PROFESSOR PARSE. When Mr. C. (above) diagrammed a sentence, Robert Robeson (class portrait and No. 32 in team photo) and the rest of the class listened (click on images to view larger).
His cauliflower ears made him look like he’d endured a series of nasty headlocks from a whole circuit of pro wrestlers.
In much the same way, Alan Christenson took hold of our teenage carcasses during his English classes at La Grande High School. “Mr. C.”, as we called him, didn’t release his “submission hold” until we graduated—with a much clearer understanding of our language.
La Grande was a picturesque little town of 10,000 souls 
nestled in the Blue Mountains of northeast Oregon. A physical description of Mr. C. would include no such scenic splendor. He had a barrel chest and a gruff voice. He was nearly bald and seldom smiled. His jutting chin stood out much like his ears. These twin phenomenon had evolved through years of high school and collegiate wrestling (and later coaching) without protective headgear.
Mr. C.’s photo in my high school yearbook (above) shows him pointing to diagrammed sentences on a blackboard with the yardstick he always carried. I still remember his introductory remarks to us on the first day of class during my senior year in 1960.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “I didn’t get these (pointing to his ears) from smelling roses. (Long pause) This is a mandatory course for graduation. Nobody cuts my class.
“If you’re ill,” he added, “I’ll mark you excused only if your personal physician comes to class and hands me a note certifying you’re nigh unto death.”
There was another long pause, followed by Mr. C.’s closing remark: “And if you die, you won’t have to worry about graduation anyway.”
Comparing Mr. C. to my other teachers was like comparing a garden lizard to Godzilla. Those who didn’t take him seriously soon felt the vibrations of his trusty yardstick tapping on their desk. It was an experience that had a heightening effect on pulse and respiration rates and stimulated the ol’ brain to scurry around for better answers—or excuses (which only made matters worse)!
Mr. C. was a stickler for perfect English. Diagramming and dissecting parts of a sentence with the ease of a machete slicing through sugarcane, he energetically shared his fervor for language.
Every day we played his version of “coronary English.” That was the game in which he asked the questions and we—if we didn’t know the answers or hadn’t done our homework—suffered near heart attacks under his unflinching gaze. I learned more about proper English from one year in his high school class than I did from any English course or journalism class I later took on the collegiate or graduate levels.
The time I spent under Mr. C.’s authoritarian tutelage was a mere heartbeat in history, but one that still holds great significance for me many years later. Every time I look back through my yearbook, I smile and wonder what he’d say if he knew I’d published anything. He’d probably tap me on the shoulder with his yardstick and say, “Mr. Robeson, you survived my class. You can write for anybody.”
And he’d be right, too. I’ve placed articles and short stories in national publications over the years and have been a newspaper editor and columnist. Along the way, I’ve come to love the English language nearly as much as my barrel-chested instructor did.
I think this country could use a few more teachers like Mr. C. (but maybe without the cauliflower ears).
By Robert Robeson
Lincoln, Nebraska
