And finally, you know, some mom started leaving, and he said to my wife, mom, where are you going to sit, sweetheart? I'm going to go now. I'll be back for too long. And he Lost it.

[Gordon Keith]

And he thought all of kindergarten was kids and their moms.

[George Dunham]

Kids and their moms. This is going to be great. And he could not be consoled. And finally my wife had to be notified because she went down to another, I think they call it the boohoo banquet, where all the moms would go to cry and to console each other. And she had to be notified there by the teacher because apparently he said to her, if you really love me, you will contact my mom right now. And so my wife came back and talked to him and calmed me down. He was fine. And he had a really good experience in kindergarten and was a really good student after that. But the one who I didn't worry about had that same feeling I did as a parent. And I did that first day at kindergarten, which I thought, oh, my gosh, I don't know what this is, but this is awful.

[Gordon Keith]

I begged my mom to homeschool me.

[George Dunham]

Did you really?

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, she wanted no part of it.

[George Dunham]

Your mom was probably so glad.

[Gordon Keith]

Her quote was, I need a break from you.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, we've experienced that a little bit. Taking our daughter to pre K classes. And she was doing, you know, a half a day here, maybe two days a week, things like that to start out. And the first few times we took her, she, you know, was clinging to us and. But they instruct you as the parent to say goodbye and then get the hell out of there. Hightail it out of there, hightail it out of there.

[Gordon Keith]

And the teacher glide, however, you need to get out of there quickly.

[Craig Miller]

And the teacher will deal with the kid crying and then calm them down. And then the teacher always told us, yeah, she cried for about a minute and then she was fine, right?

[George Dunham]

Yeah, they're usually fine. And eventually my son was that day. But yeah, just that, that, that whole thing of. Just that first day of, of class. And you knew that you had the entire fall, the entire winter, all of spring. Didn't the years just seem like forever? Forever. And as adults, the years just fly by. Now one month goes to the next. But I remember that hopeless feeling in September or August, I guess, of man, this is going to be one long sucker.

[Unknown]

This is the story breaking right now.

[George Dunham]

Fox one is coming soon, which means.

[Craig Miller]

Soon you can be there, live for.

[George Dunham]

All the biggest moments. She is good. And witness history as, as it's made.

[Gordon Keith]

It's not about me. It's about what this human space flight program is about. It's our national goals.

[George Dunham]

Get all of your favorite news, sports and entertainment with a side of.

[Craig Miller]

I Think I may have peed a little.

[George Dunham]

All in One app streaming live on August 21st. Fox 1.

[Gordon Keith]

Jim Rome takes on sports.

[Unknown]

Why? Because you're not playing me with rapid fire takes. Y' all went from the super bowl straight to the 20 toilet bowl. He's not over the NFL. The NFL is over him. Scorching debates, all the good, all the bad, all the ups, all the downs.

[Craig Miller]

He's the spitfire of sports Smack.

[Unknown]

Sorry for what I said because it was appropriate when I said it, but I can't say it anymore. Dude, you are killing the game.

[George Dunham]

The Jim Rome show podcast.

[Gordon Keith]

Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Have you heard of college doomsday kits?

[George Dunham]

No.

[Gordon Keith]

I don't know if it's an official title, but I did see the story about parents now sending their kids to college with their college doomsday kit, which is basically a care package of Narcan, condoms and Plan B.

[Craig Miller]

Really?

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. You know, I guess you're being smart, right? With experimental college kids with fentanyl and everything. And so you want them to have that shot if they need it or need it for one of their friends. And of course, condoms is smart because as you guys remember, as you guys have told me your stories, just, gosh, okay, amount of condoms.

[George Dunham]

Stop making up stories. That's another one that you've got a ways until you have to do this. But the day you take your child to college, you would think that would be. And by the way, that's another change. We drove ourselves to college right. Back in the day, were glad to.

[Craig Miller]

Get rid of us.

[George Dunham]

But parents generally take their kids to. To school now.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, it's a big thing. They drop them off, they fix up the dorm room for us, help them move in. We didn't get any of that.

[Gordon Keith]

Parents are the logistics crew.

[George Dunham]

Right.

[Gordon Keith]

That has to make everything get from point A to point B and everything set up.

[Craig Miller]

It's like, I know, when did that start? Because back in our day, going to college 40 years ago, no parents came with the kids that I remember.

