Chapter 2- Big Breasted Ronnie Bronson
Public school in New York traditionally starts one or two days after Labor Day in September. The day before that however, is the annual Superintendent’s Conference in which all teachers, administrators, and staff personnel are required to attend. In the morning the Superintend of Schools makes his speech on the condition of the district and important considerations such as student enrollment increase or decline. After 1970 the enrollment peaked at Mountain High School District somewhere in the northern part of New York State. The three junior highs were packed with 1600 students each in buildings that were designed for only 1,000 students. The high schools had so many students that they went on split shifts in which the Seniors and Juniors came in at 7:00 am and left at 12:30 pm, and the Sophomores and transfer students came in at 8:00 and stayed until 1:30. This allowed the two high schools Mountain High North and Mountain High South to fit in more students over a shortened day to allow for sports in the afternoons.
In the afternoon of each Superintendent’s conference each school had a faculty meeting in their own building with the Principal setting the agenda. This was the opportunity for the tenured older teachers to check out the new younger teachers that were mostly just out of college, and a few young transfer teachers.
Mr. Worley the principal first welcomes all the teachers back and then introduces all the new teachers to the staff. “Good morning ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back to Cucamonga Junior High. I hope you had a satisfying and enjoying summer vacation. We administrators came back in August to set up the new course schedule and assign teachers to all the classes. This year we have gone from 80 teachers to 120 teachers due to the increased enrollment over the past summer. I want to introduce my two assistant principals, Mrs. Weiser and Mr. Dumfound. Mrs. Weiser as you know is in charge of the Guidance department and scheduling. Mr. Dumfound is in charge of the school budget, purchasing of supplies and inventory in the school.” “Does anyone have any questions so far?”
A few wise cracking older male teachers in the far back corner of the library were commenting to themselves as Principal Worley introduced the new teachers. “Mrs. Ella Weisenfeld will be one of the new science teachers,” said Mr. Worley. Bill Seeker leaned over to his friend Dick Nipp and said, “she looks like she lifts weights,” and they both laughed quietly. After ten more introductions the new Physical Education woman teacher was introduced. “…And I have the pleasure of introducing Mrs. Ronnie, Bronson our new woman’s Physical Education teacher. Mrs. Bronson will you please stand.” Said Mr. Worley. “Holy crap Dick did you see the tits on that woman? Wow, she must be at least a 46 triple D cup, and she has the guts to wear a sweater,” said Bill. Dick laughed and said, “You are right Bill she really has a set.” So began the era of Mrs. Ronnie “big chest” Bronson. When ever she came into the teachers café all the men would get whiplash turning their heads so quickly to watch her enter the room with the luncheon tray held outside her large breasts. She always dressed well in sweat suits and sneakers, although once in a while she would forget and wear shin high boots. The Physical Education department chairman Sam Goldman was an elderly guy who always treated the woman Physical Education teachers as second-rate teachers. They always got the old equipment, never the new equipment. The new smaller gym in the back was called the girls gym and they were sent back there to conduct their classes. When the boys played basketball they go the larger front gym known as the boy’s gym and the girls got the smaller back gym called the girls gym. Ronnie changed a lot of that. For the first time in history the school Sam brought some new volleyballs and new basketballs over to the woman’s Physical Education office to get on Ronnie’s good side. He was fawning all over her so much it was embarrassing for the rest of the staff. She played him for all his was worth. Even though Sam was married with 5 kids it seemed to make no difference.
It was the fall of 1970 and it looked like it was going to be a most interesting year. Having a teacher that was actually pretty looking and not butch looking in Physical Education was a real novelty. At this point in time gym classes were separated as to gender. Girls took attendance in all girl classes and played only girls sports and the boys likewise sat in lines of all boys and played only boys sports. There was no such thing as coed sports at that time in history. It wasn’t until a few years later that a Federal Title 9 rule came down from the Federal government to the State government and on down to every school district in every State in the United States. Girls were to have equal facilities, equal equipment, and equal training and all classes were to be coed taught by both woman and men. The biggest impact of the new Federal ruling was that the women P.E. teachers had to learn how to teacher Football, Soccer, Softball, and Track and Field as well as coed Volleyball. The equipment changed too. It wasn’t possible to have girls playing touch football with rubber footballs or leather footballs. They would break a nail or a finger trying to catch these hard balls. So the decision was made to use a soft foam ball called a Nerf Football. They also came in a smaller easier to throw size.
Likewise, Soccer on a coed basis had to convert to using a Nerf Soccer ball to avoid injuries. Girls weren’t forced to play with the boys; they had an option to play Soccer or football with the boys or the girls. The tougher girls choose to play with the boys, and the less tough girls choose to play amongst themselves. Field hockey and wrestling were considered not capable of being coed and were dropped from the curriculum. The field hockey program was really dropped because there were not enough field hockey sticks to equip an entire Physical Education program of 1600 students.
