Handling Home Ec Hostages

Last night we had pancakes for dinner. After a week of Thanksgiving leftovers, we went radical and enjoyed something completely different. As we were preparing everything, I remembered Mrs Havertine my Home Economics teacher from high school and the day I learned to make pancakes.

I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, which means in the dead of winter there was lots of snow. I do not ever remember having a snow day, not ever. One night it snowed about six feet and the next day of school was a half day. Most of the kids who went to school with us woke up that morning, saw the deep snow, and their parents let them stay home. It was only a half day after all. No need to go through the hassle of shoveling the driveway in order to get to school. Not our parents, we went to school. And when My mom pulled that station wagon out of the driveway, five or six other kids in our neighborhood got in the car with us. If the Moore kids were going to school, they were going to school. Carpool was not a fun trip that morning.

Once we got to school we realized that most everyone had decided to stay home. Teachers, staff and most of the student body was not there. Just enough people showed up to call it an actual school day, however most classes did not have teachers. For those classes where the teacher did not arrive, they were sent to our class Home Economics, with Mrs Havertine. She had an open classroom on the lowest level of the school, so my brother and a couple of our carpool buddies ended up in class with me. Horror was the emotion of the day. It was not fun for any of us to be in class together, yet we had no choice. I was the nerdy freshman and they were juniors and seniors. The entire room was full of Home Ec hostages.

After about fifteen minutes of students flowing into our class, the principal came down and told everyone to stay in this class all morning until the half school day was completed. Poor Mrs Havertine. She had to put up with the hostages all morning. What was she going to do with the group for three and a half hours. Her solution was to have everyone make breakfast for the room. There was bacon, sausage, eggs – scrambled, fried and sunny side up. Our table was assigned pancakes. That is when I learned to let the top of the pancake bubble to know when the first side was ready to be flipped. The hostage moment cemented my ability to serve perfectly brown pancakes for the rest of my days.

After we all gorged ourselves on a really big meal, she set us to the task of cleaning every inch of the food lab even if we had not utilized that piece of equipment. We had to clean the ovens, the desk tops, the tools, the stoves, everything. We had water fights and bubbles everywhere, and that place was white glove clean before we were released to go home. Her brilliance had kept that crew occupied, learning, and busy until mid day when my Mom arrived in the station wagon to take everyone home. What was an overwhelming education disaster turned into a memorable half day for us all. Her no nonsense attitude and ability to make the best of an unruly crew went down in school lore for years to come. When any other half day came during the winter months, we all wondered if the Home Ec Hostages would be reassembled for another food extravaganza.

While everyone around you is losing their head, keep yours and dig in…and of course teaching them to make pancakes doesn’t hurt.