I tried to flush Schaeffer's sweater down the toilet.

Especially when those paths go back even farther than high school.  I think he and I were butting heads as far back as elementary school!

If my memory serves me right, Schaeffer and I ended up, briefly, in the Guilford Central School together.  Fall 1968.  Yep.

I was a newly transplated girl from New Orleans dropped unceremoniously into a tiny, extremely humble elementary school out in the boondocks of southern Vermont.  I had NO idea what the hell I was doing there and was suffering my own case of "Other-itis."  

I

In my case, as an only child of often charming, but highly eccentric parents, my wild ride hit some very bumpy patches,

More on that later.

Back to Eric: 

See as a newcomer that year to Vermont from New Orleans I had an accent.  I wore dresses and probably continuing too make my parents happy by literally curtseying to the adults they trotted me out to meet. Politely.  Of course.  That was my job.   I can promise you, however, once you curtsy to a farmer, you will never do the curtsy again as long as you live.  Which was the beginning of the end of my doing everything my parents told me to.

I digress:  Here's my memory flash:  And I have to share this, cause it's a juicy one:

Newsflash:  I tried to fake-flush Eric Schaeffer's sweater down the toilet one day.  He was just so me, me, me and full of himself as a kid who acted like he was not the new kid, only I was.  Except we BOTH were.  So after he got kids to chase me around the playground calling me "King Louis" like the monkeys in Disney's Jungle Book, I began to devise a revenge plan.  So, I hit him where it hurt.  His Red Sweater that he would tell us was proof he was so much better than us, he "really was" from NYC and "Nobody here can touch my red sweater b/c it's all his" and daily verbal rantings as to why we were not worthy of touching the hem of his garment.

Seriously.  This all happened.  And even though I've been roasting his cable show, I forgot this till now.  I know.  I can't quite believe it, myself, but it's all coming back to me.

Till I found these photos I have of my first year (not even a full year) as a second grader at The Guilford Central School.  Where, I do believe Eric and I are sitting, bewildered, in the same tiny class in 1968's first/second grade combo class.

So,  went to the back of the class room where he hung his special red sweater and placed another coat over it, then flushed the Kinder/first/second grade room toilet with the epically explosive flush sound and said "Oh no!  Something red just went down the toilet!"  Eric Schaeffer predictably ran back and went ape shit about how he KNEW someone would do something to his red sweater and I laughed at him and said it was just a joke.  And showed him the sweater.  But by then....He had gone crzazzzzzzy.

Then he was weeping and wailing and screaming.  There was a full on hit-the-floor freakout on his part and then the teacher made me stand in the hall with my face in the corner for pulling Schaeffer's leg about flushing his precious, stupid sweater down the toilet after her ran around the playground calling me "King Louis" from Disney's Jungle Book.  He was a schoolyard bully, so, frankly,  I was out to teach him to live and die by that by pranking him for acting like we were all country bumpkins while he was superior to us. Which is what irked me the most.

Then we did a year in HS together where we worked on plays together.  And then there was this show he did, which before I remembered the connection, was so superior to women that I had to bring him down to size.  And I realize it's hard to believe I forgot all the real life connections, but I did.  Till now.