In the fall of 1964, at the age of 14, soon to be 15, and after a good scrubbing in red lipstick by senior classmen, the acceptable rite of initiation, I had arrived in the 10th grade a "scrub", a bona fide member of the one student body of Englewood High School. The school grounds covered an area comprising more than four city blocks, and the school building proper was huge, or so it seemed to me then. The Englewood High Pirates, our champions. When I think about how the transition to high school affected me, the word that comes most to mind is "dazed"; but, according to those who know me well, I was in this condition most of the time anyway.
A withdrawal had begun to take place then, in my own mind, one that I tended to project onto my teachers and classmates and that ultimately served only to isolate me further from them. I was a daydreamer, distracted in class, constantly preoccupied with my own thoughts. I had a distorted notion of personal responsiblity and questioned the point of my education. I wandered wherever I went, rarely any ambition or purpose to my step. I had begun testing the limits of authority as I never had before, my rogue nature and all of its wayward proclivities being my first and preferred tool. I was growing increasingly restless, impatient for release - to what, I don't know, as I was directionless in life, without skills or training of any sort, and had only the vaguest consciousness of what being responsible for myself entailed. A very awkward prelude to young adulthood, retreating all the while.
We had a dress code then: a boy's hair couldn’t touch the back of his shirt collar and no collarless shirts were allowed, shirt tails had to be tucked in and belts were required if the pants had loops for them, no shorts, no tattered or torn clothing, socks and shoes were required (tennis shoes were okay), and no pocket knives with blades that exceeded two inches in length - no switch blades - and no brass knuckles or other fist fighting paraphernalia. Girls had to wear dresses or skirts - no pants, no shorts - and the hemline couldn’t be more than two inches above the knee, jewelry and make-up had to be kept to a minimum. The rules were broken constantly, of course, just like in adult society, and especially when the mini-skirts came out - what a wonder to behold!
I loved math, learned to type 45 wpm sans errors, could dissect a frog in Biology class and a compound sentence in English class, but in Phys. Ed. I was defeated. I wasn’t always the last one picked when choosing teams, but that‘s how it felt to me; it was that close. I have never liked physically competitive situations, and I hated Phys. Ed. more than any other class. I never measured up. I couldn’t catch the ball no matter what shape or size it was. Today, someone tosses me a cigarette lighter, inevitably I miss the catch and it hits the wall or goes sliding across the floor, and amid my disgrace and embarrassment in recovering it, I will likely drop it. I can’t flip a coin and catch it. I feel some measure of competence given a mental exercise; if not, at least I know what to do about it, but a test of my physical prowess leaves me wanting every time.
It was during or around this time that I first experimented with alternate lifestyles. In so doing, I was never persuaded of anything but my original preferences. I think of these brief but forbidden liaisons as having more to do with my own inferiority complex and its attendant need for praise than with any latent tendencies I may have had, but I don’t really know this, as I have no training in the psychology of human behavior, other than having watched and lived it for as long as I have. Today, my sexuality is not an issue with me. To my shame, I’m sure, I take delight in those with whom it is, probably because it is what little freedom I have attained from and enjoy for myself, and I like having a little fun with it.
About the middle of my junior year, I just quit going to school. A lot of us would gather at the “little store” before school started, for coffee and donuts and enough candy and chips to last us until lunch. I had met a couple of guys named Mike and Richard, both coming from unhappy home lives (Richard I don’t think even had one, and mine, if I remember correctly, was on the decline as well). Mike’s parents worked all day, and the three of us got into the habit of leaving the store, and rather than turning in the direction of the school, we would head towards Mike’s house for a day of playing cards and watching television. It started out just once or twice a week and from there went to three or four times a week until I wasn’t going to school at all anymore. After several truancy warnings, I was expelled.
I was sent off to live with my Uncle "Jeep" in Lubbock, Texas, who was then working on his Doctorate in Math at Texas Tech, and I finished my junior year at Lubbock High School. I did well and I liked it there. We lived in a rural area, and I was lonely and bored a good deal of the time, but the circumstances were otherwise ideal. I was granted every reasonable privilege and freedom, my obligations were minimal, and it was peaceful there. Good natured people, easily humored and attentive to one another's wishes. I virtually idolized my Uncle, and I loved my Aunt Lanita.
Nevertheless, I was often moody and discontent, and somewhere inside me was an unhappiness that followed me everywhere I went. I took it for granted after awhile, as it wasn't something I was consciously aware of in the moment, but a nagging sadness was always there, close by. Then, in my senior year, I fell into old habits. There was a little cafe across the street from the school, and they served the best coffee, and it seems I never could make my first hour Chemistry class. When it came time to graduate, it was no surprise to me that I had straight F’s in Chemistry.
I begged my Chemistry teacher to pass me, that my mother was pregnant (she wasn't) and would lose her baby if I didn’t graduate, and on and on. Finally, he gave me a crossword puzzle to work and said if I got 97% of it correct, he would pass me. I had spent three days on it and had only found 1/3 of the answers, if that many, using the Texas Tech. library, when I met this guy in class who had worked it once for extra credit. His dad was a doctor and had helped him with it, and he helped me finish it. I got exactly 97% of it correct. Now it's 1967, I'm 17 almost 18 years old, and having reached the very pinnacle of mental and emotional maturity, as ably demonstrated by having cunningly outwitted my Chemistry teacher, I graduate high school.
