1970 – Seventh Grade
September
I think this is going to be my most favorite year yet. The first day of school was great. Kelly and Mindy and me all had new dresses and mine was the cutest. I can’t believe even more cute than Mindy’s. Mr. S. saw us while we were waiting in the lunch line and said we were really cute and starting to grow up really good and he said to Mindy, you’ve got something growing there and she wasn’t even embarrassed. Mindy is so cool. We’ve been waiting all summer to see him and he said this year we’re going to do the President’s test in P.E. starting in winter and I just can’t wait. I hope I do really good because we will get patches to sew on our sweatshirts that are from the White House.
October
We’re not going to have Mr. G. for a teacher anymore because he’s going to be the principal while Mr. Greene is sick. We get to have him until December while he does both jobs and then we get a substitute. I’m really mad. I’ve wanted Mr. G. since first grade even though everybody says he’s really mean he’s not he’s just strict and he makes the boys be quiet. He’s reading out loud to us after lunch a book called “I was a slave in Soviet Russia.”
November
I haven’t been to band for so many days in a row and I know I’m going to get in big trouble. It’s just so embarrassing to have to get up and leave the classroom during reading and language arts. Everybody thinks band is dumb anyway and it is because it’s just me playing flute and Vern playing trombone and this stupid sixth grader playing clarinet. Mr. Clemmens said what would it take to keep you people interested and I told him we had to play some music that wasn’t so boring. He brought in “Sugar, Sugar,” by the Archies which is a song I actually like but God Vern plays so loud and it just sounds so stupid with just the three of us. So I haven’t been back and my mom’s going to kill me.
December
Mr. G. is gone and even though he promised he would come down to our classroom he doesn’t and he acts different in the hallways. The first day I saw him I went running up all excited to say hi, and he said, slow down there missy. I was so embarrassed. I thought he would remember me more as being one of his best students but I guess he’s too busy being principal. We got this new teacher, Mr. D and he’s so mean I get a headache all day during class. Starting on the second day he decided that Mark Wright was going to be in trouble all the time. At recess I went over to him and I told him that Mark has been like this since first grade and he’s not bad unless he doesn’t get left alone and then he’s been evil mean sometimes, the worst time was in fourth grade. Mr. D. told me that this isn’t nursery school anymore and if I was so smart to teach a M.R. like Mark I would have my teaching certificate wouldn’t I?
So then Mark just got weirder and weirder. On Thursday he took his compass and was stabbing the pointed end between his fingers into the desk. He started doing it faster and faster and it looked like he was going to stab his fingers any second. Mr. D. made him get out of his seat and bend over facing the class and he hit him really hard five times with this paddle he brought with him. Mark’s face was all bright red but he didn’t cry but I could tell from the look in his eye that he’s not going to be easy to be around for awhile. It will probably be like in fourth grade when even the big boys were afraid to go on the playground at recess.
Mr. D. said we all better learn a new set of rules and that includes the girls, he doesn’t have anything against paddling the girls either he said and I guess that means even in our dresses which doesn’t seem very fair. I hate Mr. D.
He told Mr. S. that our class won’t be going to the gym anymore for rainy day lunch recess because we need to learn social skills and dancing. So he closes the window blinds and turns out the lights. We get to play whatever records we want. Mindy has the best ones because she’s the youngest and her brothers and sister let her bring theirs. I slow danced once with Ty. My favorite songs are Lola and Let it Be. I miss gym though and the boys act really weird.
January
Some of the girls in my class are getting really weird. They don’t wear underwear to school and since our desks are all in a circle facing each other they let the boys see. It’s so stupid. Mr. D. has paddled lots of boys but no girls yet. Ty and Mike Markle are mean now. Ty won’t dance with me anymore because now he likes Ivannah. I don’t care because usually I go to the gym on rainy days because now Mr. D. doesn’t make everybody stay in the classroom. Ty’s dad has a boyfriend living at his house but nobody’s supposed to be prejudiced. When I walk by on the way to school I don’t look so they don’t think I’m spying on them. Me and Ty are the only ones on our block in Mr. D.’s class.
