The John Thompson Story
The Beginning
John Thompson was born in London England, in 1950, where he was raised all the way through High School. His father was an Architect, and his mother was a nurse in the Liverpool Hospital. He had two brothers, that were both older than him, and two sisters that were younger than him.
His older brothers, Christopher and Paul, graduated from Oxford University in 1973. They both majored in medical school, being the smartest in their classes. His younger sisters, Dory-Anne and Pauline, moved to the United States and graduated from Kansas State University. Dory-Anne became a secretary, and Pauline became a physical therapist.
It wasn’t until John attended Brigham Young University, when his odd and unusual behavior became consistent. He was a fairly good student, up until his senior year of high school in Liverpool when his strange behaviors started kicking in.
One day, when John was at school, there was a presentation in his 12th Grade English Class on the dangers of LSD. Many high school students were currently obsessed with The Beatles, including John, and recently found out that they were experimenting with it. This influenced the students to try it out for themselves.
During the present, one of John’s classmates, Peter Young, pulled out the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, raised his hand and exclaimed, “Do you think this great album would ever have come out, had the Beatles not done LSD?!”
The woman presenting, Ashton Fredrickson said, “The long-term effects LSD can have on your body are in no way worth it.”
John thought to himself, ‘The public is just trying to diminish our creativity by giving us these stupid lectures.’
John shouted out, “I don’t believe you! In fact, I just got offered to be in the Beatles new music video ‘I Am the Walrus!’ and I whole heartedly intend to do it!”
Ashton said, “That is perfectly fine, but whether you agree or not, that is the truth.”
John said no more, he just sat feeling very disgruntled. He was really mad, and wished that he could do something about it, but he couldn’t.
Ashton continued with the lecture, “I have a slide show of people with careers that do not take drugs, and are very happy with what they do. I know many of you don’t agree with what I have said, but hopefully this will show you that there is happiness beyond LSD.”
Ashton flipped through the slideshow, showing cops, firefighters, tax collectors, mailmen, doctors, jewelers, etc. John was pretty bored, and wanted to see famous musicians, but he didn’t.
Suddenly an image of a bread baker appeared on the screen. The bread baker was making a serious face, with a wide open mouth, and his face was slightly tense. John started laughing harder than he had ever laughed before when he saw this. It wasn’t simply humor he saw in this image, it was himself. From that moment on, he knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.
John raised his hand and said, “Mrs. Fredrickson I owe you an apology. I was overly reacting just a bit because I wanted to be a musician for my career, and most all musicians take drugs.”
John’s apology was accepted.
Right after school, John headed home and accepted the offer to be in the “I Am the Walrus” music video. He was looking forward to it, even though his desire to be a musician was greatly diminished by his new dream, being a bread baker.
He went to the library, and checked out as many cooking books as he could, explaining what great chefs go through on a day to day basis in their careers. He turned pages fast, hoping that he would find that same picture of the bread baker, because it was so funny, and so inspiring.
After two hours of page by page flipping, he realized it was not in any of these books. He went into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and made the face he saw in the picture. Immediately he started laughing, even harder than he did in class. He saw himself as the “perfect” future bread baker.
Ever since this experience, he has been obsessed with the “bread baker face”, making it unintentionally on occasion. It was at this point when his grades began to struggle slightly, as his mind was completely focused on bread baking.
Note – John Thompson was still considered normal at this point.
The next day, they began to shoot the music video for “I Am the Walrus”. John showed up, extremely excited, with his mind still on bread baking. He asked the production manager what part he would play. They told him that he would be an “Eggman”.
The part of an Eggman required standing in a single filed line, dressed in white with a white cap. A large blanket was wrapped around every Eggman, as they trotted in parts of the music video.
As soon as they began to shoot, a wild, yet brilliant idea came across John’s mind. He would make the “bread baker face” the entire time, so when he watched it, he could see how funny it looked.
During the entire shoot, John was secretly worried that they would make him redo it, if for some reason it was too distracting. Fortunately, nobody even really noticed, so John was able to make the face.
The next week, the crew saw a private viewing of the completed music video. John watched anxiously to see himself with the “bread baker” face. Unfortunately, his face was being covered up by the person in front of him. He was slightly disappointed, but at the same time still excited that he was even part of the video to begin with.
Soon Halloween of 1967 came. John knew exactly what he wanted to be, a bread-baker. He made plans to go trick-or-treating with his friends Patrick Martin, Stacey Riverton, and Richard Jackson.
John was fully dressed, and had his trick-or-treating bag ready. Patrick was dressed as a police officer, Stacey was dressed as a nurse, and Richard was dressed as Jimi Hendrix, with the mustache and everything.
