One of the requirements for my high school graduation was completion of a three week course called "Americanism vs. Communism," typically offered as part of junior-year American History. Its purpose, obviously, was to explain to rebellious teenagers that commies are bad and consumption is good, or something like that. The course material itself veered wildly between the utterly dull and the ridiculously jingoistic, as you might expect from a curriculum last updated in 1963. The students generally regarded it as a complete waste of time, but then, so was the rest of high school.
My own experience with AVC was somewhat more entertaining, due to a singular combination of personal curiosity, naivety, assigned instructor, and class environment. In spite of being in Florida's pilot accelerated learning program — filled with the best and the brightest students South Plantation High School had to offer — American History was one of the only "gifted" classes I bothered to take. While I knew many of my classmates from the literary magazine and band, I didn't really know much about the expectations of the teachers.
My instructor for American History class was a genial older gentleman named Hiram Cox: a veteran of three wars, chock full of patriotic fervor and good intentions, unbearably predictable, and utterly unprepared to deal with a gifted class full of smart-ass kids. Every time he would try to ambush us with a surprise quiz (as telegraphed by the smell of mimeograph ink in the classroom), someone would launch a pre-emptive strike, piping up with "Mr. Cox, someone said you once boxed a kangaroo in Australia. That isn't true, is it?"
Hiram would smile, put the stack of papers back down on his desk, take a deep breath, and launch into a tale of foolish bravado and broken ribs. By the time he imparted the moral to us, class would be over, postponing the quiz for another day. This trick worked time and again. If he hadn't been so deadly earnest I would have suspected him of going along with it to get out of work himself.
Because my interests have always tended toward the obscure rather than the practical, I never paid attention to geopolitics beyond James Bond novels. I wasn't an idiot, though, so I knew about the Cold War and The Bomb, and some mess called Viet Nam, and hippies (who sounded pretty cool to me), and these people called Republicans who brought disgrace on America through the actions of Boss Nixon, and that politicians in general were a waste of good air. Sadly, that was pretty much the extent of my political savvy before the AVC class.
Being a lower middle class kid who believed at a gut level in helping other people, the discovery of communism was a revelation. After stripping out the obvious propaganda in the workbook — c'mon, 1960s paranoia wasn't exactly subtle — it was clear to my fifteen-year-old mind that sharing everything with everyone was a pretty damned good idea. The only problem with it I could see was that it completely failed to take into account the inherent greed in human nature. Yes, it was a fatal flaw, but the basic premise was just so good that my amazement overwhelmed my common sense. When we the class discussion part of the lesson came around, I shared my newfound wisdom with the rest of the students.
"In a perfect world this communism thing would be great! Too bad it would never work in real life."
The giggles started immediately, but I had to turn around to see why. Poor Hiram's eyes began to bulge, and his chubby cheeks flushed with anger. He started blustering about how evil commies were, how they are always looking for a chance to destroy our way of life, and how terrible it was to even pretend that there was anything good about their Godless way of life. Was I really so ignorant as to believe that communism was good?
The rest of the class stopped trying to stifle their laughter, which did nothing to calm the situation.
"I didn't say communism was good, Mr. Cox, just that it is a good theory! I know it doesn't work!"
He couldn't even hear me, deafened by his own rage. If not for the timely sounding of the end of class bell, I'm certain he would have died of apoplexy.
All the students laughed about it in the hall between classes, with one wit doing a wicked impression of the old man's fury. By the time stage band practice was over, though, I had completely forgotten about the incident.
The next morning I was called to my guidance counselor's office. We had a very friendly relationship, and sometimes I would stop by just to chat for a while. Not this time. Miss Talley cut to the chase: "Okay, what happened yesterday? What did you do to get Hiram so worked up?"
She took me by surprise, and at first I had no idea what she was talking about. I didn't even have a chance to figure it out before she interrupted me.
"Why did the FBI call me this morning asking about your school record?"
She now had my undivided attention.
"I just spent half an hour reviewing your school record with an FBI agent — GPA, class schedule, extracurricular hobbies, participation in student government. Do you know why they wanted to know? Maybe you want to tell me why Hiram thinks you are a communist spy?"
It took a lot of effort, but I managed to stifle my laughter. A spy? One remark in class and I was a spy? Was Hiram really that concerned about the purity of my precious bodily fluids? But, I supposed, in his mind the equation worked out like this: accelerated student + likes communism = spy, and spy = call the Feds.
After our previous class he must have called the Feds to warn them of a looming threat to the American way of life: me. The Feds called the school, Miss Talley answered their questions, they thanked her for her cooperation, and she sent a runner to get me out of chemistry.
I probably should have been a little more concerned, particularly since my father served in Army Intelligence during the Korean conflict, but as I mentioned, I didn't pay much attention to politics. Instead I stammered out "This is so cool!" to Miss Talley, and lost it completely. She had been doing a valiant job of maintaining a professional demeanor in the face of my irreverence, but at my outburst she finally gave up and allowed herself a small chuckle. Maybe the same image went through her mind as through mine: skinny, nerdy me, standing under a streetlight and wearing a trench coat, passing on all the national secrets I had gathered from the drill team during band practice.
She sent me back to class with a warning to keep a low profile around Hiram for a while, and to keep my mouth shut about this whole incident.
The remainder of the AVC course went smoothly, although my participation was understandably limited. We were lectured on all the important historical facts: Brezhnev banged his shoe on a desk, Oswald was brainwashed and/or acted alone, Cuba was one big missile aimed at Florida, and the jury was still out on fluoridated water. I doubt that anyone was swayed by Hiram's rhetoric, but we all learned that in the school system's opinion, communism was bad, and that topic was not open for discussion.
I never heard anything else from the FBI, so I doubt they even opened an official file on me. Still, the idea that they may have monitored me — or might even be monitoring me today! — makes me laugh. Maybe I've become a rite of passage for junior g-men, a kind of hazing. Imagine some poor shmuck fresh from the academy, listening in on my tedious phone calls, poring over my e-mail, cross-referencing my web site, and saying to himself, "This guys a spy? No wonder they lost the Cold War!"
[Note: If this sounds vaguely familiar you are probably a long-time reader of Hidden City. An abbreviated version of this story was published back in June, 2004.]
