My diary -October 9-11, 1972

Susan Fisch Good
Jun 13
2 min read

Math teacher: Mr. James Loucks — My math teacher

October 9, 1972 Mon.

Dear Flowers:

Lets see!!! SCHOOL YEAKS! Bill gave me back my ruler (he had lost it). Chocho verdad. Stayed after for Drama. In P.E. we had to jump rope around the court. I learned how to do the can-can dance! Jenni, the girl with glasses like mine taught me. Drama fun. Did English! Well got to go. Wish me luck with English! Mom & Dad at Ray Carols.

BYE!

Note: Chocho verdad - I was using it as “Crazy, right?” Or “Can you believe it?” In Puerto Rico and some other countries, chocho is a bad word with sexual connotations, but it wasn’t offensive slang in Nicaragua.

To this day, I love to learn and explore new things. In a previous post, I mentioned that Anita Hoar taught me how to belly dance, and now in this one, I am learning the can-can dance. You would think I was a great dancer, but I am not! I just enjoy it.

Jumping rope was a big activity for us, especially when I was in elementary school in Colombia.

October 10, 1972 Tues.

Dear Flowers:

I got an 89 on Math & dear old Looeks said anyone under 90 take it over again!!! Sold 2 more tickets!!! Had tennis lesson. Robert gave me part of my lesson (now I call him teacher) Went swimming. Watched T.V. Wish me luck on Science test & Math & English composition.

BYE!!

Note: I am not sure if I am selling tickets for a Kermess (school fair) or drama productions; either way, I was excited to sell some more tickets.

Not too thrilled with my math teacher, Mr. Loucks. I don’t remember much about him; I think he wasn’t at our school very long.

October 11, 1972 Wed.

Dear Flowers:

Just listened to a lousy song (full of swear words) named PUSHER! Test were hard. Last day of school for me till Mon. Sold 3 tickets!!! Went to Simmons with Pat & talked to Mrs. Brown for a short while. Watched T.V. Going to beach tomorrow with Seehafers. Velero. Wish us fun.

BYE!!

Note: The song I mentioned, The Pusher - written by Hoyt Axton and performed by Steppenwolf - was made famous by the movie “Easy Rider”. I obviously was not a big fan.

El Velero was a beautiful Nicaraguan beach.

13 Comments

Guest

Jun 17

Velero was a great beach!!!!

Susan Fisch Good

Jun 18

Replying to

It was my favorite! I loved renting those paddleboats and peddling away!

debbiemts57

Jun 14

I wish we had to jumprope in High School PE- that would have been fun and something I could actually do! Another fun thing to do would have been to do the CanCan ( an actual line dance! ) at Church Street's Friday Fun Nights! We might have laughed too much to be successful though! 😁

Susan Fisch Good

Jun 14

Replying to

You are so right, Debbie. The Can-Can is the original line dance. How cool is that!

Jumping rope is excellent exercise. My Aunt Helen used to jump rope for her aerobic exercise.

Rich

Jun 13

Oh gosh, the regional differences of slang usage in different habla hispana countries could get you in trouble! In C.R. "chocho" meant "broken", while in Colombia and P.R., it meant female genitalia.

Reminds me of another popular term I'd only ever heard in C.R.: As young teens, we could get away with saying "Jüepucha" or just "Pucha" around our elders, which was a softened version of the obvious actual epithet, and usually elicited a raised eyebrow, whereas the actual epithet caused an immediate verbal reproach. One of dad's favourites was "I'm gonna cloud up and rain all over you if I hear that again!"

"The Pusher"....swear words....my, how times have changes. Can it possibly get worse than Rap?

I listened…

Rich

Jun 19

Replying to

Gosh, my sisters loved 3 Dog Night! ("Joy to the world....."). You jogged my memory again. In 1966 we had just moved from Bo. La Paulina, (our 1st house, on the outskirts of San José) to the house by the zoo (Parque Bolívar) in Bo. Otoya. I was 13 then, and my new little Sony was my gateway to popular music. I'd place it under my pillow at night so the folks wouldn't hear it in the adjacent bedroom. My favourite song that year was the newly released "Guantanamera" by the Sandpipers. It was hugely popular that year. I still love it.

Eric Matheu

Jun 13

Never had Loucks...he always seemed intimidating to me (and I was always lousy at math!) and Chocho is a slang term also used in Spain for a certain part of anatomy...

Susan Fisch Good

Jun 14

Replying to

He was intimidating and not my favorite teacher. I, too, found math difficult. I think if I was taught the way it is taught now, I might have gotten it.

We had a difficult time when we moved to Puerto Rico after Managua, as many of the words we used were considered offensive there. Interesting how different words have different meanings in different countries.

Southerners have different words from Northerners here in the U.S.

Guest

Jun 13

You stayed so active! Never heard of the song. Guess we weren’t exposed to much rock music?

Susan Fisch Good

Jun 14

Replying to

I love all kinds of music. Living overseas, we were always behind in getting up-to-date music, as we didn't have computers or Spotify and were dependent on the radio. I definitely did not like this song.