The junior high was in
Hamburg – the next town north of Boston, New York – so it was a
longer ride to school every day. Our house was at the bottom of the
hill on Zimmerman - when I heard the bus head up the hill every
morning, I knew it was time to put my coat on, grab my books and
lunch, and mosey over to the bus stop two houses down – we were the
last stop for the bus after it went to the top of the hill, picking
up kids, go across a side street picking up kids, and then back down
the hill again in a different subdivision, and then to us. After that
it took the old Route 219 and into Hamburg.
Once on the bus, I
usually sat next to Nina – we were in sixth grade together and then
in seventh grade classes together. It was good when the seat next to
Nina was vacant because I could scoot into it and not feel too self
conscious. And we could chat. But if the bus was full, and all the front seats were taken, I would have to go all the way to the
back to find a seat. The back was
where the smokers sat. And the bus driver let them smoke.
Yeah, I was very self
conscious then.
Even though we moved from
class to class in seventh grade – the students were in groups and
we moved from class to class in a group – pretty much all the same
kids were in all my classes. My daughters had a similar experience
with middle school thirty years later in their mega school district
here in Gwinnett.
I can still picture my
seventh grade homeroom and the male English teacher, although his
name escapes me. We were not alphabetical – like later homeroom
classes – because I can remember the names of two of the boys who
were in there - one whose last name began with a W and one with a Y
start to his last name. Somehow, I was voted secretary of the homeroom the second semester – perhaps it was a non-popularity
contest and the kids just liked the other person nominated for
secretary less than me? Anyway, my duties were to take attendance
every morning and send anyone who came in past the bell to the
office! I was a pain in the butt about that.
Gym class is a total
blank right now; in home ec – I do remember we made toast one day,
and then we had to eat the toast, clean up, and leave the
stove spotless – all in 40 minutes. But I have to admit, even
though the toast had nothing to do with the stove that day, a clean
stove is always nice. Art class was taught by a teacher who was the mother
of one of my classmates. I remember a boy sitting on the bench behind
me in that class who had the same kind of haircut my Dad would give
my brothers – the hair fell across half of the forehead in a slant
– but on Sundays, before church, if you took a wet comb to that
hair, it would go back off the forehead - the slanted hair giving some lift and shape and it would stay there looking neat
and well groomed. I felt sorry for that boy – other kids were
sporting longer hair which was in style then – but his Dad was like mine,
with barber clippers at home!
Social Studies was taught
by another mother of one of my classmates. But I recall nothing else
about it. Mrs, or maybe it was Miss, Wohl was my math teacher. She
was young and had the strict older math teacher in the next room as
her mentor.
I remember complaining to Mom one day about Ms Wohl, “and when she wants to start class she says, People!' Mom looked at me
and said, “what do you want her to call you, boys and girls?”
Well, no, of course I did not want her to call us boys and girls –
I just wanted to complain!
One day toward the end of
the school year, I saw a list on the board in math class of all the
kids in Ms Wohl's other math classes who had homework
assignments that were not turned in. It had never occurred to me not
to do my homework! What a novel idea! And so I started not turning
in my homework either! I knew I would do all right on the tests. But
the late assignments got to a point were I could not be forgiven –
and my parents and the strict teacher in the next room found out
about it. The strict teacher saw to it that I was moved to a lower
level math class the next year. And my parents started calling me
“Math Dummy.”
A term of endearment, I assure you.
But now you know the
truth – it was not math that I was dumb about – it was all of me being
dumb and just some really weird excitement in seeing how much I could
get away with – or not get away with.
Science class was more
fun than sixth grade science had been. All these many years later,
however, the only thing I remember about seventh grade science is
our patient, kindly male teacher and the day he asked one of the
girls in the class to hand him the note she was trying to pass!
I know what the note
said. It was a joke. Seventh grade humor. Totally juvenile. In the
form of a riddle. You have been warned. The riddle was as follows:
What takes five minutes
and lasts nine months?
Give up? The answer is
Johnson Floor Wax. Yeah, the science teacher was not amused.
Hopefully he did not wonder if we would ever amount to anything! I
must confess, at that age, I knew what the innuendo was in the joke
but didn't really get the joke because of the “5 minutes” part.
Always the optimist, I guess.
130 20150510 Johnson Floor Wax
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