One of the most feared teachers of our time

Several of us spent part of the morning remembering Mrs. Pribble, our freshman English teacher. No other teacher that I know can spark such fear and such admiration at the same time. She was a gem--one of those people who could make you hold your breath for an entire hour while still getting through your awe to teach you things you never forget.

She also had a keen sense of humor, although we rarely saw it. Debra related this story today. Makes me wish I had been a few years older.

One of the most handsome boys in the school happened to live next door to me. I had the BIGGEST crush on him, partly because of my imagination and partly because my parents teased me about him. What I didn't realize, though, is that he was that he was a "golf ball in a bunch of tall grass"--at least during those days.

And he had the misfortune of having Mrs. Pribble--the stickler for proper English and the KNOWLEDGE of its structure. One day, he had to read a sentence and name each part (noun, adverb, etc.). The sentence was, "The dog is under the house." His job was to say, "Dog--noun; is--linking verb..." etc.

Once he'd finished this, she asked, "Richard, what is 'under the house.'" She expected to hear, "A prepositional phrase."

Richard said, "The dog."

Apparently she was laughing too hard to teach for quite a few moments.