Independence High and the Woodshop Box

As a young man I enjoyed a unique oportunity to learn from the experience of others.

My grandfather raised three teenagers while working for the juvenile justice system in Nevada.

NYTC was renamed Independence High School by my grandfather, to provide a more dignified diploma of education for those students who attended to learn.

My mother also worked as a teacher there many years later, while along a similar and significant career path.

Concurrently I learned many difficult lessons and facts of life, by proxy and also as a witness.


Mother was teaching a class of high school students in English, and the classroom was as usual very quiet.

Her instructors desk was oriented to face all of the students from the front and the center.

Some of the students were always thankful for her kindness and consideration, and had given her a file card organizer made in their woodshop.

An only passably groomed and still very incorrigable criminal, one of thirty students, walked to the front and stood by the desk to make a comment about that wooden box.

He picked up the stapler kept there, reached over and forced into place a single staple into between the soft layers of grain.

"Whatcha gonna do about it? ... Ms. Henderson?".

The better teacher in my Mother as always came to the surface quietly.

She picked up the stapler, looked at the student in the eye, and swung the large and heavy Swingline into his leg.

He screamed in pain and grabbed his kneecap, which was now attached firmly to his state issued jeans.

"That!"

Mom always did have a way with words.