Me and Dwyane and Scott are the best in math. We have mechanical pencils and get to print and not write in cursive. I don’t think Mr. D. even looks at our homework. All I do is hang out with Mr. S. Me and Kelly and Mindy go see him every recess and after school. He talks about everything with us and never tells us we can’t come see him or that he has other things to do. Sometimes he lets us go outside with him to the teachers’ parking lot and see his car. It’s a camero and dark blue. I feel bad every time he has to remind us not to write our names in the dust on his hood because it scratches the paint.
February
Things are getting really weird at school and I have headaches all the time. I think I need glasses or something. Kelly and Mindy are getting weird. They don’t always come and get me when it’s time to go see Mr. S. Their teacher sometimes lets them out early and they go without me. Mr. D. is being his usual hateful self. I’m not doing very good in math anymore because I don’t understand it. Scott and Dwayne don’t sit by me now because they understand it. I think Kelly and Mindy are mad at me because of creative writing class. We had to choose a line from I am a Rock by Simon and Garfunkel and write a poem with it. And then Mrs. Wear said mine should be in the book she’s making for the end of the year. My line is “and a rock feels no pain and an island never cries” and Mindy said that anybody could write a poem about that because it’s easy.
March
All I do all the time at home is cry. I hardly sleep because I keep crying. I hate everybody at school, everybody’s mean. Ty and Mike Markle are sniffing glue and they said Mr. D. doesn’t care and I bet he probably doesn’t. He is so mean I hate him. Mark Wright never came back after Christmas and there is nothing the same about 7th grade anymore. I don’t even like Mr. S. and I don’t care that he likes Mindy and Kelly more than me. He told me on the playground that I should think better of myself but he doesn’t even know anything. I didn’t even get the 1st president’s badge I got the 2nd and it’s all because of the softball throw.
1971 – Eighth Grade
September
This school’s okay but pretty small. There’s only one class for each grade and like twenty of us in each grade. Our class has twenty two people. Susan said it was always 20 kids until I came this year. I am the only new kid in this class since they were in 3rd grade, except for Carolyn who started last year. There is no hot lunch and we put our desks together and eat sack lunch. This is way better than hot lunch which I was sick of after seven years. The girls sit together and the boys sit together. On the playground the boys don’t play with the girls either, so that’s different, no boys in four-square so it’s not as hard to play. But I don’t think it’s as much fun either.
Then there’s only a few black kids here too. And since I used to be friends with lots of black kids that is different too. And here at this school, I am the only one who’s friends with the black girls, none of the other kids are at all. Susan says they only started this school last year so that’s why.
I like the work, it’s fun. We have memory work every morning. It’s Bible verses and Cathecism. I have another Mr. D. for a teacher but he is really really nice and even though he sometimes has to paddle the boys he does it in his office which is next to our room because he’s the principal too. I am really, really popular but I don’t know why. And I don’t really care anymore anyway. I’m try to be nice to everybody. My moms says to say hi to everybody and learn their names and it won’t be so hard at a new school. But I only like the black girls but only Carolyn is in my class the other three are in sixth grade so we only play at recess.
When I got to school yesterday there was a big sheet of paper on the bulletin board in Main Hall with everybody in the school’s name on it saying which part we get for the Christmas play. Mr. Warner is in charge of the play. He put me down for Mary. I went and found him and asked him why he wanted me to play Mary and he said I look like a good Mary. I told him, except I can’t sing so Susan should be Mary. So he switched us and Susan is really happy and I get to play all the guitar parts.
Mr. D. asked me what the A plus plus plus meant on my report card from my old school and I told him it meant honors, that I got an A with triple honors for my report on the history of black people in America. Mr. G. gave me that grade and it’s his best one. He came back to our classroom for the last two months but I wasn’t there. I stayed at home because I was really tired. I never see Kelly and Mindy anymore not even this summer. All summer I just read books like always and played basketball with my brother and worked on his soap box derby car.
I guess I’m not going back to public school because everybody here is going to Lutheran high school next year so I guess I’m going to and my parents said it’s my decision.
1973 - Sophomore
Everybody wants to know what’s wrong with me but what joke trying to tell them. I don’t even know, if you want to know the truth, so how could I tell them anyway? Everything’s so stupid, the same thing day after day. I did pretty good last year, high school was pretty exciting at first, there were some cool classes like biology and algebra, even though they were hard. And then Old Testament and German which I could have done with out. But nothing too hard I couldn’t get As like always.
