"Palmerwood: The St. Herod's Years." A Chronicle of JP's School-Days.

God knows obtaining a superb education for one's offspring is key to maintaining a dynasty. History is littered with the remains of once-promising dynasties--the Hapsburgs, the Bourbons, the Windsors, etc.--who fell prey to the twin evils that plague hereditary aristocracies: idiocy and inbreeding.

Well. We Palmers of Palmerwood know enough to learn from the lessons of history, and so it was with all the best intentions in the world that I enrolled my younger sons, the Junior Partners, Agreeable Louis J. and Assertive Emmanuel J., at The Quimm School.

It was highly recommended, but doing so was not the wisest move.

The Quimm School is a private, "progressive" day school run by a bunch of vegetable juice-drinking old virgins of questionable gender. Students don't learn, they "explore." They aren't disciplined, they're "refocused." They don't compete, they "cooperate." They don't have teachers, they have "guides."

Now, I had my doubts about the whole damned enterprise, but when Agreeable Louis J. sniped, "Pop, are you sure your hatred for Hillary isn't the result of your misogynistic, patriarchal tendencies? Guide Ratchett says you have those," I blew my stack, and I immediately and furiously withdrew the lads from The Quimm School.

The lads turned one on April 1, and I took the opportunity to pack those rapscallions off to boarding school. Specifically, my alma mater, St. Herod's Episcobyterian School for the Scions of the Obscenely Wealthy. 

Enough namby-pamby blather about "sensitivity" and "cooperation." Rugby. Wealth. Privilege. Sailing. Hazing. Latin. Now THAT'S a curriculum that'll toughen these pampered young hounds up. St. Herod's should make men out of them. Mens sana in corpore sanem, boys! 

Here I am sending the lads off to St. Herod's with some paternal advice.

"Fight the biggest one first, boys, and the rest'll fall into line," I said. "And try to keep the wenching and the boozing to a minimum. Noses to the grindstone. Study hard. See you at Parents' Weekend. I'll have Nanny Klagg send you a care package."

"Nanny Klagg quit the day we were born, Pop," growled Agreeable Louis J. 

"Idiot," snarls Assertive Emmanuel J. under his breath.

"Really?" I said. "Oh. Huh. Well, I'll have Cubbings do it."

 As the sleek European mommywagon (which replaced my late, lamented sleek European roadster) whisked Agreeable Louis J. and Assertive Emmanuel J. off to boarding-school, I was overcome by a spasm of nostalgia about his own school-days at St. Herod's.

Dear old St. Herod's--cradle of my dreams, incubator of my vast (and let's face it, largely unrealized) potential, and scene of my misspent youth.

As the smoke from my Cuban Cohiba swirled aloft, my memories took shape and form within it, and I begins to reminisce about my school-days: The St. Herod's Years.

I still get a chill when I remember arriving at St. Herod's with all the other first-year boys to be greeted by the glowering countenances of Headmaster Dr. Lupus Whistlebone, D. Litt., and Mathematics Master Grover.

"Welcome to St. Herod's, boys," said Dr. Whistlebone. "I have a few words I'd like to say to you, left to right: Hoberman, get rid of that copy of 'Principles of Accounting.' We use Samuelson's here, nothing but.

"Roash, skateboarding, like all forms of fun, is strictly forbidden. You will leave that ridiculous thing in my office and retrieve it at end of term.

"Koontz, get rid of those sideburns.

"McClellan, wipe that smirk off your face.

"Estesheen-Van Chestertucky, you will leave that bass in my office and you will retrieve it at end of term.

"Dailey, you will wear regulation blue blazer and grey flannels, not camouflage.

"Palmer, extinguish that cigar. You will leave any other forms of tobacco in my office. You will not retrieve them at end of term.

"Polk, fishing, like all forms of fun, is strictly forbidden. Also, if you try fishing in the moat, you're liable to catch something you'll wish you hadn't. You will leave your fishing tackle in my office and retrieve it at end of term.

"Whipple, your mathlete badge impresses neither me nor Maths Master Grover.

"Rhodes, cricket, like all forms of fun, is strictly forbidden. You will leave your bat in my office and retrieve it at end of term.

"Denman, golf, like all forms of fun, is strictly forbidden. You will leave your clubs in my office and retrieve them at end of term.

"DeLawter, just looking at you makes me want to punch you. Maths Master Grover, swat him a few times with that ruler.

"Miller, band tryouts are next Friday at five. Until then, you may leave your trumpet in my office.

"Guillaume, you, like DeLawter, enrage me simply by existing. Maths Master Grover, swat him with that ruler."

Naturally, I wasn't there when the girls' class of St. Herod's was welcomed, but I heard from plenty of reliable sources that Headmistress Klagg was no more warm and welcoming to the girls than Headmaster Whistlebone was to the gentlemen.

"Miss Saltsman, wipe that smirk off your face.

