I can't believe it's over...

High School or College?

High school

Heh, heh!

Yeah, I remember dissecting frogs. Once we had the ribcage opened up, we found that we could stick a glass tube down the frog's throat, blow into it and see the lungs expand! Kinda sick!

Anyway, that smell, I believe is partly from the formaldehyde. The corpse also imparts a smell of its own.

Have fun in chemistry next year (don't blow anything up like I did!)

Mike

funny you should ask. i do recall going through this exercise. the year was '87, i believe. hardees resturant was the usual stop for lunch since it wasnt very far, or more importantly, it wasnt school. greg came from a farming family, so they did ok. his dad would give him $5 a day enabling him to purchase whatever he wanted, which was usually a chicken fillet, fries, and a dr. pepper(lg). my rations usually consisted of whatever i could dig out of the menu for the $1.25 i was alloted every day for a school lunch ticket. hamburger, small fry, and a glass of water please. the mood of the table was very somber due to the looming lab practical. neither of us had studied and were doomed to receive a failing grade. then it occurred to me. there could be no test if there were no frogs. later that afternoon, after track practice, we entered the biology lab (actually, i entered. he stood watch.) and made for the frogs. they were contained in two 55 gallon trash cans lined with a thick garbage bag. i dumped the contents of one bag into another. thats when i heard "the whistle". trouble was comming and i had to move fast. i left the cans sitting in the middle of the room and moved to a closet in the back of the lab. larry the janitor came in, emptied the trash and left just as quickly as he had came. i waited a moment or two before resuming my task. i picked up the bag containing all the frogs, 12-20 in number. my lookout gave me the all clear and i moved into the hallway. we dashed across the hall and into the ag shop. the room in the back of the gigantic shop was used to teach welding. welding was a half semester class that was conducted in the first semester. seeing how this was second semester it seem the perfect quick ditch hiding spot. not two minutes later we were out the door and smiling like champs about our caper. the teacher arrived early the next morning to prepare for the test. i was told he was soo mad, that he could not produce words. only jumbled syllables. there were 2 classes for biology. morning and afternoon. he had some time to calm down before the first class. he was not going to be deterred by the absence of real frogs and gave the test from a photo copy of a dissected frog via an old text book. out of the 15-20 people that took the test, only two passed with a D. my steel lipped partner spilled the beans to one person. just one. the entire student body had caught wind of the ordeal, including the faculty. greg was pulled out of algebra class by the principal. "now im not making any accusations, but i just wanted you to know that those frogs are actually valued at over $500 and would be considered felony theft. i just wanted you to know". the english teacher was a veitnam vet and a pretty cool guy to those that put forth the effort. he stopped both of us to flat out ask us if our asses were covered. to make matters worse, a certain senior who really needed all of his credits to graduate, had failed the photo copy test and would be looking at problems joining the military right after school. this guy had left me with a black eye earlier in the year over a "misunderstanding" about the inside of his cars windshield getting soaped. the threat of felony theft paled in comparison to this new threat. felony theft wont sodomize you with a pineapple while stepping on your throat. the mood at the table was somber with the knowledge that doom was approaching. it was then that greg looked up and said something ill never forget. "though you may hunt us down like dogs, we'll never tell you who took the frogs, but if you want to find them by this afternoon, look in the ag shop welding room." sheer genius is all i can say. we printed it on the back of a detention slip and slid it under the door of a class that had not been unlocked from lunch yet. the message made its way through the appropriate channels and the amphibious refugees were soon skirted home. the morning biology class was given the opportunity to come retake the test with the afternoon class. i got lots of dirty looks, but maintained my innocence when questioned. all the people that should have passed did. greg managed to cram enough to squeak by with a D-, while i ended up with that which i tried soo desperately to avoid. a failing grade, but an amusing story. and street cred!! you just cant buy that.

I do remember and I was living in Cincinnati at the time too. Hughes High, 1962. What I find remarkable is that they still dissect frogs after all this time? It might be the only remaining shared curriculum experience between the eras.

Why on earth do American schools still cut up frogs, what a stinking messy thing for kids to do!

Glad I was at an English school where we looked at pictures rather than dissecting, save this for medical college.

Carving up frogs was great fun. Ours were pickled. We would stake them out on a baking tray that was half full of candle wax. This way you could put a pin through their palms straight into the wax and it held them in place while you discovered how sharp a second hand scalpel isn't.

Chemistry was much better. Our first lecture started with the words "You are here today to learn how not to blow yourself up accidentally". It was a good practical approach that got our attention.

Anyway, we all survived chemistry but some in biology had to prove that the content of their stomachs was much the same as what we found inside the frogs.

Memories.

We did fetal pigs...the first day was spent making the girls sick and we trotted them around the work tables "feeding" out of the dissection trays. Later on, after the school work was done, the real work began with the frankenpiggy projects consisting of brain transplants and such...

Well you have to start somewhere! The whole purpose is to teach anatomy and how a living thing functions. In some respects it weeds out the wanna be scientist from the future real ones. Yes you start with frogs the go to latex artery and veined cats then to cadavers . But the real purpose is for you to learn something not to complain about the pickling method or media.

As for the joker who selfishly got rid of the frogs where you thinking of those who were starting on a true education or just the fact you were not prepared!!

"As for the joker who selfishly got rid of the frogs where you thinking of those who were starting on a true education or just the fact you were not prepared!!"

it is unlikely that my actions were motivated by the desire to obstruct the educational paths of my classmates. i needed a solution to my problem. the end result only delayed the inevitable. i created a chaotic situation. the teacher, the students that failed the initial test suffered mental anguish, the principal had to spend time dealing with this instead of his daily duties, students spent mental energy in areas other than their classes, and, depending on who you spoke to, i slid farther down on the credibility scale.

all in all i think the teacher got the last laugh. i was unable to play in my final football game because i was academically ineligible for this biology class. i had heard rumors of students that were given "extra credit" work to boost their grades to a level that would allow them to compete in these school activities. this option was not offered, as i was......undeserving. i still agree with that decision.

School teachers are a very special breed. All that patients and knowledge in one package.

Two notable exsamples that spring to mind are Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Charles Taylor who used to be in Liberia but is currently in the Haig for an interview.

That's cold, really cold. And so very very funny.

I was last in your country in 19080 and became a victim of Australian humor. The manufacturing company I was visiting took me to a wildlife park, where they help injured animals and relocate unwanted ones to other parts of the country. They gave me a bag of oats and sent me into this large field where I was immediately surrounded by about 30 burros, all aggressively pushing at me. A few days later, the company newsletter had a picture of me, hair askew and eyes wide in the middle of the all burros captioned, "Directors Welcome Visiting Yank". This was not a small company and the fact they would poke fun at themselves was so refreshing that it still brings a smile to my face after all this time.

Poking fun at your own misfortune is much harder than poking fun at someone else. If you can't laugh at yourself, what right have you to laugh at someone else?

Proud to be an Aussie.

But still can't remember the second stanza of our National Anthem. Not that anyone else does.

P.S. We cut up Rats in High school. Most people enjoyed it for some reason. Justice?

i really expected someone to offer me a book or movie deal for this by now. its way better than that crap the WB network spins out :)