About half-way into their trick-or-treating, they came to a house with two jack-o-lanterns on the porch. They rang the doorbell, and a man dressed as a pirate answered the door. He said, “Good evening! I hope you…Oh my! It’s Ned! I haven’t seen you in ages!”
John said, “Who me? My name is John Thompson, you must have confused me with someone else”.
The pirate man said, “Oh I’m terribly sorry! You see, Ned and I used to be best friends in High School, and then he went off to the United States to bake bread. You look just like him!”
Immediately John made the “bread baker face”, feeling really excited that he would look just like a bread baker. He said, “Well it just so happens, that baking bread is what I want to do more than anything!”
The man said, “Is that so? Curious, very curious indeed! Well, here’s some candy! Adios!”
For the next hour, the other three had to tell John to shut-up, because he wouldn’t stop flattering himself with this strange coincidence. All John could think about was bread, and all the rest could think about was candy.
Recently, after getting a lot of candy from a very generous man, John wasn’t paying too much attention, and realized he was about to run into a woman. While he looked at her, and walked towards her, he made the “bread baker face”, rather than try to avoid the hit. John said, “Oh I am terribly sorry! I wasn’t paying attention at all!”
The woman replied, “Oh that’s okay. I understand what you mean, I do it all the time!”
As soon as the woman left his sight, he started laughing hysterically. Stacey asked, “What is so funny?”
John said, “I didn’t even try to avoid hitting her! I just made the “bread baker face” the whole time!”
Patrick said, “Okay, will you please stop with the bread baker business! What is the “bread baker face” by the way?”
John made it.
The three started laughing, saying, “That’s it? What does that have to do with bread baking?!”
John explained the picture in class. The others insisted that they could not remember the face, as they weren’t at all interest in the slideshow, much like John was until he saw the bread baker.
That night John kept thinking about the “bread baker face”, and his experience running into the woman. It all seemed to tie together for some odd reason, and he couldn’t put a finger on it.
The next day, John was completely engrossed in his temptation to run into someone while making the face, much like he did the day before. Eventually he couldn’t take it, so he decided he would make it look like an accident.
He saw this one girl named Megan Black, who was walking towards him. John looked at his watch, and then looked at the lockers, with Megan in the corner of his eye. Then he looked at her at the last minute making the face, and slammed right into her.
The collision caused them both to drop their books. John said, “I am so sorry! I have been like this all morning! I have been acting really strange lately!”
Megan replied, “Oh don’t worry about it. It happens to everyone I guess.”
John was laughing consistently after Megan left his sight, even harder than he did the day before. Meanwhile his friends were really concerned about him.
John, Stacey and Patrick ate lunch together in the cafeteria. About ten minutes into their lunch, Stacey finally said, “John, you have been acting very strange lately. Are you alright? You seem to keep to yourself a lot more, and you don’t smile very much anymore!”
John said, “You really think so? School is kind of stressful right now, so I suppose that could be a reason. I honestly can’t say I have noticed anything different!”
Patrick said, “And you keep obsessing about this bread baking gibberish! What is with that? To be completely honest, it is kind of spooky!”
John said, “Oh don’t worry about it! I’m sure it is just one of those phases, you know? Almost everybody goes through those”.
Stacey said, “I suppose.”
John was lying of course. He knew that this definitely wasn’t just a phase, this was his reality. Bread baking was the only thing John had to live for now. The idea of being a musician was completely mundane to him now. It was bread baking or nothing.
John’s grades continued to slip slightly, and his friends were consistently worried about him. Every time they tried to confront him, he would just tell them that school is getting really hard, and that he is sure he’ll pop out of it in no time.
John was talking with some of his teachers about his desire to be a bread baker, and realized that if he wanted to make a lot of money, perhaps bread baking wasn’t the right decision. It was at this point when John decided to major in something that will allow him to make a lot of money, and do bread baking as a side job. He was not about to give up bread baking for the sake of money.
There was only one month left of High School left, and then the class of 1967 would graduate. (The school system was year-round, so graduation would take place at the end of November).
While John’s grades were slipping, they were still good enough to graduate. John decided that if he was to major in something worthwhile, he would need to work harder in school, and raise his grades.
For the next week, John brought his grades up significantly. His behavior, however, was becoming much sillier, and he was unable to keep himself from laughing during class lectures.
One day, in particular, John’s biology class was to dissect frogs. For some strange reason, John had brought 2 of his home-made bread baker hats, and decided to wear one at school that day.
Before the class got their frogs, the teacher was explaining the anatomy of frogs, and procedures of how to cut properly. John had a large loaf of bread that he baked the night before in his back pack, and took it out during the lecture.
He started eating the bread as if he hadn’t eaten in days. This was a major distraction to the class.