A withdrawal had begun to take place then, in my own mind, one that I tended to project onto my teachers and classmates and that ultimately served only to isolate me further from them. I was a daydreamer, distracted in class, constantly preoccupied with my own thoughts. I had a distorted notion of personal responsiblity and questioned the point of my education. I wandered wherever I went, rarely any ambition or purpose to my step. I had begun testing the limits of authority as I never had before, my rogue nature and all of its wayward proclivities being my first and preferred tool. I was growing increasingly restless, impatient for release - to what, I don't know, as I was directionless in life, without skills or training of any sort, and had only the vaguest consciousness of what being responsible for myself entailed. A very awkward prelude to young adulthood, retreating all the while.
We had a dress code then: a boy's hair couldn’t touch the back of his shirt collar and no collarless shirts were allowed, shirt tails had to be tucked in and belts were required if the pants had loops for them, no shorts, no tattered or torn clothing, socks and shoes were required (tennis shoes were okay), and no pocket knives with blades that exceeded two inches in length - no switch blades - and no brass knuckles or other fist fighting paraphernalia. Girls had to wear dresses or skirts - no pants, no shorts - and the hemline couldn’t be more than two inches above the knee, jewelry and make-up had to be kept to a minimum. The rules were broken constantly, of course, just like in adult society, and especially when the mini-skirts came out - what a wonder to behold!
I loved math, learned to type 45 wpm sans errors, could dissect a frog in Biology class and a compound sentence in English class, but in Phys. Ed. I was defeated. I wasn’t always the last one picked when choosing teams, but that‘s how it felt to me; it was that close. I have never liked physically competitive situations, and I hated Phys. Ed. more than any other class. I never measured up. I couldn’t catch the ball no matter what shape or size it was. Today, someone tosses me a cigarette lighter, inevitably I miss the catch and it hits the wall or goes sliding across the floor, and amid my disgrace and embarrassment in recovering it, I will likely drop it. I can’t flip a coin and catch it. I feel some measure of competence given a mental exercise; if not, at least I know what to do about it, but a test of my physical prowess leaves me wanting every time.
It was during or around this time that I first experimented with alternate lifestyles. In so doing, I was never persuaded of anything but my original preferences. I think of these brief but forbidden liaisons as having more to do with my own inferiority complex and its attendant need for praise than with any latent tendencies I may have had, but I don’t really know this, as I have no training in the psychology of human behavior, other than having watched and lived it for as long as I have. Today, my sexuality is not an issue with me. To my shame, I’m sure, I take delight in those with whom it is, probably because it is what little freedom I have attained from and enjoy for myself, and I like having a little fun with it.
About the middle of my junior year, I just quit going to school. A lot of us would gather at the “little store” before school started, for coffee and donuts and enough candy and chips to last us until lunch. I had met a couple of guys named Mike and Richard, both coming from unhappy home lives (Richard I don’t think even had one, and mine, if I remember correctly, was on the decline as well). Mike’s parents worked all day, and the three of us got into the habit of leaving the store, and rather than turning in the direction of the school, we would head towards Mike’s house for a day of playing cards and watching television. It started out just once or twice a week and from there went to three or four times a week until I wasn’t going to school at all anymore. After several truancy warnings, I was expelled.
I was sent off to live with my Uncle "Jeep" in Lubbock, Texas, who was then working on his Doctorate in Math at Texas Tech, and I finished my junior year at Lubbock High School. I did well and I liked it there. We lived in a rural area, and I was lonely and bored a good deal of the time, but the circumstances were otherwise ideal. I was granted every reasonable privilege and freedom, my obligations were minimal, and it was peaceful there. Good natured people, easily humored and attentive to one another's wishes. I virtually idolized my Uncle, and I loved my Aunt Lanita.
Nevertheless, I was often moody and discontent, and somewhere inside me was an unhappiness that followed me everywhere I went. I took it for granted after awhile, as it wasn't something I was consciously aware of in the moment, but a nagging sadness was always there, close by. Then, in my senior year, I fell into old habits. There was a little cafe across the street from the school, and they served the best coffee, and it seems I never could make my first hour Chemistry class. When it came time to graduate, it was no surprise to me that I had straight F’s in Chemistry.
I begged my Chemistry teacher to pass me, that my mother was pregnant (she wasn't) and would lose her baby if I didn’t graduate, and on and on. Finally, he gave me a crossword puzzle to work and said if I got 97% of it correct, he would pass me. I had spent three days on it and had only found 1/3 of the answers, if that many, using the Texas Tech. library, when I met this guy in class who had worked it once for extra credit. His dad was a doctor and had helped him with it, and he helped me finish it. I got exactly 97% of it correct. Now it's 1967, I'm 17 almost 18 years old, and having reached the very pinnacle of mental and emotional maturity, as ably demonstrated by having cunningly outwitted my Chemistry teacher, I graduate high school.
posted by Steve at
5:43 PM
