By Ken Robinson

Managing Editor

Until 1962, the Robinson family lived at Salmon Creek, about halfway between Burien and White Center. All of my four brothers went to Evergreen High. I went to Highline because we lived on a borderline between the two schools.

They were Wolverines. I was a Pirate. This distinction characterized my life.

That choice also led me to the class of Harry Lemon. Mr. Lemon was about 65 when I first sat in his botanical class in grade eleven. This teacher also taught math. His facial skin was pendulous as one might figure of a man that age. He was round and portly and shuffled when he walked. His head seemed outsize to me, maybe because of a big brain. But the appearance was like that of a dandelion that had bloomed, had shed its colorful leaves and was molting. 

This was a man with pale, grayish skin whose movements were more animatronic than robotic.And there was one other thing.

On his lower lip (I think it was  the right side) the was a pronounced purple bump, a permanent blemish that bobbled up and down when he spoke.

I am not pointing out these flaws because Mr. Lemon gave me a ‘D’ for the class. Indeed, I took the same class in grade 12. I really liked learning about the growth rings of Douglas Fir, what a cotyledon was and what different leaf shapes could tell us about a plant. And why the oxygen that plants produce is a byproduct of photosynthesis.

In grade 12, I also got a ‘D’  but for a different reason. 

Mr. Lemon was a religious man. Every class included a short sermon about the importance of respecting our body, which he called “A temple of God”. Our family was not religious, likely to the difficult task of corralling five boys (and a dad who would rather be pestering trout with feathers on a bent pin) and getting unruly non-acolytes into a pew. 

What put me in mind of that time was the reliable emergence of Sping where all sort of things begin to pop out of the ground, unaided. Mr. Lemon chose this time of year to assign a major project. In my last semester as a student at Highline, as Pirate, the class of 1962 was asked to assemble a notebook of Northwest plant taxonomy , all pressed under some kind of transparent skin and classified by genus, species, family and Kingdom, Phyllus, Class, Order and Family. 

That assignment seemed daunting to my late-stage teen mind. So I did not start on it until about a week before it was due. I did everything I could to avoid beginning and finally did the only thing I could think of: I asked my Dad what to do.

I gave him a sketchy outline of the task. “Collect a lot of plant samples and put them in a book and write down their names.”

Dad was a busy man, an expedient man. He asked me where I thought we should go and that he would help me. I recommended a trip the the University of Washington Arboretum. After all, there were a lot of different plant species there. When a robber wants to get money, he goes to a bank.

So we did.

I thought it was pretty smart and would be seen as a wise choice by Mr. Lemon. He was the same man who told told the class one day that he had gifted his 16-year-old daughter a walking trip to Ohanapecosh Campground on Mt. Rainer for her birthday. At the time, I thought that was really dumb idea for a gift. I thought a car would be a much better gift. But Mr. Lemon told us about this gift with such delight in his voice, with the purple bump upon his lip plotting up and down, that we could only conclude it was not very cool.

The dismay on Mr. Lemon’s face when I turned in my leaf project (yes, it was late anyway) told me I would not get a better grade than I did the year before. I was a ‘D’student after all.

Mr. Wiggins, a quizzical little mole of a man who was vice-principal, told me I could not stay at the school because I had failed every class. That was fine with me. I got a job at the World’s Fair in 1962 operating the Bubbleator. It was a lot more interesting than any classroom.

I still do not know why my father bought me a wrist watch after I told him that I had flunked out. 

Mr. Lemon began every new class every year with his patented stand-up routine. “You’ve probably heard of a fuzzy peach. But have you ever heard of a Harry Lemon?”