Mrs. Wright, the biology teacher said, “John, could you please put the bread away, it is distracting the class.”
John made the bread baker face, and then said in a silly voice, with bitter sarcasm in his eye, “But I baked it myself!”
Fortunately for him, Mrs. Wright did not see the sarcasm in John’s face, or else he would have been sent to the Administrator’s Office immediately.
Mrs. Wright said, “John! Please!”
So John took one more bite, and put the loaf of bread back in his back pack. He proceeded to make the bread baker face at her when she turned around to write on the board. It took every ounce of his energy not to say, “What are you writing there Mrs. Wright?!” John knew better.
Finally Mrs. Wright handed out the frogs to each of the students. John was sitting by someone named Ryan Stephenson. When both John and Ryan got their frogs, Ryan exclaimed, “John! Your frog is bigger than mine! Please trade with me!”
John gave Ryan the bread baker face, and then looked away.
Ryan said, “Please! You don’t even care about dissecting frogs! Please trade with me! I’m begging you!”
John then said, “Okay I’ll trade!”
John took the frog by the throat, and cut his head off, and then handed it to Ryan, snatching his frog.
Ryan screamed, “Mrs. Wright! John cut off my frog’s head!”
Mrs. Wright said, “Is this true John?”
John acted like he didn’t hear her.
Mrs. Wright said again, “John! Is this true?!”
John then looked up, gave her the bread baker face, and looked back down.
Mrs. Wright exclaimed, “John Thompson! Please see me after class!”
John said, “Okay, fine”
After class, John walked up to Mrs. Wright, and said, “You wanted to see me Mrs. Wright?”
Mrs. Wright said, “Yes. John, your behavior today has been completely inappropriate! You are really close to graduating from High School, and I don’t want to have to see you fail!”
John thought up a clever response for this, which of course was a lie. “I admit full responsibility for my actions! I am so sorry. You see, the thing is, Ryan and I have known each other for quite some time. He has always got on my nerves really bad. Whenever we have a class together, and the teacher hands out something, he always complains, begging me to trade with him! I have put up with it for quite some time now, and I guess you could say, I somewhat blew up today. Again, I am terribly sorry, and I promise to monitor my behavior much better.”
Mrs. Wright said, “I understand completely. I do, however, feel you need to apologize to Ryan. I truly do not want to see you throw away everything you have done up to this point!”
When John left the classroom, he started laughing really hard. He kept thinking to himself, ‘Yes! I got out of that one baby! I feel good!’ feeling no trace of guilt for his dishonesty.
John had not only never had a class with Ryan before, he had never seen him before in his life until two weeks ago, when John gave a presentation on his bug collection.
After school, John met up with Stacey and Patrick. Neither of them was in John’s biology class, but they heard people talking about John’s behavior wherever they went.
Stacey said, “John is this true what everybody is saying? Your behavior in biology, is it true what they are saying?”
John replied, “Yes it is.”
He proceeded to tell them everything he told Mrs. Wright, how he annoyed him to the point of explosion. It was at this point, when his lying became a consistent habit. He had not been feeling any guilt whatsoever for any of his lies.
The next day, John got an uncontrollable urge to make another scene, but this time in his English class. He thought that if he could get himself out of the incident in biology, this should be another walk in the park.
He took his seat in English, and took out his “Much Ado About Nothing” essay that he had written two nights ago.
His teacher, Mrs. Livingston said, “Okay, I would like to ask a couple of you to read your essays to the class. Let’s start with you Brian”.
Brian proceeded to read his essay to the class. Suddenly John got a funny idea. When he read his essay to the class, he would make it up as he went along, and say random things.
“Thank you Brian. John, would you read yours to the class please?”
John stood up, and said, “Beatrice! Stop thy banter! Nobody wants to hear it! You are making a disgrace out of thyself! I believe that you and Benedick are the perfect couple because of the way you talk to each other! What?! You pretended not to be in love with him?! How could anybody be so stupid? You know that you will die without his witty comments everyday! You need him desperately!”
The class was laughing really hard.
“Hero! Oh Hero! You dirty little scum! How could you have possibly slept with that man! And betray your true love? That was a terrible thing to do! You deserved every harsh word you got that day! In the movie you are pathetically ugly! Why in the world…”
Mrs. Livingston screamed, “STOP!!!”
Everyone in the class jumped, except John, who simply stopped talking, looked at the teacher, making the bread baker face, and then looked away.
Mrs. Livingston said, “John, would you please see me after class”.
John ripped a piece of bread off of his loaf, and shoved it in his mouth. He then replied, with his mouth full of bread, “Yes ma’am”.
