Memories in Mr. Sohn’s Class Room

Mr. Sohn sang “Heidi Heidi Heidi Ho” slow and low almost every day as I walked in to his class on the first floor, next to the lunch room. I didn’t want to be noticed. I was 10, then 11 in his class. There were carpeted steps up the back of the windowless room, desks on each level.
Erin Carter and I made up a secret alphabet to send notes in class. It was a success. We learned our alternative letters well enough to read at nearly the same pace we read the regular English words. 27 years later I still remember most of it. One day Mr. Sohn spotted a neatly folded note as it was passed across from hand to hand between Erin and I. Ready to embarrass us so that we would surely never try that stunt again, he unfolded the paper before the class, poised to share it’s contents but sadly for him and much to our amusement, he merely turned the sheet over and over, round and round unable to make sense of our foreign scribbles.
On the first day of 6th grade, Chad Kingsley, who had grown considerably over the summer walked up and towered over me saying, “Let’s arm wrestle now.” So there in Mr. Sohn’s room, before class, we arm wrestled. He was the first person my age to beat me. Up until that year the boys and girls were around the same size and since I spent so many hours at the gymnasium doing flips and pulling myself around bars, I was strong for my age and size.
Mr. Sohn liked to play old radio programs for us. The lights would be turned low and to our delight (well mine at least, can’t speak for the others), once all had entered class for the day, a spooky old tale would come on. I guess these were from before TV, when the family would sit around the radio, entertained by tales of woe and adventure. It was obvious how much Mr. Sohn enjoyed these shows. I have a picture in my mind of him leaned back at his desk chair, hands folded on his perfectly round stomach, a contented smile playing on his face.
He was kind, gentle. He liked teaching. He liked King Lab. We liked him.