School Days

I was one of those fortunate kids who had a very positive experience in my middle school years.  We were living in San Angelo, my dad was stationed at Goodfellow Airforce Base, and I was attending the local, junior high school which, I discovered later,  educated kids from "the wrong side of the track," actually the river in my case.   To get there each morning I walked with my neighborhood friends to the city bus stop on the main road.  We took the bus into town center, transferred to the bus going to  the 8th-9th grade school.  I always took my violin with me because I was in the orchestra with my good friend Kathy Mollish.  We had started lessons in 6th grade but when we advanced to 7th there was no orchestra so we had to wait out a year.  I don't remember much about any academic classes except that I had an English teacher who you didn't want to ask a question unless you had the time to listen to him drone on with the answer!  We did study "Evangeline" that year which I still remember, her lover trying to find her in the marshes and barely missing her, very sad!  (Or at least that is how I remember it.) The thing I disliked the most was the girls' dressing room.  We were required to shower after PE and that was torture for me!  I was way too modest to enjoy stripping down and sharing a shower, no partitions, with more developed girls.  I did enjoy PE when we were learning volley ball because I had a great serve and could almost place the ball where I wanted it.  Of course we served with a balled up fist while holding the ball, not like today. Another rememberance has to do with lockers.  It was my first experience with them which I found to be frightening because: what if I forgot my combination, or worse, couldn't find my locker at all in time to get to class?  Ugh!  I still have nightmares sometimes related to my locker experience.  One really cool thing I remember is that we could leave campus for lunch of which we took full advantage.  Just a block away there was a hamburger joint close enough to get us back to school before the lunch bell rang to return to classes.  Thinking back, the diner probably had an ample supply of hamburgers waiting for us each day.  Spanish class was no fun since we were in classes with native speaking Latinos who Aced the class and made us gringos feel/ look stupid.  I had two years of Spanish but don't remember much at all.   After school we would reverse the bus ride but would stop in town to have a soda at a nearby shop while waiting our next ride, then cross the street just as the bus arrived to take us home.  The next day we repeated the same sequence.  I enjoyed the freedom associated with the junior high experience but wouldn't want to repeat it!