[George Dunham]

No, whenever helicopter parenting started, I guess that's when it started at the college level. But that is a tough day.

[Gordon Keith]

There's a cloud you can yell at right over there.

[George Dunham]

That is a tough day, though. The. The first one again, that same feeling back in kindergarten. Well, he can't go to school and he's not under our roof. How's he going to. How's he going to do that? And then the last one, when we knew we were going to be empty nesters, that was. That was really tough. That doesn't seem like it because of our view of it as the student to parent. But just wait until it's time to go to college and man, that is a real tough one. Yeah, I bet.

[Craig Miller]

I remember for me, from the student perspective, I hated going back to school, grades one through 12. But grade 13, going off to college, that was exciting. I couldn't wait to get to college because it felt like you were finally an adult and you could make all your own decisions. You didn't have to go to class if you didn't want to.

[George Dunham]

No, we took advantage of that.

[Craig Miller]

You had a car, you know, in charge of your own meals. And I loved back to school when it came to college, but dreaded it in grade school and high school. Yeah, like I said, the only exciting thing was seeing if you're, you know, maybe a couple girls that you liked, how they matured over the summer. Oh, maybe you'd be sitting next to them in class, you know, maybe stalker. Maybe somehow.

[George Dunham]

Talent evaluation.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah, it was a talent evaluation day. See if they're a new Scouts recruiting class. Anybody had come in and joined the class.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, new girl, looked like a prospect. Oh, please.

[Gordon Keith]

Know what you're talking about.

[George Dunham]

You're going to be offended.

[Gordon Keith]

I'm only interested in the learning opportunities that were being presented to me at the time.

[George Dunham]

Mr. Class Clown, you just looked at it as, okay, what stage am I performing on this year? Okay, her class. All right, I'll kill it.

[Gordon Keith]

That's what I called my class schedule, my performance schedule.

[George Dunham]

What stages you're gonna play on.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, I'm so surprised. You guys didn't keep anything from high school.

[George Dunham]

No.

[Craig Miller]

Well, I kept some notes. Yeah, yearbook. I kept notebooks from high school and college. You know, stuff that I scribbled comedy on or funny notes maybe, or pictures or. But I didn't really keep a whole lot.

[Gordon Keith]

I've been shocked. You know, one of the things I like to do is go to estate sales because they depress me and I just can't stay away from punishing myself for some unknown sin.

[George Dunham]

You like digging in other people's business?

[Gordon Keith]

Yes. Yes. And I've been shocked at how many estate sales I go to where the kid. Not the old people's yearbooks, although those are in the estate sales, too. But also their kids yearbooks are in the estate sale. And I guess maybe people just aren't sentimental about their yearbooks anymore after some certain period of time. Like, I just couldn't imagine having a garage sale, let's say. And just Put my yearbooks out there.

[Craig Miller]

I can't either.

[George Dunham]

How often do you go back and look at a high school or college yearbook? Which we were sports writers for the college yearbook. I don't know if that's right.

[Gordon Keith]

Gordon Prestigious.

[George Dunham]

How often do you guys go back and look at an old yearbook?

[Craig Miller]

Probably more than you would think. I bet I go back every couple of years and reevaluate the talent. Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Maybe just knowing that that talent's the same age now. It's not the.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

You filled out same age as sweater.

[Gordon Keith]

Over the summer, didn't you?

[George Dunham]

Oh God.

[Craig Miller]

I think it's because I'll think of somebody that I went to school with or I'll think of. I don't know what it is. Plus my yearbooks are in a shelf in a closet. That's kind of handy. So I see them a lot.

[George Dunham]

Mine are kind of buried. I Bet it's been 10 years since I've looked at my high school read.

[Gordon Keith]

Embarrassment go through and what people had written to you. Hey, let's stay in touch, man. I. I can't. We'll always be friends.

[George Dunham]

And it's like hadn't seen him since.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. Yeah.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. Boy. We ought to bring those in and read them some of the notes. And that was another thing that gave you hope for the next year. Okay. She said we ought to hang out sometime. Okay.

[Gordon Keith]

All because you've thrusted that yearbook in front of her and she didn't even know you. Hardly.

[Craig Miller]

What should I write?

