Most of the classrooms were locked, but several of the science rooms were open. One in particular caught my eye. This classroom and I go way, way back. Chemistry, Physics, Advanced Chem…I took every science course offered at the time, more credits than I needed to graduate with a College Prep curriculum. I thoroughly enjoyed high school. I have two funny stories about these classrooms.

First, I got my only Deficiency Report in one of these rooms. What? A deficiency report, you ask? Yes. It said something along the lines of “doesn’t take the coursework or exams seriously” – I still have it somewhere, but couldn’t find it as I write this – but in the box for “GPA” I had a 3.8 or 3.9. I somehow managed to be a “spirited youth” and a nerdy bookworm athlete at the same time.

My second funny story was in this very room. Mr. Dillon, our beloved chemistry teacher and one of my favorite teachers ever (and who inspired me to pursue polymer chemistry in college), had recovered from a brain tumor. While removing the tumor, the doctors had to scrape an optic nerve. This left him with little, if any vision in his left eye. (In addition, the portion of his skull they had to remove to perform the surgery didn’t graft back, so he had a soft spot on his head and the other teachers bought him a hard hat as a Welcome Back present!)

Well, the class was being spunky one day…and then the bell rang. Mr. Dillon told us we had to sit still before he’d release us to go to our next class. Well, I sat along the wall by the door, and after a moment I took a gamble on his vision: I got up and walked out, correctly surmising that he wouldn’t even see me. I guess right; I went on to class without repercussions while the rest of the class stayed behind.

Hey! Here’s another one of those “never got to go there” rooms: the chemistry supply room. At least I don’t remember ever having access to this room, even though when I was in high school they still had mercury available. Mr. Dillon would pour it out on the slate table and push it around with a sheet of paper. Hey, that stuff can give you brain tumors…

There were still some chemicals waiting to be safely moved or disposed of, some of which I remembered from experiments back in my high school days. Making fruit flavors or scents, growing copper crystals, that kind of thing.

I can smell this photo. My guess is this sulfur container is older than my parents, and so I had to get a photo of it. What is it about old things drawing my attention, whether it’s windmills or containers…

For some reason, this reminds me of YouTuber “Crazy Russian Hacker” and his “Safety is number one priority” line.

This is my penultimate Mandan High School Open House post: we’ll wrap things up on the next one. I hope you’ve stuck with me this far, and I have plenty of other cool photos to post from recent photography adventures!