Actually last year wasn’t as great as I’m saying. Yeah, the classes were okay but my mom is freaking out over what I don’t know and she hasn’t quit yet. I was really looking forward to high school too. I thought I would be able to hang out with my friends a lot more. But I can’t do anything right and I’m always in trouble. I have a lot of homework and my mom doesn’t get it she think I just screw off in my room. She still expects me to practice my guitar every day for an hour and help with the dishes and gets made when I tie up the phone. It’s not like anybody calls for her anyway.
So come to think of it, last year wasn’t that great after all and this year it’s even worse if that’s possible. My classes are dumb, New Testament, Modern Problems and German German German. Stupid language, I’d rather be learning Spanish so I could go to Mexico. I do not think for a minute I will ever go to Germany unless it’s a last resort.
Plus we got this new P.E. teacher who’s got some sort of problem with me and Kris just because we’re better at sports than she is. She’s got this big idea that we can beat St. Mary’s in basketball for the first time in a couple of centuries. Kris and I told her she’s full of shit, it’s never going to happen. Those girls have a real coach, a guy, who teaches them real plays. Besides, they don’t have to wait to use the gym for practice until seven o’clock after all the boys’ teams are done. Which is another thing I think is straight up stupid and unfair too.
So Coach Krueger, as she insists we call her, told me and Kris that she didn’t like our attitude and if we kept it up we’d be on the bench. I told her, go ahead and you’ll never beat St. Mary’s. But we’re never going to even make it through the season because Jolene’s going to quit because after she took her warm-ups off before the game and had forgotten to put her shorts on underneath. There’s only like five people watching the game anyway so I don’t know why she was so upset, but anyway, we lost our center. The last game was the biggest farce of all. We’ve only got this one play because ninny-brains won’t teach us more and won’t let Kris and I do our own and every single goddamn time I was bringing the ball down the court she’d give me the signal to do “play number 1.” Well how long do you think it took for the other team to figure that out? So after ten or twelve times of this crap I call the play and don’t you know their goddamn defense moved right into place like I personally invited them and I got so pissed off I just heaved the ball right into the guard’s face and naturally I got a technical and naturally I sat on the bench the rest of the game.
1989
September
I think this is going to be my most favorite year yet. The first day of school was great. Kelly and Mindy and me all had new dresses and mine was the cutest. I can’t believe even more cute than Mindy’s. Mr. S. saw us while we were waiting in the lunch line and said we were really cute and starting to grow up really good and he said to Mindy, you’ve got something growing there and she wasn’t even embarrassed. Mindy is so cool. We’ve been waiting all summer to see him and he said this year we’re going to do the President’s test in P.E. starting in winter and I just can’t wait. I hope I do really good because we will get patches to sew on our sweatshirts that are from the White House.
October
We’re not going to have Mr. G. for a teacher anymore because he’s going to be the principal while Mr. Greene is sick. We get to have him until December while he does both jobs and then we get a substitute. I’m really mad. I’ve wanted Mr. G. since first grade even though everybody says he’s really mean he’s not he’s just strict and he makes the boys be quiet. He’s reading out loud to us after lunch a book called “I was a slave in Soviet Russia.”
November
I haven’t been to band for so many days in a row and I know I’m going to get in big trouble. It’s just so embarrassing to have to get up and leave the classroom during reading and language arts. Everybody thinks band is dumb anyway and it is because it’s just me playing flute and Vern playing trombone and this stupid sixth grader playing clarinet. Mr. Clemmens said what would it take to keep you people interested and I told him we had to play some music that wasn’t so boring. He brought in “Sugar, Sugar,” by the Archies which is a song I actually like but God Vern plays so loud and it just sounds so stupid with just the three of us. So I haven’t been back and my mom’s going to kill me.
December
Mr. G. is gone and even though he promised he would come down to our classroom he doesn’t and he acts different in the hallways. The first day I saw him I went running up all excited to say hi, and he said, slow down there missy. I was so embarrassed. I thought he would remember me more as being one of his best students but I guess he’s too busy being principal. We got this new teacher, Mr. D and he’s so mean I get a headache all day during class. Starting on the second day he decided that Mark Wright was going to be in trouble all the time. At recess I went over to him and I told him that Mark has been like this since first grade and he’s not bad unless he doesn’t get left alone and then he’s been evil mean sometimes, the worst time was in fourth grade. Mr. D. told me that this isn’t nursery school anymore and if I was so smart to teach a M.R. like Mark I would have my teaching certificate wouldn’t I?
