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| ing predecessor. There was also radio commentary about rising inflation and Some Mexican-American students
increasing unemployment. in aclass at Yuma High School as-
sumed George's blond hair meant he
George was unsuccessful applying for jobs in Yuma supermarkets and dis- spoke no Spanish. They would pre-
count stores. One day about a week after his arrival, a friend of his aunt's sug- tend to not understand his instructions
gested he try substitute teaching. The school district, he learned, would allow and then carry on disrupting the class
a person with an academic master of arts in English to be a substitute teacher — with loud conversation. When George
without having taken any education courses. If he succeeded, he would only — commanded, “Calla te! (Be quiet!)”,
> have to take one course in educational psychology within a year. one of them responded, “Que verga!
¥, (What a pr---!)”
= He drove hic Chevelle to Phoenix to chow officials the required docimenta-

tion to obtain an Arizona substitute
teacher's certificate. He was interested
nm aceieaitaii: a es 5 in the Saguaro and ocotillo cacti he
li “—e 1... passed along the highway, and lis-
r _ ie oe eT eS tened to radio stations from Mexicali,
- - ; Be San Luis del Rio Colorado and points
it | ek farther south to try to maintain what
7 ee! ; little he recalled of his two years of
; : ries | high school Spanish.
™ : a ee He showed the necessary documen-
* tation to the Yuma County School
3 a aa a District administration and was put
: en ee , on the list of teachers on call. The
\ we eee ee — UG athletic teams at Yuma High School
“3 . -~ ; Fi -_were named the Yuma High Crimi-
aa — x nals, after the nineteenth-century ter-
oie , x 3 ritorial prison that was now a tourist
,- 6UlC SO P : é Fg attraction. However, George found
' ee faite lity, agal™ ae the team name to be an instance of
| : £m a truth in advertising in a way. He had
Ag 4 —*. rp 4 to pass out textbooks at the beginning
i i il : of each period to classes typically full
=» @ 7 F with 33 to 35 students, and then try to
¥ ; _—— j % collect them back at the end of class.
, ¥ a Invariably only 28 to 30 textbooks
‘ : ,— ey Se were actually returned. Many students
om * a: me would slip out the back door and
Pe, ae - 4 is gee: 7 hoped not to be noticed, and George
- ae ‘“ had to yell loudly to call them back.
. ., 4 ™ i , = They took advantage of the fact that,
a ne. a over the course of one or three days,
; ce “+ *y a he wouldn't remember all their names
same : and couldn't report the truants to the
‘ Substitution principal's office. Administrators.
. thought the rarity of a male substitute
— — teacher meant he could be assigned to
By Paul Strickland a shop class. As a holder of a liter-
EE ary degree with few carpentry skills,
George's family and friends in Reno were getting on his case when, two he could command little authority.
months after having received his master's degree in English from UBC, he Screwdrivers and other small tools
still hadn't found work except for one day of casual labour. His auntin Yuma regularly went missing.
phoned to tell him he could move there, live in a housekeeping suite in the
back of her place and look for work in that community. George got an average of three calls
per week, and, at $27 per day, he
He packed up his nine-year-old Chevelle and drove the 700 miles down there earned $54 to $81 per week — enough

in late October. It was still 98 as he drove south through the Mojave Desert to pay rent to his aunt, buy grocer-
and encountered the occasional sandstorm. Anne Murray's song, “Son of a ies and purchase gas for a thirty-mile
Rotten Gambler” and Harry Chapin's hit, “Cat's in the Cradle”, were frequent- weekend side trip to the Mexican

ly on the radio, and the radio news reports carried predictions of a Demo- border town of San Luis del Rio Colo-

cratic landslide in the congressional elections in November following Nixon's — rado to shop and practise his Spanish.
resignation and President Gerald Ford's unpopular pardon of his lawbreak-

He drove his Chevelle to Phoenix to show officials the required documenta-