Olson The Red

The Savage of Secondary School

The man who most influenced my attitude about writing in my younger years could best be described as a Viking. As I recall, he stood about seven feet tall, had hands the size of tennis rackets, and sported a bushy red mustache that was undoubtedly tinged with the blood of those who failed to pass his classes.

Mr. Jay Olson, or Olson the Red (as he was known amongst my peers), was a history instructor during my junior year of high school. He was indeed a very fierce and intimidating man. He also served as a football coach, and I have every reason to believe that on the weekends he would organize the team into war parties and lead them on raids against rival schools.

The Treatise of Terror

Mr. Olson challenged my writing abilities in two ways. First, he assigned a volume and caliber of work previously unimagined by his thus-far pampered charges. I was compelled on pain of academic defeat (and possibly decapitation) to produce more high-quality written material in Mr. Olson’s U.S. History class than in any other course I took in high school.

One of the most dreaded types of writing assignments Mr. Olson would prescribe was the infamous DBQ or “document-based question.” Completing a DBQ involved much research and the incorporation of relevant historical…