Mrs. Livingston gave him detention for his behavior, lecturing him on how inappropriate his behavior was. She gave him an F on his essay, and suggested that he change his ways, or he would not be able to graduate.
John’s next class was band, and he played the trumpet. He planned on being inappropriate in band, in every way he could. He was laughing really hard imagining what he was going to do. When he walked into band, he had a large, laughing smile on his face. He pinched himself really hard to shake it off. He took out his trumpet, and sat down for class to start.
His band director’s name was Professor Mann. He had been a band director for about fifteen years, as well as teaching a music history class at Oxford University. Professor Mann stood on the podium, and announced that they would warm up with “Stars and Stripes”.
John planned on starting off small; perhaps just by getting slightly off beat. He would then slowly increase his efforts, until he did something highly inappropriate, and very disruptive.
John started the song by following along perfectly, playing every note. He purposely rushed a measure, and then redeemed himself afterwards. Professor Mann did not notice this at first. He did it again, to see if he would notice. Again, Professor Mann didn’t seem to take notice of this at all.
John decided to up the ante. He played wrong notes during a measure. Professor Mann yelled, “Trumpets! Measure 32! Come on!”
John was starting to enjoy this. He then made loud, obnoxious horse noises through his trumpet, and then played with the worst, uncontrollably pathetic tone he had ever played with before.
Professor Mann stopped conducting, looked over at the trumpets, and said. “What is going on? Who is playing with that outrageous tone? Have I taught you nothing? I’m going to pretend that nothing happened. Do NOT let it happen again!”
Everyone in the trumpet section looked at John, somewhat irritated. John just looked at them with the bread baker face, and then looked away.
The band picked up at measure 34. John played completely normal. After they were done playing, Professor Mann was talking about the upcoming performance. Halfway through his talking, John stood up, and played taps as loud and as fast as he could.
Professor Mann screamed, “John! Sit down! What are you doing?”
John pulled the trumpet away from his face, gave Professor Mann the bread baker face, and sat down.
Professor Mann said, “John, please see me after class!”
He continued to talk about the details of the upcoming performance.
John stood up again, inhaled deeper than he had ever done before, and blew as hard as he could through his trumpet, making the most loud, obnoxious, awful tone anyone in the band had ever heard before in their lives.
Professor Mann was furious. He screamed, “John! Get in my office right now!”
John went into his office, and laughed uncontrollably.
Professor Mann went inside. He shut the door, and said, “John, what is going on?”
John said, “I thought it was pretty funny, didn’t you? I mean come on, there needs to be some kind of humor in band!”
Professor Mann snapped, “It was unbelievably inappropriate! I want you to start acting like a member of this band, or else you will not be performing with us next week. Is that understood?”
John gave him the bread baker face, and didn’t say anything.
“Is that understood?!”
John said, “Yes sir.”
Immediately, John ran as fast as he could, picked up his trumpet, and started blowing awful tone, yet again. He was running as fast as he could around the room at the same time now.
Professor Mann screamed, “John! Get back in my office now!”
John gave him the bread baker face again, and then continued blowing awful tone. As soon as he saw Professor Mann walk towards him, he ran as fast as he could to the office. He went into the principal’s office, and said. “I have been very inappropriate! I am taking full responsibility for my actions”
John explained everything he had done in band. He was expecting Professor Mann to meet up with them, but he never did. John had decided that he would be on his best behavior the rest of the year, so he could graduate.
One week before graduation, there was a substitute teacher in John’s math class. John had not done anything inappropriate in his math class, and didn’t intend to, to play it safe as far as graduation was concerned.
John was working on his homework, when suddenly he heard one of his classmates say, “This is my impression of John! ‘But father, I don’t want any of that!’”
It was in the exact same voice as Prince Herbert on the future release of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. John was enraged. He took a marker from the whiteboard, and threw it at Thomas Greenburg as hard as he could.
The substitute said, “Please! Sit down!”
John screamed, “Never! He mocked me! I will get my justice!”
The substitute replied, “Sit down! I will report to Mrs. Cunningham if you do not!”
John ignored the substitute, and yelled, “Oh yeah? Well at least I didn’t get rejected by Stanford University! You are a freak!”
Immediately John took his seat, to avoid any further confrontations of the substitute. He took out a sheet of paper, and wrote at the top, “People to revenge on”. He wrote down “Thomas Greenburg” as the first one. He planned on keeping this paper, so he could get his revenge on everyone who crossed him.
After class, John gave Thomas the bread baker face, and then looked away immediately. Thomas was laughing so hard, the face didn’t even faze him.
Finally, John Thompson graduated from High School. Some people will argue that his graduation was a miracle, while others will say that his behavior wasn’t inappropriate enough to not graduate.
