I was sometimes a rebellious and hair-trigger type during my senior year in Wilton High School. I goofed around, was given detention a few times. I was busted for smoking once in the men’s room, and also in the women’s room.
The notion in the latter case was that I’d be less likely to be found out if I was catching a smoke wih the girls, who were totally cool with me by the way. But I was popped regardless, and the vice-principal and head disciplinarian, Richard Sell, made a point of carefully interviewing the girls who were in the bathroom at the time, wanting to know if I had behaved in an inappropriate fashion. They all said “nope.”
I nonetheless had a checkered history with Sell, and it all came to a climax sometime in April or May. An altercation of some kind happened. Disobedience over something. Sell startled me by grabbing my arm, and I, being an idiot, pushed back hard, knocking him off balance. You don’t do that to the vice-principal of your high school, but I wasn’t an emotionally mature fellow back then, to put it mildly.
A case could have been made, in fact, that I’d flat-out struck the poor guy, and that wouldn’t have meant suspension but expulsion. But you know what? Dick Sell let it go. With the wisdom of Solomon he graciously and compassionately let me slide. I was filled with enormous gratitude for this, and I’ve never forgotten it. I was facing the electric chair, and Dick gave me parole.