"Miss Baldwin, while I appreciate your use of a time machine to travel back to this point in history, you will not be using it again this term. Furthermore, I do not care what hairstyles look like in the 21st century. While you are at St. Herod's in the 80s, your hair will conform to current standards. Make it bigger. Now.

"Miss Butler, while I am sure you are very proud of your braces, a 'Tin Grins are In' tee shirt is not acceptable wear at St. Herod's.

"Miss Thompson, your donning of a 'Jem' sweatshirt and leg-warmers is not blinding anyone to the fact that you were not born in the 80s.

"Miss Bousman and Miss Agah, my compliments on exceptionally large 80's hair.

"Miss Frank, it is patently obvious to me that you, like Miss Thompson, were not born in the 80s.

"Miss Stafford, I don't like the look of you at all."

St. Herod's was big on discipline. JP remembers thinking, "Why does Maths Master Grover keep a bucket of jagged rocks on the desk?" on the first day of classes.

The reason for the bucket of sharp, jagged rocks became abundantly clear very soon. Here, Professor Grover maintains classroom decorum the St. Herod's way as my fellow classmates looked on in horror.

St. Herod's was also big on physical fitness. "Mens sana in corpore sano," Dr. Whistlebone used to thunder, "A healthy mind in a healthy body, right, boys?" So we were all required to row crew.

It didn't go so hot, especially after that Pooley kid transferred in from Worcestershire-St. Wulfrid's Academy and was made the coxswain. "

JP," confessed my future co-head of estate security Miller, "I don't have a lot of confidence in the new coxswain. He's really not maintaining discipline.Polk's just fishing off the stern. DeLawter and Koontz are having an oar fight, and Koontz has his foot jammed against McClellan's face. Whipple keeps banging his oars into everyone else's, and Denman's trying to row with a nine-iron. And all Pooley's doing is sipping that 'energy drink' of his. It has olives in it and he mixes it in a silver shaker."

St. Herod's Academy, had a top-notch chemistry program. The chemistry-master, Professor Miller, stressed the practical application of subject matter, although students were not at all times precisely sure what the practical application of his tangle of pipes, pipettes, tubes, burners, beakers, tanks, gauges, and other "Breaking Bad"-type apparatus was.

When one of us did work up the gumption to ask what the experiment was supposed to be teaching us, Professor Miller snapped, "What experiment? We're not experimenting. We're brewing liquor. Mead, if you must know." 

Then he proceeded to get shnockered, sang a few bars of a song called "Bully in the Alley," and passed out on the floor.

I always enjoyed biology class at St. Herod's. Here, the science-master, Professor Moreau, is teaching the students some of the finer points of gene-splicing and genetic manipulation.

The results weren't always completely what we'd expected. I was quite fond of his lizard-gibbon until it tried to strangle him, Miss Frank's Human-Armed Goose attempted to carry her off, and Messire Rhodes's gecko-vine had a voracious appetite. Miss Butler's Ape-Giraffe was a little too effusive in its affections, and Messire Whipple learned, to his peril, that splicing a python and a millipede wasn't perhaps the hottest idea.

But Messire Dailey took great glee in his Bison-Lobster, Miss Baldwin's tentacled thing was fascinating, and Miss Stafford's bunny-butterfly brought her no end of joy.

Now, I have to admit that I didn't set any land-speed records academically at St. Herod's. I was an indifferent student at best. 

But I did seem to find my niche in the "How to Be A Proper Young Gentleman" class, taught by Lord Reginald Cyril Nigel de Poncey. Lord Reginald was an impoverished and embittered aristocrat who was forced to making a living teaching young Yanks how to dress, walk with walking sticks, and sip tea.

There, in a classroom hung with portraits of the great fops of yesteryear--Henry Waxthiddle Coxcomb, Sir Clement Popinjay, and Lord Clive Needlethread--I experienced the kind of epiphany that strikes one only once in a lifetime.

"Palmer," drawled Lord Reginald, "while I can't stand you any more than I can stand these muddle-fingered maladroits--no, Hoberman, start over...Koontz, yanking furiously at it will not change anything... Guillaume, put your tongue back in your mouth... Roash, I have no idea how you managed to do that. Your tie defies the laws of physics...Dailey, go to the nurse's office and have her cut you loose.. Anyhow, Palmer, you do seem to have a knack for this."

My reminiscences came to an end as I heard the low rumble of the Sleek European Mommywagon drawing up outside Palmerwood, and I rushed outside to welcome my progeny back to their ancestral estate.

"Welcome back, gentlemen!" I greeted the irrepressible young scamps. "I hope your first term was successful? Did you make a lot of new friends? Archenemies? Any homicides? Did you learn a lot?"

A grin the import of which would slightly unsettle a lesser or more intelligent man than I spreads across the cherubic faces of his youngest offspring.

"Oh, yes, Pop," they assured me. "We learned a heck of a lot."