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It’s Teacher Appreciation Week. And, as an ode to all good teachers, thoughts turn to the good folks with involuntarily warped senses of humor helping them out and keeping the class in line … or a little less in teachers’ way — aides. They were the unofficial mentors of our school days.

They shushed the mouthy, thwarted or matched a pranksters pranks, and, on occasion even tamed with some sagely inappropriate advice. And, when all else failed, as it frequently did, they armed themselves with some chairs for shock value. Hey, it worked. But those were the days … the 1970s.

We can all probably remember a harsh word or several and a shocking antic from an aide that catapulted us back into better behavior or, at least, made us laugh. One thing’s for sure: We never forgot the antics of the teacher’s aide trying to do her level best to lend a helping hand, mouth or chair.

So, the Retro Pic(s) of the Day feature some special RFH ladies who had the sometimes daunting task in the late 1970s of trying to assist, with patience, some annoyingly energetic, mischievous RFH students.

They were the RFH aides. They were in the library a lot. But, really, they were all over the school. RFHers ran wild years ago. Ahem. In the center of the photo is Nancy Dexter, who passed away a few years ago.

Those pictured around Mrs. Dexter, many of whom have passed, are: Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Cupples, Mrs. DiNicola, Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Waldron. Then there were those chair-armed ladies. Know who they are?

Remember Mrs. Parker singing over the loud speaker around Christmas time? Did you ever hijack the mic from Mrs. Cupples to announce your gala weekend keg party? And, I’m pretty sure one of these ladies, very kindly (or not), told me to go play in traffic when I got busted sending messages via paper airplane (that never landed where it was supposed to) to my friends in English lab.

Your favorite aide story? Your favorite aide? How about teacher? We have a few lined up. Tell us your favorite teacher and aide stories.