Back to 1970 at Cucamonga Junior high school. Junior or new teachers usually have mentors to help them learn the policies and procedures in the school. A mentor usually showed them how to write a lesson plan and how to complete their weekly course lesson plan that was evaluated by the Department chairperson each week. Techniques of teaching and handling large classes of 32 students were demonstrated and the new teachers followed their mentor’s lead. Sometimes the mentor was a male teacher and the new teacher was a female and one thing led to another and a few months into the term a relationship had developed. There were a lot of secret romances going on in the school between younger teachers and older teachers. Seldom did younger teachers get to associate with other younger teachers except in the faculty cafeteria during lunch.
Ronnie became the fashion expert of the school. She wore outfits that would always accentuate her large breasts and loved the looks she got from all the male teachers. She was the first teacher I ever saw that could teach in a sweater indoors and not break a sweat. The gym was always hot from the skylights and being close to the school boilers across the hall. T-shirts worked best indoors and sweat suits or matching warm-up suits were good for outdoors. The men traditionally work gray or blue P.E. instructor pants with a black or white stripe down the sides of the pants. The women including Ronnie wore what ever they wanted including a skirt and heels sometimes. The oldest woman in the PE department had a major drinking problem and misses at least one day a week due to her drinking problem. What made things worse is she would come in wearing heels and a skirt even when the classes were going outdoors. It was a sight to see when we went outdoors and she always got stuck in the mud with her high heels. Her name was Elise Greenberg and she had been at the school for ten years. Anyone teaching with her always learned to take the attendance himself or herself and go outdoors with the class and hope that Elise would soon follow. Taking out close to 80 girls at one time was a real challenge for some of the woman P.E. teachers. The class was supposed to be split into two classes of 40 each but for convenience they grouped the whole girls sections together. The boys’ classes did the same.
Ronnie was selected to be the Cheerleader coach because she was the only person in the school interested in coaching the girl Cheerleaders. Many male teachers made it their business to drop by the gym after school to watch the try-outs for the Cheerleading team. Watching Ronnie jumping up and down for the girls and her huge breasts practically knocking herself out from bouncing around was a site to see.
The process of Cheerleading selection was an exercise in racism in 1970. Seldom did a black girl every make the team. What he or she wanted was an all white girls cheerleading team that could do all the typical rah, rah, rah, cheers with no black emotionalism or jive talk. Panels of white male and female classroom teachers were asked to volunteer to help select the 15 girl cheerleading squat. Naturally the pretty little white girls always performed the appropriate cheers and the black girls always added clapping and stomping and body language that the white teachers did not understand. This went on for ten years until change finally came to the Cheerleading program.
It wasn’t but a month into the fall before some of the students and teachers noticed another History teacher Joe Bigone hanging around after Cheerleading practices and up on the hill during Football games where the Cheerleaders were cheering from the sidelines. Many suspected that Joe and Ronnie were a number despite the fact that Ronnie was married and Joe was single.
On a crisp October day around 11:00 am the fourth period Physical Education boys class was walking up the hill behind the junior high to get to the football field at the top of the hill to play touch football. At the top of the hill was a huge tar gutter to allow the water to drain down the side of the hill and prevent erosion. Physical Ed. teacher Mr. Med was leading 80 boys up the hill when they approached the gutter at the top of the hill. One of the students turned to Mr. Med and asked Coach what are those teachers doing in the gutter? Mr. Med had just come over the rise in the hill and as he looked down the tar gutter he could see two teachers lying in the gutter in a tight embrace. He answered the student by saying, “they must be practicing gymnastic log-rolls or something,” they both laughed. Then other students noticed the teachers. They all laughed especially when they realized it was Mr. Bigone from the History Department and Mrs. Ronnie Bronson from Phys. Ed. When the two teachers realized that almost 80 students were standing on the hill looking at them, they got up and brushed themselves off and walked down the hill as if nothing had happened. Later that day both of them were called to the Principal’s office. Gossip spread around the building the both teachers were romantically involved. Students would come up and actually ask Ronnie, “Is it true Mrs. Bronson that you and Mr. Bigone are in love?” Ronnie would blush and of course deny it. It certainly was the talk of the school in meetings, lunches, and department meetings.
One evening as Mr. Med was walking to his car after Cross-country practice it was November 1970 and the sky was dark by 5:00 pm already. As he approached the teacher parking lot he noticed someone getting out of a car in the back of the parking lot. It was a woman and she was pulling up her pants that were down around her ankles as she got out of the back seat of a car. Sure enough it was Ronnie. Mr. Med ducked down as he opened his car and peaked over the back of his care to see Mr. Bigone also getting out of the other side of the car. Mr. Med laughed to himself. He could not believe that they were making out or having sex in the faculty parking lot in the early evening. He did not tell anyone the next day and kept his little secret to himself.
