Stocky's Guide to Life. And Maff.

Being a smaller high school, Waterville only had one upper-level math instructor. Since one of the courses he taught was a required course, pretty much everyone had to take at least one math course from Mr. Stockwell.

Affectionately known as 'Stocky' by his students, he was a great teacher and a strange, strange person. It is a fact that he licked his fingers after using the chalk board, nearly every time. Upon hearing mention of this once in class, he bit the chalk in half and may or may not have mentioned something about protein. My memory's a little foggy on that one, but I definitely remember him biting the chalk. Obsessed with sharks, he would often warn students who received low quiz scores that "the Math Shark" had gotten the best of them.

Little is known of Stocky's actual home and lineage, but students speculated anyway. Because of his alopecia, it was difficult to figure out his age. Looking at old yearbooks, it seemed the man looked exactly the same for decades. Among the rumors circulating about the man, which I highly doubt to be accurate, were that he was part shark, immortal and slept in a fold-out bed in one of the many portable storage closets in his room. In addition to sharks, he also had what appeared to be an unhealthy obsession with Texas Instruments calculators, specifically the model numbers upwards of 80, which had graphing capabilities. (Those calculators also were great for chemistry and physics classes; not for assisting but for storing memory and formulas for cheating.)

Stocky had a slight speech impediment, which had little effect on the class itself, but which explains the spelling of some of the words below. For example, instead of 'Fourth,' he would pronounce it 'Fourf.'

I really mean no offense to Mr. Sharkwell. He was a great teacher, and I learned a lot from him. I'm sure many people can agree with me on that.

Also, he had the BEST Freudian slips. We all called them 'Stockyisms,' and thanks to Jennie Swanberg for compiling a list on her Food King book cover. Her grade may have suffered for devoting so much time for paying more attention to this list then the class, but looking back, I think it was all worth it.

The terms 'fruit salad' and 'chopping' had something to do with math, but it would take Stocky's input to explain the terms any further than that. I was a big fan of the terms at the time, and they make repeated appearances in the list.

That list is now, for the first time, offered below in no particular order.

STOCKYISMS:

Don’t tell me it’s hard – it’s not.

You can’t touch anything further.

Does it make it any harder? Heck no!

I’m a sneaky son of a gun wif that.

They slam each other away.

Shh…darn!

I’m a decimal freak.

Radical 24 is doable. You can do it.

Don’t go changing signs around, that’s ugly.

If it acts like a duck, it is a duck.

I’m a decimal nut.

People get tripped up at the last second.

Some of you are gonna be cardiac sharks.

Don’t work yourself too hard.

Find me and do me.

Gotta do more of those mixed messy things.

Who just made fruit salad?

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. This is the Ugly.

I’m doing it anyway. Take that!

The more you see, the better you be.

Don’t be the limp noodle.

I don’t like chaos.

I’m cutting back on how much I do wif you.

You don’t FOIL the world, the world FOILs you.

I’ve already got 10 in the hole, I need 40 more.

Four has nofing to do wif it, it’s just hangin’ out.

The dog ate your average too.

I’ve hit about every ugly thing I can think of.

The exponent doesn’t change just because it’s smelly.

Ugly as it is, we have to figure it out.

You just have to keep the dog tied up so he won’t go anywhere.

You’re gonna get nailed.

That’s my little trick.

No one is unrecoverable. We can get you all up to snuff.

I’m very clean with my thoughts most of the time.

You can flip it, spin it, hit it…it won’t change size.

There’s no restrictions on what I can stick in there.

I’m just trying to stuff it in here!

Boy, did we kick the living poop out of this one.

Mr. Negative Number Man.

Take one result and stuff it in the next one.

How to draw them, how to play with them.

Cut the noise.

B.C. = Before Calculators.

Put the talking away.

I don’t want the Boonville Woodsman job here.

Doesn’t matter how ugly it gets.

Now all of a sudden I freak somebody out.

Twosies & twosies make foursies.

Oranges and oranges make more oranges, not grapefruits.

If you have to do it the hard way, that’s what you have to do.

File the gap fast.

The term is the basic nuts and bolts of mathematics.

You still have to do it the hard way.

People, you’re making a mountain out of a mo’ hill.

Slam it through here no problem.

I’m gonna do it the hard way now.

There are some swimming fish ninning around.

You can do it by looking at it.

I don’t know what that is, it’s a schizoid thing.

Don’t chop wood.

Don’t make fruit salad.

I like doing ugly things.

I don’t need a comedy act here, put a lid on it.

You have to work inside out, otherwise you say ‘what the heck do I do now?’

I wanna teach you to be lazy properly.

No verbal diarrhea back there.

We’re still doin’ baby guppies yet.

It’s gonna be strenuous today, I can guarantee that.

It’s sharkingly possible.

I got a few tricks to show you that you haven’t seen before.

I don’t want to clear the brackets now because I can still do some housekeeping inside.

He who fools around stays around.

Chew on your words for a while + calm down.

You’re in T.I. territory.

These problems sometimes do themselves, if you let them.

Boonville woodchopping expert.

Like terms, no fruit salad here.

Don’t do this half-chop stuff.

I’m about to be a big time bad boy.

Leave it ugly.

The Chopping Society of America could have a field day wif that one.

If you wanted to go nuts today, you could.

Hey! Don’t do it my way.

You can do FOIL in your sleep.

Cuff ‘em & stuff ‘em.

I’ll cut to the chase here.

There’s FOIL in all its glory.

Upper-level mathematics FOIL is passe.

I works like a charm every time.

Take the first one & FOIL it & you’ll go over the moon wif it.

Hang on a second, I’ll even get worse.

Show and tell here.

Bang! It’s done.

Those kinds of problems drive students crazy.

If you foil first you get yourself in a whole lot of hot water.

Monday is a day where we have to do a LOT of housekeeping.

Chopping is one of the biggest crimes in mathematics.

Don’t look to FOIL first.

I was raised in a society where we didn’t have calculators. I did everything on my feet.