40 Years Ago
There was no junior high school near my house in 1970, so when we finished the seventh grade we went right on to the high school, about a mile away, as eighth graders. It was like going from the county jail to the federal penitentiary. And, boy, was I scared.
More scared then the idea that I am much closer now to my first face lift, drinking myself to death or crying my eyes out because I am so old than I am to those days. Forty years ago this week, I was 13. And I thought I had the rest of my life to live. Which is true no matter how you look at it. I could have been hit by a school bus at the age of 14, and that would have been the rest of my life. I've always been good with numbers.
Eighth graders were below vermin in a high school. We came into this important piece of knowledge on our very first day. In mine, Princess Anne High in Virginia Beach, we were not even freshmen. Our little unmolded brains and bodies were "pre-freshmen. And we were at the mercy of all those who made life mostly miserable for us.
I, a pussy, was savaged. Spit on, stomped on, smashed against lockers, only the occasional teacher would come to our aid. Otherwise, it was spit, squashed, and smashed. It's not that we didn't try. I would run as fast as my fat little bar-mitzvahed legs would carry me, around corners, up and on the bus home, right behind the driver (drivers were tougher than teachers), run, run, run, away from the bullies and try to eat our lunch without having it crammed down our throats. Friends, I thought I had five years of this to look forward to. But not to be.
My eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. Huling, a lovable, chubby gal, who also sponsored our class (of 1975...Jesus, was I going to have to join the service NOW to get out of here?) saved me, at least part of the day from the ravages of the Klein brothers, David Stewert, and others who I believed had made it their life's work to make mine horrible. But I said I was a pussy.
I was also an eighth grader who did not realize that the eighth grade does not last forever. Going home in those bleak days of the fall of 1970 with spittle, smash and squash marks, and no hope of ever making it over the wall were disconcerting. I couldn't tell my Mom. She would have called the principal. And then I would have been killed. I just put up with it, until, amazingly, it faded into ninth grade, when we were now freshmen. And we were to be reckoned with by those puny, sick, and pussy laden eighth graders. We were now men! And though I was still a wus, I was a ninth grader too.
I was somebody.
Joe Postove
More scared then the idea that I am much closer now to my first face lift, drinking myself to death or crying my eyes out because I am so old than I am to those days. Forty years ago this week, I was 13. And I thought I had the rest of my life to live. Which is true no matter how you look at it. I could have been hit by a school bus at the age of 14, and that would have been the rest of my life. I've always been good with numbers.
Eighth graders were below vermin in a high school. We came into this important piece of knowledge on our very first day. In mine, Princess Anne High in Virginia Beach, we were not even freshmen. Our little unmolded brains and bodies were "pre-freshmen. And we were at the mercy of all those who made life mostly miserable for us.
I, a pussy, was savaged. Spit on, stomped on, smashed against lockers, only the occasional teacher would come to our aid. Otherwise, it was spit, squashed, and smashed. It's not that we didn't try. I would run as fast as my fat little bar-mitzvahed legs would carry me, around corners, up and on the bus home, right behind the driver (drivers were tougher than teachers), run, run, run, away from the bullies and try to eat our lunch without having it crammed down our throats. Friends, I thought I had five years of this to look forward to. But not to be.
My eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. Huling, a lovable, chubby gal, who also sponsored our class (of 1975...Jesus, was I going to have to join the service NOW to get out of here?) saved me, at least part of the day from the ravages of the Klein brothers, David Stewert, and others who I believed had made it their life's work to make mine horrible. But I said I was a pussy.
I was also an eighth grader who did not realize that the eighth grade does not last forever. Going home in those bleak days of the fall of 1970 with spittle, smash and squash marks, and no hope of ever making it over the wall were disconcerting. I couldn't tell my Mom. She would have called the principal. And then I would have been killed. I just put up with it, until, amazingly, it faded into ninth grade, when we were now freshmen. And we were to be reckoned with by those puny, sick, and pussy laden eighth graders. We were now men! And though I was still a wus, I was a ninth grader too.
I was somebody.
Joe Postove
posted by Mr. Liberty at 7:45 AM
3 Comments:
I don't know. This seems like fiction to me. Like something from a sitcom. I'm lucky I was never picked on at that age, Joe.
Ignored(which is bad too), but never picked on. Those were truly carefree days.
~p
You were lucky, Phil. I forgot to add that i was ignored (except when I was being battered, ahipped).
Later years in HS were better, which I shall write about soo, when I get a pencil from the drawer, which is across the room from me now.
You were lucky, Phil. I forgot to add that I was ignored (except when I was being battered, and whipped).
Later years in HS were better, which I shall write about soon, when I get a pencil from the drawer, which is across the room from me now.
Joe (This one is in English)
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