Everyday in the teachers cafeteria it was a real show a some of the male teachers tried to woe Mrs. Bronson by offering to take her lunch tray, offering her a seat by them, asking if she wanted their dessert and on and on. Needless to say the female teachers were starting to get annoyed and they began talking about Ronnie behind her back. Gossip travels fast in a small school of 120 teachers and the gossip of the day was always Joe and Ronnie until one day an art teacher Mr. Goldblatt spotted a Volkswagon Camper bouncing back and forth outside in the faculty parking lot near the art classes. It seem strange that the VW camper was bouncing up and down so he went outside to get a better look and out came Joe Bigone and a 14 year old girl straightening their clothes. Of course he reported the incident to the Principal. Joe’s excuse was he was helping the student with her History homework in his VW camper.
The Ronnie gossip came to a head finally during Christmas season when the teachers had their annual Christmas at Goldfarbs Hotel nearby. Because most of the teachers were Jewish the party had to be both a Hanukah party and a Christmas party. It was a Friday night and most of the teachers went home and showered and dressed up and met at Goldfarbs Hotel at 8:00 pm for the party. Kosher rules had to be enforced but the Christian teachers did not mind and went along with the special requests by the more Orthodox Jewish teachers on the faculty. Ronnie appeared at the party without her husband, whom no one had ever seen, and Joe appeared at the party without a date also. Couples were mingling everywhere and the President of the Teacher Union announced that the district that year and 24 of them were at Cucamonga Junior High had hired 300 new teachers. It was a good time in High Mountainain school district. The district was growing in leaps and bounds and hundreds of parents were moving out of New York City after the citywide teachers union strikes the year before. The parents in New York City had enough of teacher strikes and wanted a better education for their children so they moved upstate to find better school districts.
Dick, Bill and Bob Med were all sitting around a table having some beers and mixed drinks with their wives when Ronnie and Joe walked by hand in hand. Dick’s wife leaned over to him and asked, “Who are the two sweetheart, honey,” “Oh they are two new teachers at Cucamonga Junior high this year,” Dick said. “Job Bigone is the new History teacher and Ronnie Bronson is the new Physical Education Teacher. I believe she is married however no one has ever seen her husband,” Dick said. The other wives at the table also looked at the couple with interest. Dick tried to change the subject, ”well it is a really great night isn’t it sweeting?”
Ronnie and Joe danced together all night. Her large oversized chest crushed against his chest. It was quite a scene. Most of the teachers ignore them except the wives. They seem to be concerned. Around 11:00 both Ronnie and Joe disappeared from the party and no one noticed that they were gone. Too many of the teachers had a little too much to drink so their vision wasn’t too great anyway.
Ronnie and Joe were in his VW camper stripping off their clothes and kissing one another. Again the VW camper began to bump and jump around as Joe Mountained Ronnie and loosened his male fury. Pulling and kissing and sucking those huge breasts. Life was good, until there was a knock on the door or the VW. It was the Principal Mr. Worley and he did not look happy. Joe quickly tried to put his pants back on as he opened the door. Ronnie still was putting her bra on as Mr. Worley stood there saying, “Joe what the hell are you doing? Mrs. Bronson is a married women and this is very inappropriate in the parking lot to be having sex. I want to see you on Monday morning first thing.
Monday morning came and Mr. Worley wrote Joe Bigone up for conduct unbecoming a teacher or a 3220a petition. This meant that after a hearing Joe could be fired. After the meeting the Union rep informed Joe that they would provide a lawyer free to defend him against being fired. Ronnie and Joe were not seen together from that day on.
It was months later in the spring of 1971, April 22 that Joe was formally charged in a hearing. After two days of creating their case the district lawyer rested and the defense took over. A decision was made the next day and Joe Bigone was dismissed and a substitute teacher was hired to fill out his position for the remain few months of the academic year. Ronnie took the news a little hard, but in the meantime she had heard rumors that Joe was knocking up some of the female students also. After he was fired it came to light that he had gotten a pretty 14-year-old Jewish girl Amanda Greenwald pregnant. He left the state. The following year gossip had it that he got another teaching job in Vermont at an all Girls school. That must have been interesting.
During Easter vacation one of the women P.E. teachers ran into Ronnie at the local mall. They had lunch together when Ronnie admitted that she was separated from her husband and that he wanted a divorce. That gossip spread around the school as soon as the vacation was over. Ronnie only lasted a year and after a poor final evaluation at the end of the year she left for another school district.