[Gordon Keith]

But you were just trying to collect popular girl signatures. You were treating it as if you were. Hey, they're taking bad in practice. I want to get some. I'm getting some autographs here.

[George Dunham]

It's pathetic.

[Gordon Keith]

It is. It's so pathetic. But you would hang on to those things.

[George Dunham]

Oh yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

Like the girl actually said. She said at the end, you know, you're sweet. Oh, what did that mean?

[Craig Miller]

That's so great.

[Gordon Keith]

She may have a chance with her.

[George Dunham]

And reread it over the summer. She write that neatly. That's really nice. Start crying, punch a pillow and go to bed. What?

[Gordon Keith]

Punch a pillow like you're violent.

[George Dunham]

I said too much. That's weird.

[Craig Miller]

Gordo, you mentioned earlier for back to school we all. Especially in grade school, we had to go get our supplies. Do kids today still take their supplies to school in a cigar box?

[George Dunham]

No, no. Normally it's. That's the big thing. You fund it. At least in the public public schools it works that way. You fund it and then it's pretty much there at the school.

[Craig Miller]

Oh, all your supplies.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. Which I think is not so bad because every kid has the same thing.

[Gordon Keith]

Right.

[George Dunham]

There may be a few things that you have to bring in depending on the grade. At least that's the way it was for, for my kids.

[Gordon Keith]

My school supplies were so magical to me. I remember I had this, this plastic, it was like this really flexible plastic Crayola pencil case. And I love the smell of that thing. I'd be taking hits off of that all throughout class.

[George Dunham]

Zipper.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, it had a zipper. And you just open that thing up and I still love the smell of crayons and pencils all mixed together. That's a great smell. And then you guys probably remember the time when Trapper keepers came into vogue. Do you remember that? The Trapper Keeper that made us after you.

[Craig Miller]

The folder.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, it was the folder. Very versatile.

[Craig Miller]

And that was a little bit after us.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, I love that. I love the picking out a lunchbox. We used to have metal sided lunch boxes in elementary school that you could get different themes on.

[Craig Miller]

I brought in for show and tell. Showed you guys my NFL lunchbox, man, so huge. That was pre Buccaneers, Seahawks even.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

Because it didn't have those expansion teams on it. So it was 75 probably. But I had an NFL lunchbox, an Adam 12 lunchbox. That police show was my favorite TV show. Had one or two others, I think. But also I had a year where I took a brown bag somebody gave me for Christmas. Like a package of brown bags with my name on it. Like one of my aunts or someone gave it.

[Gordon Keith]

That's awesome.

[Craig Miller]

So I had a personalized brown bag that I would take for lunch. My school supplies. I remember in the cigar box you had to have number two pencils, you had to have a pen, you had to have a protractor, a ruler, a compass, an eraser, like a big pink eraser. You needed some glue maybe tape. Can't remember. That may have been about it. And then you had to cover all your books, your textbooks.

[George Dunham]

Oh yeah, the book covers.

[Craig Miller]

So we would use either brown paper bags or sometimes the school would give you book covers.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, that was a big thing in college too. To protect your books, hoping that you'll get more money for them when you turn them in at the end of the semester. That was always a deal. Can you name your teachers? First grade to sixth grade?

[Gordon Keith]

Absolutely.

[George Dunham]

I can too. Dresser, Kelly, Cobb, Malden, Talley, Fairbanks.

[Gordon Keith]

Dude, that's same as mine.

[George Dunham]

Whoa. Really?

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah.

[George Dunham]

You had me and Mrs. Cobb.

[Gordon Keith]

We were in classes together. I know. So Many people, though, that do not know. Like, I'll ask him. Hey, you know, who was your second grade teacher? I have no idea.

[George Dunham]

Oh, my gosh.

[Gordon Keith]

How do you not remember that? That was like your world was. Yeah, your world was so small back then. And your teacher was everything. Because you'd have that one teacher in elementary school. I'm assuming it's still the same where you still have just one teacher.

[George Dunham]

For the most part, I think. Yeah.

[Craig Miller]

Second grade is the only teacher I don't remember because first grade through eighth grade, I was at the same school in Oklahoma City. But second grade we moved to Enid, Oklahoma, and I went to a different school. And I remember a couple of my friends, but I don't really remember any of the other kids names, and I don't remember that teacher's name.

