When Going Metric was Standard

Published in the September 2010 issue of The Warrenton Lifestyle Magazine ...

Is it just me, or were school supplies simpler a generation ago? Granted, in the seventies much of our high-tech gear hadn’t emerged on the scene. Post-its® and Wite-out® stick-pens were unknown; the singular innovation was invisible Scotch tape that didn’t pollute gift wrapping with strips of portable fog.

For school, you just needed some basics: a big binder, loose-leaf paper, and some pencils. A cigar box was required so it could be spray-painted gold or silver after noodles were glued onto the lid for the all important Mother’s Day present, but that could be bought later in the year. Even the noodles weren’t available in today’s vast and befuddling variety: You chose between macaroni or the plain shells that resembled dead mollusks. There were no requirements for highlighters, dividers, or specialized 4” x 6” neon index cards on a spiral pack, lined on one side only, please. At most, we needed a wooden ruler with inches on one side and centimeters on the other, because any year now, the US was going to go totally metric.

In so doing, we were finally going to unite with the world, save the world, or defeat the world. We weren’t sure which, but one had to be done, and this school crop of lamebrains, who had difficulty seeing the semblance in quarts and liters, would have to be trained. The metric system was so confounding, the new generation would have to be indoctrinated and converted. (Converted…wasn’t that a truly clever pun?)

Indoctrination required us to watch a Sesame-Street-esque show called “Metric Man.” Although we feigned maturity superior to its entertainment value, we secretly delighted in it. We were sophisticates belonging to the era of the folded notes passed with imaginative messages such as: “I like you. Do you like me? Check Yes or No.” The admirer usually had the courtesy to append a convenient box before the choices so the admiree could apply a checkmark in the appropriate place. In fourth and fifth grade, the only appropriate place was “NO!!!”

This was also the era of intolerance; checking both Yes and No was disallowed, even though that is how we usually feel about the people we really love. Most of the times they are so likable, but the remainder of time, unfortunately, they are not.

It had to be just one or the other back then, as when specifying one’s race. The options were limited to “White, Black, or Other.” I was always “other.” This piqued the kids in every school district I attended. Daily, they demanded to learn where my loyalties lay. Was I black or white? Surely, I was one or the other, and not Other, with a capital ‘O.’ When I told them I was neither; I was Indian, they declared defeat, but by way of retaliation, resorted to calling me “Pocahontas,” or “Poca,” for short. (This was before Disney enlightened us: Pocahontas was not merely a bright and compassionate 12-year-old daughter of a chief, but a voluptuous and leggy brown maiden with flashing eyes and a mass of raven hair that moved as if were its own life form. If Disney had produced this fiction in the 70’s, I might have delighted in the appellation.) Classmates weren’t wise to multiple race categories, but they were smart enough to reserve the jeers of “Poca” to the playground only. Nowadays, for race, we can check as many as apply: White – European, White – Anglo Saxon, or White – Eastern European.” Not only do you identify yourself as Asian or Pacific Islander, you specify the island and which end of it.

Remember “Metric Man?” Our weekly bolus of this show featured a sidekick with a rainbow propeller cap. For this, the TV had to be rolled in on a big black cart. The teacher exited the classroom to fetch this marvel of multimedia, and assigned the role of Benedict Arnold to the Pet. The Pet “took names” of all who dared to talk, squirm, laugh, pass notes, or even gas. Those whose names were recorded would be reckoned with upon the teacher’s return.

This involved a rap on the knuckles with a ruler and/or a couple of “licks” on the hand with the teacher’s miniature leather strap. This was the usual punishment for students excepting the snooty ones whose parents had refused to sign off on the corporal punishment permission slip. These unfortunates were left to hold up a book on either outstretched arm while standing in front of the class in a manner that, after about two or three minutes, looked almost as painful as the crucified form they resembled. I’m not sure what retribution the tattler, the teacher’s pet, would suffer later on the playground, but there was suffering, to be sure.

That final school supply, then, was the ruler. Crucial for measurement, it was equally effective in meting out corporal punishment. A swat on the hand was standard in school back then, but it was rapidly becoming quite metric.