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Have you ever been a miscreant?

Wilbur

By Wilbur
in The Café

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MickinMD KOM / QOM

MickinMD ★

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Once.

At Brooklyn Park High School, old Mr. McLoughlin taught us how to do distillations in Advanced Chemistry.  He was close to retiring, out of the classroom most of the time we had labs, and John, Mike, Charles, and I decided we should try distilling alcohol when he wasn't looking.

So we got sugar and yeast, cleaned out a big 5 gallon glass container, and mixed the sugar and yeast with water and hid it under a table in the back of the lab.

The front of the room was a regular classroom and after a few days the jug was bubbling and Mr. Mac was sniffing the air.  So when he wasn't looking we got a big rubber stopper that fit the opening at the top of the jug, drilled a hole in it, inserted a glass tube, attached a rubber tube to it and ran it out a window, hiding the slightly opened window by putting a box in front of it.

After a couple weeks, the mixture stopped bubbling and we knew that meant we had several percent alcohol.

So the next time we had a lab and Mr. Mac was out of the room, we set up the distillation apparatus and heated about a half liter of our brew.  As it distilled we could smell the alcohol and smiled at our cleverness!  BUT, then someone said, "OK, who's going to drink it?"

We four devils said, "We're not going to do it where we could be caught at school!"

Finally, a classmate named Linda (who I last ran into good and drunk at a bull roast) said, "I'll drink it."

We didn't realize that long-path distillation produced 95% pure alcohol - 190 proof!  So Linda took a drink, burned her throat and ran screaming for the water fountain in the hallway.  We pleaded with her to get a drink out of a lab sink but to no avail.

So, out in the hallway went Linda and a couple helpful girls plus a couple more who wanted to see if Linda was going to die - including the one I had lunch with last Friday in the picture I posted here.  Mrs. Czeronka, the meanest teacher in the school, heard the noise, got to the bottom of it, informed Mr. Mac, and soon John, Mike, Charles, and I were made to stand in trash cans while Mr. Mac berated us, saying we weren't going to amount to anything.

We all thought we were going to be expelled but now, having been a teacher myself, I know Mr. Mac would have had to explain why he wasn't in a lab class for half an hour.

He called us all kinds of names and I'm sure "miscreant" had to be one of them.

Miscreant John became an aerospace engineer and flies his own lear jet.  Miscreant Mike, who was in a local brother band much like the Osmond Brothers were a decade later, became, as Wikipedia says: "Michael "Mike" Meros (1950–2007) was an American keyboardist best known as a member of the Beach Boys touring band from 1979 until July 4, 2001. Meros hailed from the Brooklyn Park neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland."  Miscreant Charles became a lawyer.  Miscreant Me became a research chemist then science teacher who, for two years, taught chemistry in that same classroom where we made the alcohol and yes, I told my students the story. Then I was promoted to lead honors chemistry teacher at our county's and state's biggest high school.

Not bad for miscreants in a class where only about 20 out of 272 graduated from college.

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Kzoo Flahute

Kzoo

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4 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

Once.

In high school, old Mr. McLoughlin taught us how to do distillations in Advanced Chemistry.  He was close to retiring, out of the classroom most of the time we had labs, and John, Mike, Charles, and I decided we should try distilling alcohol when he wasn't looking.

So we got sugar and yeast, cleaned out a big 5 gallon glass container, and mixed the sugar and yeast with water and hid it under a table in the back of the lab.

The front of the room was a regular classroom and after a few days the jug was bubbling and Mr. Mac was sniffing the air.  So when he wasn't looking we got a big rubber stopper that fit the opening at the top of the jug, drilled a hole in it, inserted a glass tube, attached a rubber tube to it and ran it out a window, hiding the slightly opened window by putting a box in front of it.

After a couple weeks, the mixture stopped bubbling and we knew that meant we had several percent alcohol.

So the next time we had a lab and Mr. Mac was out of the room, we set up the distillation apparatus and heated about a half liter of our brew.  As it distilled we could smell the alcohol and smiled at our cleverness!  BUT, then someone said, "OK, who's going to drink it?"

We four devils said, "We're not going to do it where we could be caught at school!"

Finally, a classmate named Linda (who I last ran into good and drunk at a bull roast) said, "I'll drink it."

We didn't realize that long-path distillation produced 95% pure alcohol - 190 proof!  So Linda took a drink, burned her throat and ran screaming for the water fountain in the hallway.  We pleaded with her to get a drink out of a lab sink but to no avail.

So, out in the hallway went Linda and a couple helpful girls plus a couple more who wanted to see if Linda was going to die - including the one I had lunch with last Friday in the picture I posted here.  Mrs. Czeronka, the meanest teacher in the school, heard the noise, got to the bottom of it, informed Mr. Mac, and soon John, Mike, Charles, and I were made to stand in trash cans while Mr. Mac berated us, saying we weren't going to amount to anything.

We all thought we were going to be expelled but now, having been a teacher myself, I know Mr. Mac. would have had to explain why he wasn't in a lab class for half an hour.

He called us all kinds of names and I'm sure "miscreant" had to be one of them.

Miscreant John became an aerospace engineer and flies his own lear jet.  Miscreant Mike, who was in a local brother band much like the Osmond Brothers were a decade later, became a well-paid backup musician for the Beach Boys.  Miscreant Charles became a lawyer.  Miscreant Me became a research chemist then science teacher who, for two years, taught chemistry in that same classroom where we made the alcohol and yes, I told my students the story. Then I was promoted to lead honors chemistry teacher at our county's and state's biggest high school.

Not bad for miscreants in a class where only about 20 out of 272 graduated from college.

@jsharr

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ChrisL KOM / QOM

ChrisL

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I remember an old boss back in the day. He was a retired Marine Colonel and after I got my degree and moved on he said:

You know Chris, I gotta hand it to you, four years working graveyards and going to school full time and you never once got caught sleeping.  And you and I both know you did!

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  • 2 years later...
Ralphie Maillot Jaune

Ralphie ★

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On 6/18/2019 at 1:40 PM, BuffJim said:

I am now.  At least in the eyes of the Niagara County Public Library System.

How aboot now, @BuffJim?  Has the library cop caught up with you yet? :D

Sorry for the dredge, petite.  I first linked this from another post so it would have never surfaced in the topic list, but some bozo or another would probably have responded to it eventually, so it might as well be me and get it over with, :D

 

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BuffJim KOM / QOM

BuffJim

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Posted
16 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

How aboot now, @BuffJim?  Has the library cop caught up with you yet? :D

Sorry for the dredge, petite.  I first linked this from another post so it would have never surfaced in the topic list, but some bozo or another would probably have responded to it eventually, so it might as well be me and get it over with, :D

 

Apparently I have committed the perfect crime. I am still a free man. 

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