[Gordon Keith]

See, if you were like me and ran your own presidential library for yourself, you would have all that material that you could go back and find out exactly who that teacher was.

[Craig Miller]

I had sister Patricia for first grade, sister Frances for third grade, Ms. Arrington for fourth grade, until she had to leave and give birth.

[George Dunham]

Okay.

[Craig Miller]

Like in March. And then we had.

[Gordon Keith]

She was married though, right? Or was this a scandal?

[Craig Miller]

I don't know. Then Mrs. Booth for fifth and sixth grade, Mr. Carroll for seventh grade, who hated me. And one day I refused to go to school because Mr. Carroll, I thought, had it out for me. And so I told my parents, I'm not going. And they said, yes, you are. And my dad chased me into the backyard. And as my sister told the story, we had this big evergreen tree in our backyard, and my dad was chasing me around the tree. It was like a Keystone Cops thing.

[George Dunham]

How was that going to end?

[Craig Miller]

Right.

[Gordon Keith]

You just have to keep running for forever.

[Craig Miller]

You know what they did?

[Gordon Keith]

They just chop down the tree?

[Craig Miller]

No, they got it. They locked me out and I had to stay in the backyard until lunch.

[George Dunham]

You're like, fine.

[Craig Miller]

My parents went to work so I.

[George Dunham]

Don'T have to see Mr. Carroll. I'm good.

[Craig Miller]

Took. Took my sister to school, and then my mom came home for lunch and let me back in the house. That's parenting. Back in the 70s. But. So my parents called the principal of the school and said, Craig feels like Mr. Carroll's treating him unfairly and blah, blah, blah. And I had to go strike right now. I had to go back to school. Yeah. Because they were wondering where I was.

[George Dunham]

You're a holdout.

[Craig Miller]

I went back to school that next day, and we all got in line by grade in front of the school steps to go in each morning. We would do the pledge of Allegiance and we'd sing God Bless America and they'd have a school prayer and then we go in. Mr. Carroll never stopped staring at me through that whole five or ten minute thing. His eyes were fixed on me.

[Gordon Keith]

Okay, he's warring with a kid.

[Craig Miller]

He's warned with me. And I walked by him and he just stared at me as I walked by, and he stared at me in class that day. It was terrible.

[Gordon Keith]

We need to get him on the podcast, get his side of the story. There's two sides to every story.

[Craig Miller]

He's still alive. No way. He's alive.

[George Dunham]

Okay. Rest in peace.

[Gordon Keith]

Yes.

[Craig Miller]

Rest in power.

[George Dunham]

He wasn't power.

[Gordon Keith]

Rest in power, Mr. Carroll.

[Craig Miller]

He wasn't even old then.

[George Dunham]

Did you have a favorite teacher? Like, I'll never forget Ms. Talley. She was my fifth grader.

[Gordon Keith]

The hot teacher. Did you have a hot teacher?

[George Dunham]

Yeah, but it wasn't Mrs. Talley. She was just really sweet.

[Craig Miller]

That's a shot at Mrs. Talley.

[George Dunham]

Well, I didn't. She was a little bit older and I wasn't like hot for, but I really liked her because she was just really sweet. She cared about. She seemed like she cared about every individual student.

[Gordon Keith]

So she didn't have in the looks department, but she had a nice heart.

[George Dunham]

Fine. She was. Look, it's not bogged down on that. We're trying to talk about teachers. That made an impact on you.

[Gordon Keith]

Well, how ugly was she? Give us a sense.

[George Dunham]

You know what? You're going to get punched on the podcast for the first time.

[Gordon Keith]

You don't have the guts. You don't have the guts.

[George Dunham]

Anyway, I don't even know what I was talking about.

[Craig Miller]

Mine was yourself. Mine was Mrs. Booth because I had her fifth and sixth grade and she took special care with all her students. She would come over to our house and tutor me and math in particular. And my buddy Mark and I, we had a good relationship with her. We'd cut up in class and she'd tolerate it a lot. So I loved her. She was my favorite.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, the teacher just shows an interest. And for me, I was in Chicago, outside of Chicago, and she was from Texas, so she took an interest from me because my family was from Texas. She liked the Cowboys. So we would talk. Roger and Tom Landry, Danny. Yeah, Danny was just joining the team. I think he's got something.

