There are times when I don’t want to write. I have no interest. It’s no different than with any other profession I suppose. There are days when you just don’t want to do much of anything.

Today is one of those days. I woke up at 5:30 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep so I dragged my butt out of bed thinking I’d get a jump on the day, but the day got a jump on me. I’m kind of down today.

It’s dark, dreary and raining steadily. I don’t feel motivated at all. I have no zip, no energy. I’d just as soon spend my time poking around my office or, better yet, napping. One of the benefits of working out of a home office is that you can pretty much do whatever you’d like, whenever you’d like. For example, I’m sitting at my desk writing this while totally naked.

No! I’m kidding! Come on! Do you really think I’d do that? I’m not totally naked. I’m wearing socks.

On top of everything else, for the past three weeks I’ve had a nasty gum infection that’s apparently impervious to antibiotics, my shoulders, arms and wrists are killing me from stripping wallpaper, patching, sanding and painting over the last couple of months, and my feet are killing me. I feel like Mr. Fader after he quit smoking.

All those things aside, I still have to come up with some semblance of a column so I’ll give it my best shot. Well, maybe not my best shot, but I’ll do the best I can under the prevailing circumstances.

My colleague, Meredith Holford and I have been emailing back and forth over the last few weeks regarding old TV shows that aired from the early and late 1950s to the early 1960s. She and some friends and relatives have been trying to remember the old shows we all watched as kids. I’ll have to admit, it’s a lot of fun and a good workout for the old gray matter.

With a lot of help from Meredith, who has inadvertently become my Muse; I’ve compiled a pretty extensive list of some of the classic shows from that era that I’ll continue to work in to my columns now and then, but this week; inspired by last week’s offering, Memories of a Mansfield Icon; Meredith launched herself in to a new genre of antiquity – memorable teachers from our days at Mansfield High - and I gotta tell ya; there’s a bunch of ‘em.

I’m going to begin this new venture by introducing you to E.B. Yup, that’s what we called him. His real name is E. Bruce Cunningham. E. B. sounds much better don’t you think?

I can’t really do him justice in this limited space, but I’ll give you a small taste that will be enough to stir the memories of those who remember him from their days at MHS. It’ll get you thinking – reminiscing. For those who didn’t have the pleasure of sitting in his classroom or seeing him in action on the gridiron; you missed a great show. He was a classic!

E. B. was an art teacher. He was a young, good-looking guy and unlike the type of teachers to which we were accustomed. He was artsy - different. He had that ‘in’ look. He was cool and all the girls loved him. Even his car was cool. It was a sports car. If I remember correctly; it was a Sunbeam Alpine.

During the good weather, E. B. would take us outside to paint landscapes. Yuh, right! Like I was going to paint a landscape. I might paint the landscape, but not a landscape.

We’d sit up on the old stone wall behind the high school; the wall that separates the school grounds from Memorial Park, and E. B. would instruct us to paint portraits of trees or scenes from the park or whatever – and my friends and I would paint frogs. Not pictures of frogs – the actual frogs. We’d paint on them. I’d venture to guess there are still genetically mutated frogs in varying shades of blue and red inhabiting the little brook that flows in front of the wall at Memorial Park.

E. B. was an assistant football coach at MHS for a while and served as head coach from 1967 through 1971. He took a hiatus from coaching until 1975 when he was hired as an assistant at Bridgewater-Raynham where he stayed until November of 2010, retiring at the age of 79.

According to the article referenced above; he now goes by the moniker, Ed. I guess all those years of the kids at Mansfield High busting him about his name finally made an impact.

Thanks for the memories, E. B., you’re one of the ‘good guys’; one of those memorable characters – impossible to forget for all the right reasons.

I know of at least two of his former students who are regular readers of this column who played on E. B.’s winless 1970 football team. Hey guys, how about chiming in? I know you’d have some great stories to recount.

It’s raining even harder now and the mercury is dropping rapidly, but tomorrow’s temps promise to be in the sixties and Sunday is the Vernal Equinox – the first day of spring, so……….Let it rain!

Make it a great week!

Bob Havey is a freelance writer and a Mansfield native, currently living in Easton. His column "Take Me Back" appears every Friday at http://mansfield-ma.patch.com.His other column, "The View From Here", may be seen each Tuesday at http://easton-ma.patch.com.