"I was saying bike"

From The Extended Group

This incident occured in the 6th grade highly capable class of Gavin, Terry, Stuart, Nathan, Andrew Jensen, Andy Dustan, and Michael Woods, among others. The teacher was Mrs. Barich and one day we went to hear a guest speaker tell us about the horrors of World War II. This event was not especially enjoyable but it was significant that Mrs. Barich was absent that day and we had a substitute.

After the guest speaker we returned to our homeroom and the class was instructed to write a short thank you note to the guest speaker. This went along normally, but after a few minutes we were informed that the note needed to be in cursive. As cursive is not the default writing style of most 6th graders, this meant that the letters needed to be begun again. After several minutes of writing this second draft the class was informed that the letters would also need to be in pen. This was the breaking point and a chant of "Strike" erupted from a majority of the class, with the ring leader being identified as either Gavin or Paul Larson. This went on for several minutes and caused the substitute to leave the room.

The class quieted down and the next day the class received a lecture from Mrs. Barich about the incident and during the interrogation Gavin spoke up with the defense that "I was saying bike". The class was lightly punished and life resumed. Due to a lack of serious repercussions the incident has been remembered fondly and controversy continues to this day over whether Gavin or Paul intigated the incident.

The lack of punishment for a serious offense mirrors the "knuckleheads" incident involving Terry and Gavin at the Pacific Science Center.