[Gordon Keith]

So have you ever had the experience of seeing the teacher out of context, out of school? The old grocery store run in, and.

[George Dunham]

It made teacher it's like I didn't know they had normal lives.

[Gordon Keith]

Short circuit your brain because you thought that they were NPCs that only existed in that one game.

[Craig Miller]

You know what our family used to do? Since my mom was a nun, she had an affinity for the sisters that taught us. And once a year we would invite the four nuns at our St. Charles grade school over to our house for dinner. And to see the nuns drinking wine and getting tipsy. Short circuited my world.

[George Dunham]

Telling some racy jokes. Maybe it was talking about who they think is hot. I couldn't imagine your teacher coming over to your house. House.

[Craig Miller]

Much less that teacher being a nun, much less four of them. Yeah, that was always a weird night for me and my sister. We didn't know how to handle that.

[Gordon Keith]

So my favorite teacher was this teacher, my fourth grade teacher. And she was very into science. And I just thought she was great. She was. She looked very severe. She looked like she'd be mean, but. But she was really, really interesting, very smart. And I remember she would read to the class after lunch every day. And I was so engrossed in those books. And that really ignited my love of literature and she ignited my love of science because she would talk about events that had happened in the news that were science related. And I was fascinated with it. And I remember having the experience of all my fellow students. Don't seem to be as captivated as I am by the book she's reading or the science story that she's talking about. And it really felt like it was the first time my brain came alive in a way, and she really fostered that. And it was in my fourth grade year when I got really sick. I got really sick and my stomach hurt so bad and I didn't think I could go to school. And my dad, we had been out, I think we were throwing discus, me and my brother. Like the day before. My dad thought it was pulled muscle.

[George Dunham]

That's the same one you left out in the front yard. And the lawnmower hit.

[Gordon Keith]

No, that was shut.

[George Dunham]

Oh, shot put.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, yeah. My dad hit it with a lawnmower and it destroyed the lawnmower. Lawnmower exploded in our front yard. But my dad thought it was a pulled muscle, so he had me walking around the neighborhood. We lived in a big circle area, so I was walking laps and everything. Anyway, ultimately my mom convinced my dad. Jim, just please let me take him to the doctor. Come on, It's a pulled muscle. It'll work itself out. Throw some sack on it. She takes Me to the doctor. Appendicitis.

[George Dunham]

Oh, my God.

[Gordon Keith]

And I hear the doctor say, yeah, we need to get him in surgery soon. And to a 10 year old, I mean, hearing the word surgery, you think you're gonna die. Yeah, I mean, I thought that I was gonna die because I associated surgery with what they did on the TV show mash that would sometimes be on when I would walk to the living room, which was war type conditions. So I thought all surgery was that.

[Craig Miller]

Half of those patients didn't make it.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, they were always dying on the show to advance the plot. And I thought, oh, great, I'm gonna have to die to advance my parents plot here. So I go in and I get surgery. And in the convalescence of that and the recovery from that surgery, I would go over to Mrs. Guild's house at some point. I don't know what I think it was about a month's worth to try to catch up on my schoolwork after the school day. And I'd go. And that was the weirdest thing. Being in my teacher's house after school and her offering me, hey, do you want a Coke or something? And she'd go in the kitchen and fix me a Coke and bring me a Coke. And then we'd go over the material and stuff. Really freaked me out. I bet she had this mid century modern house, live in houses.

[George Dunham]

They're real people.

[Gordon Keith]

How gross, man.

[George Dunham]

God bless teachers too, who really have a passion for it and can put up with behavioral problems of some students that I won't name right now and keep going back for it year after year for not a lot of pay. That's pretty awesome. Especially the good ones that. That are truly passionate about it and want to make a difference.

[Craig Miller]

It's got to be harder today to teach. Right. Than it was 40 years ago, 60 years ago, 80 years ago.

[Gordon Keith]

It has to be, because teachers had authority back in the day. And I'm not so sure that they have the same kind of. Their rule is law.

[George Dunham]

Doesn't sound like it. And maybe my parents were different, but they always sided with the teacher. For the most part.

[Craig Miller]

Yes.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. One of Giorgio's few moments of genius was when he declared that today's parents are basically defense attorneys, as opposed to parents when it comes to conflicts at the school.