So then Mark just got weirder and weirder. On Thursday he took his compass and was stabbing the pointed end between his fingers into the desk. He started doing it faster and faster and it looked like he was going to stab his fingers any second. Mr. D. made him get out of his seat and bend over facing the class and he hit him really hard five times with this paddle he brought with him. Mark’s face was all bright red but he didn’t cry but I could tell from the look in his eye that he’s not going to be easy to be around for awhile. It will probably be like in fourth grade when even the big boys were afraid to go on the playground at recess.
Mr. D. said we all better learn a new set of rules and that includes the girls, he doesn’t have anything against paddling the girls either he said and I guess that means even in our dresses which doesn’t seem very fair. I hate Mr. D.
He told Mr. S. that our class won’t be going to the gym anymore for rainy day lunch recess because we need to learn social skills and dancing. So he closes the window blinds and turns out the lights. We get to play whatever records we want. Mindy has the best ones because she’s the youngest and her brothers and sister let her bring theirs. I slow danced once with Ty. My favorite songs are Lola and Let it Be. I miss gym though and the boys act really weird.
January
Some of the girls in my class are getting really weird. They don’t wear underwear to school and since our desks are all in a circle facing each other they let the boys see. It’s so stupid. Mr. D. has paddled lots of boys but no girls yet. Ty and Mike Markle are mean now. Ty won’t dance with me anymore because now he likes Ivannah. I don’t care because usually I go to the gym on rainy days because now Mr. D. doesn’t make everybody stay in the classroom. Ty’s dad has a boyfriend living at his house but nobody’s supposed to be prejudiced. When I walk by on the way to school I don’t look so they don’t think I’m spying on them. Me and Ty are the only ones on our block in Mr. D.’s class.
Me and Dwyane and Scott are the best in math. We have mechanical pencils and get to print and not write in cursive. I don’t think Mr. D. even looks at our homework. All I do is hang out with Mr. S. Me and Kelly and Mindy go see him every recess and after school. He talks about everything with us and never tells us we can’t come see him or that he has other things to do. Sometimes he lets us go outside with him to the teachers’ parking lot and see his car. It’s a camero and dark blue. I feel bad every time he has to remind us not to write our names in the dust on his hood because it scratches the paint.
February
Things are getting really weird at school and I have headaches all the time. I think I need glasses or something. Kelly and Mindy are getting weird. They don’t always come and get me when it’s time to go see Mr. S. Their teacher sometimes lets them out early and they go without me. Mr. D. is being his usual hateful self. I’m not doing very good in math anymore because I don’t understand it. Scott and Dwayne don’t sit by me now because they understand it. I think Kelly and Mindy are mad at me because of creative writing class. We had to choose a line from I am a Rock by Simon and Garfunkel and write a poem with it. And then Mrs. Wear said mine should be in the book she’s making for the end of the year. My line is “and a rock feels no pain and an island never cries” and Mindy said that anybody could write a poem about that because it’s easy.
March
All I do all the time at home is cry. I hardly sleep because I keep crying. I hate everybody at school, everybody’s mean. Ty and Mike Markle are sniffing glue and they said Mr. D. doesn’t care and I bet he probably doesn’t. He is so mean I hate him. Mark Wright never came back after Christmas and there is nothing the same about 7th grade anymore. I don’t even like Mr. S. and I don’t care that he likes Mindy and Kelly more than me. He told me on the playground that I should think better of myself but he doesn’t even know anything. I didn’t even get the 1st president’s badge I got the 2nd and it’s all because of the softball throw.
1971 – Eighth Grade
September
This school’s okay but pretty small. There’s only one class for each grade and like twenty of us in each grade. Our class has twenty two people. Susan said it was always 20 kids until I came this year. I am the only new kid in this class since they were in 3rd grade, except for Carolyn who started last year. There is no hot lunch and we put our desks together and eat sack lunch. This is way better than hot lunch which I was sick of after seven years. The girls sit together and the boys sit together. On the playground the boys don’t play with the girls either, so that’s different, no boys in four-square so it’s not as hard to play. But I don’t think it’s as much fun either.
