Page 655 - WhyAsInY

BaCK to sCHool
fit conveniently within the prescribed curve, all the more so because I had decided to give a passing grade to anyone who turned in an exam. My biggest scoring joy came as I opened the list of names that the reg- istrar disclosed to me to find that a student who I had discovered to be the son of a mob-connected father did more than creditably. He had earned an A, with the second-best numerical result in the class!
I guess that I was kind of an iconoclast at the podium, but using humor and having a less-than-reverential attitude toward the teaching process (celebrating Halloween by throwing candy bars to students whom I was calling on?) tended to move the classes along and probably boosted both attendance and attention.
In my lamest gesture toward humor, and as somewhat of a farewell to those who had borne the burden of my class and its exam, I got in the habit of finishing each (difficult) final with a set of bogus bonus ques- tions, as to which I was pleased to get many very funny responses over the years:
BONUS QUESTIONS
MULTIPLE CHOICE/FILL-IN (MAYBE)
B-1. The two stars in what is universally acknowledged to be the most important 1981 Technicolor feature film made about the rule against perpetuities (in which both Ted Danson and Mickey Rourke had supporting roles) are
A. None of the above. B. All of the above.
C. Betelgeuse.
D. Cousin Louie.
E. ____________________________________________. F. ____________________________________________.
[The stars were William Hurt and Kathleen Turner, and the rule against perpetuities (“No interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty-one years after the death of some life in being at the creation of the interest”) is arcane, came up only one time in my career, and was of no importance in my course, except, of course, that as a bit, I used it to introduce a sleepy class to Body Heat, a fairly sexy movie in which
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