[George Dunham]

There's no way their child could have done something wrong and needs to be corrected. You don't need to tell him what they did. Tell him what he did wrong. Yeah. It's just amazing. And there are some teachers who I'm sure, like, Mr. Carroll may have had it out for you. He did. He needed to be corrected or at least talked to. But so much of the time, it's the child's problem and the parent generally, I think the teachers I've talked to and the examples that I saw when my kids were in school, it's just. Yeah, they're up there defending their kid when their kid really doesn't have much to defend.

[Gordon Keith]

Well, they also had back in the day, you guys remember this? I never had it happen to me, but they had corporal punishment in school, which I just don't understand how that's possible.

[George Dunham]

Oh, yeah, no, yeah. Paddling.

[Craig Miller]

Oh, yeah. That was a big thing in Catholic grade school in particular.

[Unknown]

When did that go away?

[George Dunham]

Small country schools in Texas.

[Gordon Keith]

When did that go away? Did they have it all through high school?

[Craig Miller]

Early 90s, maybe.

[George Dunham]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

And wasn't the deal was you could either take the demerits or the suspension or whatever, or you could just get it over with right then and get your three paddle your three licks, and then you could just go back to class.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. And they had to have a witness. Very, very prison, like, again, like schools, like a prison. And.

[Gordon Keith]

And does the principal or whoever is administering the paddling. Do they put on, like, the hood with the two eye holes that are cut out of the dark mask?

[George Dunham]

I don't know. I was facing the other way. I assumed they had that on their head because. Yeah, it felt like you were being assassinated.

[Gordon Keith]

Someone hit the video recorder. It's like recording a snuff film or something. So creepy. Did you ever get paddled?

[George Dunham]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And not really for behavior, except for Reynolds. Our bus driver one time paddled me in front of the entire bus.

[Gordon Keith]

Wait, a bus driver can paddle you as well?

[George Dunham]

Oh, yeah. Pulled the bus over because I was protesting. Who was getting dropped off first? I wanted us to get dropped off first where I lived.

[Gordon Keith]

You had opinions on his route?

[George Dunham]

Yes, because there's only one person on from Blue Lake, and there were 10 of us from Horseshoe Bay. And I said, well, why not take Horseshoe Bay home first? Then Blue Lake. And I started doing a chant of blue Lake, Blue Lake, suck, suck, suck. And the bus was pulled over.

[Gordon Keith]

Why does that whole community have to take it in the shorts?

[George Dunham]

I don't know. I was just. I was being a jerk. And he pulled the bus over and someone said, hey, George is going to get a lick. No, not one lick, not two licks, but three. And, man, Reynolds lit me up in front of the bus.

[Craig Miller]

Wow.

[George Dunham]

It's terrible.

[Craig Miller]

Can you imagine that happening?

[Gordon Keith]

You had to walk back to the seat, all sniffling, but pretending, I'm fine.

[George Dunham]

But it was on fire. And I never even told my parents.

[Gordon Keith]

Because I knew water.

[George Dunham]

I probably would have got another one when I got home. So I just. I kept my whole Blue Lake opinions to myself after that.

[Craig Miller]

I remember we had a kid who got in trouble for cussing, and he had to go to the principal's office and got a spanking for cussing. And the principal had one of those boards. And every time. And we could. We were all, you know, our. The door to our classroom was open so we could hear what was going on in the principal's office, which was right across the hall from this classroom. So we would hear, and then you'd hear the kid go, damn it, that's another one. S. And it was like four or five spankings in a row, and he dropped a curse word every time. Then finally they stopped after, like, the.

[Gordon Keith]

Sixth one, after he ran out of.

[Craig Miller]

Cuss words after he was taking such a beating.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, I wonder what the. The max was. Was it 6? Was it 4? I guess it depended on the school.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, I think it was always three, but I don't know.

[Craig Miller]

I think in private school it was as many as they wanted.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah, it was wide open. So you never got paddled?

[Craig Miller]

Nope. The one time I thought I would, a buddy of mine, we were at recess and we stayed behind. We hid in this. It was like a big H vac area where they had a thing outside the church and school fenced off and all the AC units inside the fence. So we hid back there while all the kids went in for class after lunch recess. And so we thought we had cheated the system there. We're going to get extra recess time now. We're free and we're outside of school. And when we stood up because we thought the coast was clear, our principal was standing there staring at us. And I think I tinkled in my pants when I saw that because I was so scared.

