She almost got me through chemistry

Carol Wright, Class of '66 SWCS
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.

ELEVENTH GRADE, SWCS - It wasn't that I couldn't learn chemistry, it was just that, well, I had this thing about carrying textbooks home.

I mean, why carry the damn things when I never opened them? I was usually so beat from wrestling in the winter, and track in the spring, that the idea of opening a book at my house was out of the question. (In the fall, I was just too lazy to carry books, also. Just ask Sue Guertin Chandler...)

Hence, I failed both Math 11 and Chemistry junior year.

But this posting isn't to detail my shortcomings. Even cyberspace isn't ready for that litany. But I put Carol Wright in today's spotlight because she came soooo close to getting me through chemistry. We sat in the back of Henry Weiss's class (if ever there was a role model for a mad scientist, it was Hank). And sometime in the spring, Carol started giving me some coaching, which I gladly accepted because I was headed to summer school like an Erie Lackawanna freight out of control.

The only thing I remember clearly was her laughing at my answers, but always, always being very patient. My scores improved in the tests in class and for a brief and shining moment (I'm allowed one cornball cliche per blog. Check the rules, please.), for one brief and shining moment I thought I would be able to pass the regents exam.

I missed it by one point.

Mille fois merde!

I saw Carol at the 20th reunion, made a few atomic jokes and moved back to the bar when I spent way too much time that night. But one night several years later I had a frightening nightmare that she was in some kind of trouble. I wrote her a letter to the address that was listed with our reunion materials but never heard back from her. The letter might have been frankly a little bit, well, weird, I suppose. (I know, you can't imagine that.)

Her chemistry coaching paid off for me. I took the class in summer school at Chautaqua, sitting next to a young lady named Nancy Patchen (another story). I breezed through the class and got at 85 on the regents test - without ever taking the textbook home on the back of my Yamaha.

So today's song? Whaddya think? Come on!

It's "Oh Carol," of course.

Oh Carol
by Neil Sedaka

Oh! Carol!
I am but a fool
darling i love you
though you treat me cruel
You hurt me
and you make me cry
but if you leave me
I will surely die

Darling, there will never be another
'cause i love you so
don't ever leave me
say you'll never go

I will always treat you as my sweet heart
no matter what you do
oh! Soriya
i'm so in love with you

Darling, there will never be another
'cause i love you so
don't ever leave me
say you'll never go

I will always treat you as my sweet heart
no matter what you do
oh! Carol!
I'm so in love with you