Then there’s only a few black kids here too. And since I used to be friends with lots of black kids that is different too. And here at this school, I am the only one who’s friends with the black girls, none of the other kids are at all. Susan says they only started this school last year so that’s why.
I like the work, it’s fun. We have memory work every morning. It’s Bible verses and Cathecism. I have another Mr. D. for a teacher but he is really really nice and even though he sometimes has to paddle the boys he does it in his office which is next to our room because he’s the principal too. I am really, really popular but I don’t know why. And I don’t really care anymore anyway. I’m try to be nice to everybody. My moms says to say hi to everybody and learn their names and it won’t be so hard at a new school. But I only like the black girls but only Carolyn is in my class the other three are in sixth grade so we only play at recess.
When I got to school yesterday there was a big sheet of paper on the bulletin board in Main Hall with everybody in the school’s name on it saying which part we get for the Christmas play. Mr. Warner is in charge of the play. He put me down for Mary. I went and found him and asked him why he wanted me to play Mary and he said I look like a good Mary. I told him, except I can’t sing so Susan should be Mary. So he switched us and Susan is really happy and I get to play all the guitar parts.
Mr. D. asked me what the A plus plus plus meant on my report card from my old school and I told him it meant honors, that I got an A with triple honors for my report on the history of black people in America. Mr. G. gave me that grade and it’s his best one. He came back to our classroom for the last two months but I wasn’t there. I stayed at home because I was really tired. I never see Kelly and Mindy anymore not even this summer. All summer I just read books like always and played basketball with my brother and worked on his soap box derby car.
I guess I’m not going back to public school because everybody here is going to Lutheran high school next year so I guess I’m going to and my parents said it’s my decision.
1973 - Sophomore
Everybody wants to know what’s wrong with me but what joke trying to tell them. I don’t even know, if you want to know the truth, so how could I tell them anyway? Everything’s so stupid, the same thing day after day. I did pretty good last year, high school was pretty exciting at first, there were some cool classes like biology and algebra, even though they were hard. And then Old Testament and German which I could have done with out. But nothing too hard I couldn’t get As like always.
Actually last year wasn’t as great as I’m saying. Yeah, the classes were okay but my mom is freaking out over what I don’t know and she hasn’t quit yet. I was really looking forward to high school too. I thought I would be able to hang out with my friends a lot more. But I can’t do anything right and I’m always in trouble. I have a lot of homework and my mom doesn’t get it she think I just screw off in my room. She still expects me to practice my guitar every day for an hour and help with the dishes and gets made when I tie up the phone. It’s not like anybody calls for her anyway.
So come to think of it, last year wasn’t that great after all and this year it’s even worse if that’s possible. My classes are dumb, New Testament, Modern Problems and German German German. Stupid language, I’d rather be learning Spanish so I could go to Mexico. I do not think for a minute I will ever go to Germany unless it’s a last resort.
Plus we got this new P.E. teacher who’s got some sort of problem with me and Kris just because we’re better at sports than she is. She’s got this big idea that we can beat St. Mary’s in basketball for the first time in a couple of centuries. Kris and I told her she’s full of shit, it’s never going to happen. Those girls have a real coach, a guy, who teaches them real plays. Besides, they don’t have to wait to use the gym for practice until seven o’clock after all the boys’ teams are done. Which is another thing I think is straight up stupid and unfair too.
So Coach Krueger, as she insists we call her, told me and Kris that she didn’t like our attitude and if we kept it up we’d be on the bench. I told her, go ahead and you’ll never beat St. Mary’s. But we’re never going to even make it through the season because Jolene’s going to quit because after she took her warm-ups off before the game and had forgotten to put her shorts on underneath. There’s only like five people watching the game anyway so I don’t know why she was so upset, but anyway, we lost our center. The last game was the biggest farce of all. We’ve only got this one play because ninny-brains won’t teach us more and won’t let Kris and I do our own and every single goddamn time I was bringing the ball down the court she’d give me the signal to do “play number 1.” Well how long do you think it took for the other team to figure that out? So after ten or twelve times of this crap I call the play and don’t you know their goddamn defense moved right into place like I personally invited them and I got so pissed off I just heaved the ball right into the guard’s face and naturally I got a technical and naturally I sat on the bench the rest of the game.
1989
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