[George Dunham]

Scared.

[Craig Miller]

And all he did was open the gate and say, time to get back in class. You guys are late. And we said, oh, yeah. We didn't realize it and ran back.

[Gordon Keith]

We're just making sure the H Vac works because we want the kids to learn in comfort.

[Craig Miller]

And he had just been walking out of the church office at the time, and that's when he saw us. And my buddy turned to me and goes, he must have just gotten a.

[Gordon Keith]

Raise because he's being all nice.

[Craig Miller]

Yes, because otherwise he would have murdered us.

[George Dunham]

See? And I always wondered about the. The teacher or coach in this case, who got such glee out of delivering the punishment. Or football coach in eighth grade. Coach Saucier. Gene Saucier. It's like the second day I was there and I could not find my pads that were in my pants. Because you take your pads out, put your pants on the. On the floor or throw them in the hamper and they get washed. And I couldn't find them while I'd left them on the locker room floor. And I went into the coach's office. Hey, I can't find my thigh pads or my knee pads. Oh, yeah, got them right here. And it was a lick per pad.

[Craig Miller]

So that's four.

[Gordon Keith]

Coach does this.

[George Dunham]

Yeah. Oh, coaches were into it.

[Gordon Keith]

Coaches, bus drivers, and teachers all had the authority.

[George Dunham]

And I would say coaches were more into it than anyone. They're the ones that drilled the holes in the paddle to get little aerodynamics going.

[Gordon Keith]

Oh, my gosh. The hell was the world you grew up in?

[George Dunham]

Discipline. American discipline. Something you never learned.

[Gordon Keith]

No. It's issuing pain to people, getting joy from it. There's something sick about the world you're from.

[George Dunham]

Yeah, no doubt.

[Craig Miller]

Well, these kids don't have to face that paddling as they go back to school. I think so.

[Gordon Keith]

No. Now they're well equipped. No paddling. And every kid gets their own Narcan shot. This is a great new world for.

[Craig Miller]

All you kids heading back to school this time of year. Our condolences. Unless you really love it, then congratulations, and we're excited for your upcoming school year.

[George Dunham]

It's going to be a great year.

[Craig Miller]

Yeah.

[Gordon Keith]

Yeah. This is your year, kids.

[George Dunham]

Make it your year.

[Craig Miller]

All right, that's episode eight of the Musers, the podcast. For episode nine, we're going to start a mini series, what we Love. We'll each do an episode talking about what we love, our passion or passions in life. So join us for episode nine of the Musers, the podcast.

[Gordon Keith]

Craig, it's me, Mr. Coulson. What was that guy's name?

[George Dunham]

Carol.

[Gordon Keith]

Carol. Yeah. It's very hot down here.

[Unknown]

Hey, thanks for making it all the way to the end. We appreciate it. One more request. Wherever you are listening, please make sure you press follow or subscribe or the thumbs up button, apparently it's important. Has something to do with an algorithm.

[Gordon Keith]

Thanks.

[Unknown]

The Musers can be reached to pretty much all the social media platforms, or you can send us an email. The MusersPod gmail.com. the Musers, the podcast is a tired head production.

[Gordon Keith]

I am Michael Rosenbaum. I am Tom Welling.

[George Dunham]

Welcome to Talk Bill.

[Gordon Keith]

Where it's fun to talk about Smallville.

[George Dunham]

We're going to be talking to sometimes guest stars. Are you liking the direction Lois is going in?

[Unknown]

Yeah, because I'm getting more screen time.

[George Dunham]

Good. But mostly it's just me and Tom remembering.

[Craig Miller]

I think we all feel like there.

[Gordon Keith]

Was a scene missing here.

[Craig Miller]

You got me, Tom.

[George Dunham]

Let's revisit it.

[Gordon Keith]

Let's look at it. See what we remember.

[George Dunham]

See what we remember.

[Unknown]

I had never been around anything like that before. I mean, it was so fun.

[Gordon Keith]

Talkville.

[George Dunham]

Talkville.

[Craig Miller]

I just had a flashback.

[Gordon Keith]

Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

[Craig Miller]

Let's get into it.