I just finished reading a wonderful YA novel titled The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt. It is a wonderful book, and definitely on my must read list. As I’m reading it though I think junior high is never really like this, and I tried to recall what my junior high experience was like and then I could see that yes with a little exaggeration and some well told stories that even I had junior high anecdotes worth repeating. As I am not an author I will just mention a few of these I was reminded of – perhaps you have some you could share as well – or have things changed since I went to school?
First of all it was called Orr Junior High School and our mascot wasn’t an animal but an Orion (a constellation of stars that looks like, The Hunter, from Greek Mythology). Yes a little strange in its own right.
Much of what I remember happening was when I was in 7th grade and my brother Rick was attending 8th grade. For the most part we walked the halls as though we didn’t even know one another. I remember finding him in the lunch room kissing, I believe the tallest girl in school – yes right there in front of everyone, I was horrified to say the least. (Did I ever tell, of course not, that was just who he was – the popular guy.) Of course that wasn’t me, I was the person that tried to fade into the walls, not be too well known, but not to be the one that got picked on either. Sadly there was a slightly mentally handicapped girl in our school who was tormented unmercifully. We had PE together and almost daily the girls tortured her by spraying her locker full of her clothes and things with deodorant, stealing her towel (yes we had to shower after exercising or at least pretend to), or just being plain mean to her. Looking back I wish I had the guts to stand by her side, but we all knew we would be the brunt of the bullies as well if we ever did anything like that. Then there were the junior high dances. Mostly we just hung out with friends and had a good time. One time I was kidding around with my friend Freddy – now Freddy was black, or African American as we say these days- and we were just friends, although at home my brother liked to tease me that I had a black boyfriend. Well one night at the junior high dance I went up to Freddy and gave him a little kick and then I took off and he took off after me, well all my brother saw was that he was after me and all the sudden there he was holding Freddy by the shirt and telling him to leave his sister alone! Wow I didn’t even know he claimed me – but I rushed in and assured him that I started it and we were just kidding around and to let him down gently. This he did and he and his entourage sauntered off. I was embarrassed, but most impressed that I had a brother who would stand up for me!
When I think about the teachers only a couple stand out – there was Mr. Ironside (names have been changed because I no longer remember). If you are old enough to know who Ironsides is then you’ll know why that’s his nickname. Mr. Ironside was the Social Studies teacher and he was in a wheelchair, he seemed older than the hills, and there were rumor’s that he could pop wheelies in his wheelchair, although I never saw it – my brother says he did though. I don’t remember much about his teaching, but he did seem a little scary to me. Then there was my English teacher, who for some reason took a liking to me – don’t know why since English has never been my strong suit- and gave me a paperback book one day out of the blue. He said he knew I was a Christian and thought I might like it “Two from Gailee” – one of my favorite books, and I still have the copy he gave me.
As this happened in the early 70’s there were some not so pleasant memories as well. Integration had begun only the year before in Las Vegas and there were still some prejudices abounding. It seemed that colors ran in packs. One day at lunch my friends and I were walking around outside when this group of black girls found us (I don’t remember what started the whole thing), but we took off running looking for an open door. When we finally found one it was in the English area and we ran inside and ran into the bathroom – with me bringing up the rear- and slammed the door closed. Well apparently they were right on our heels, because momentarily they pushed their way into the bathroom and one of them proceeded to tell me (the last one in) that I had slammed the door on her knee and caused it to bleed. Picture this if you will there’s her and her pack standing close behind her, and then there’s me across from her and then a few feet back are my friends up against the wall as far away as possible. She’s yelling at me and telling me that I have to lick the blood off of her knee and who knows what else. All I remember is thankfully I was saved by the bell, as it was time to go to class. After that we didn’t hang around outside for a while, and perhaps that is why I became one of the fastest runners over the next couple of years.
Things at home were not much better during this time. I remember for my brother Kyle’s birthday we went to see “Jaws”. After that I was terrified of sharks and my brothers knew it (these are my three younger brothers now). I couldn’t even read the novel of Jaws that everyone was reading at school because I couldn’t stand to touch the shark on the front of the book. My brothers found this out somehow and they chased me around the house with this book that had a drawing of a shark inside it. I know this seems really stupid to be afraid of a drawing, but it gets worse. One day when they were chasing me around the house I ran in the bathroom and locked the door. They shoved the book under the door, because they knew even that would scare me to death. When I finally got up enough courage to pick up the book I hid it behind the hamper in the bathroom. Afterwards they asked me what I did with it and I told them I flushed it down the toilet. Now mind you I hadn’t done this, but it made them stop looking for it, the only problem is now my mind had this vision of a shark in the pipes in our home. Every time I took a shower I watched for Jaws to come up through the drain. Every time I used the toilet I expected Jaws to come up and bite me – you know where. Amazing the power of the mind, I could really do myself in with it.
Well I guess that is most of what I remember about junior high except of course all the dances we learned in PE like the Virginia Reel, Hava Nagilia, etc. – When are we ever going to use those again? All in all I survived and went on to high school, where I was a much smaller fish in a much bigger pond and faded into the walls even better, or at least found my niche in the music department.
