Midtermers no more

I mentioned I was a mid-termer yesterday. I was born in January. Why they let January kids start in January, maybe earlier than my birthday I don't know. Did we start later that year. I know I was born January 20 and two of the girls were born on January 21. Cool huh?

Anyway I went on like this going through the school year "backwards" all through elementary and into junior high. Then there were rumors that mid-term was going to be eliminated. The school board decided to do it gradually, not abruptly. So those left in elementary school would switch over as they moved on to junior high (7-9). Those like me who were in junior high would continue as a mid-termer until moving on to high school. So it was a three year transition for junior highs.

There must have been a meeting at our junior high of the group of us still in mid-term. I think there were two homerooms with mid-termers. There were some 12 homerooms of regular kids. They often did not know what to do with mid-termers. When we moved over to the junior high in January they did not expect so many. So as an emergency they put a homeroom in the girls health room. Our lockers were right by the entrance to the girls' locker room. hehe. Did the boys try to peek in? Sure they did. But not me, I don't think. The woman coach who got this duty was never happy about it. She was often not in the room at all in the mornings. She never took pride of ownership in our accomplishments. We won the 7th grade soccer intramural championship. She never came out to watch us play.

Our home room stayed together for three years though I cannot say I got to know many of them. The boy in front of me, C.A. regaled me with stories of his exploits with the ladies in the last couple of years. But I had one bff in D.M. I was jealous when he tried to have other friends. So for the most part he didn't have other friends. We stayed friends throughout high school too. Another outstanding duo were the two Nancys who were also bff. I wonder if they stayed friends during high school. I'm not sure.

Anyway this is about the transition. When it came to going to a regular schedule they gave us two options. After the May-June semester of 1965 we could opt to stay back and take 9th grade over again. So the kids who did that would take the first semester classes over again in the fall and continue with the second semester in the spring graduating the next June and coming to high school in 1966. Or we could go to summer school and skip H-9 and immediately go to 10th grade in the fall.

Most of the kids decided to stay back. But my friend DM decided he wanted to go forward. And he encouraged me. He did not want to do it by himself. I agreed to do it with him.

That meant taking three classes in summer school, the maximum possible, quite an undertaking then going on to high school in the fall of 1965. There we would have to take one ninth grade class and take another class the next summer to finally catch up. There were six periods and four "solids": math, science, English, and history. We did not have to take an extra PE class or extra elective. So it was just one ninth grade class in the fall. I remember it was Algebra. All these classes were filled with failing kids, kids just barely hanging on. I don't think we quite realized what we had gotten ourselves into.

These kids were scary. The second semester summer school was basically for kids who flunked during the first summer school session, meaning they had now flunked twice. There was only one place where that was held, at San Jacinto High School downtown. The neighborhood was scary. The kids were scary. We could assume they were all carrying knives, cigarettes, maybe even dope. The teachers felt it best to take a don't stir up trouble approach. After all they were outnumbered. We were a couple of clean cut suburban kids. We stood out.

The teachers assigned these classes were fighting a losing battle. We really tried to get our work done but the bedlam around us was distracting. I'm sure we were verbally abused for trying to actually do the work. One thing I learned from DM was how to organize time so that we could get it all done before going home. He was a genius at that and showed me a vision of how it was possible. Before that time I had not really believed it possible. Much of my abilities in college to later take 18 or 21 hours per semester has to be credited to the mentoring I got from DM.

DM and I devised a special code for communicating. He was a bit more excited about it than I was. I understand that he still uses it. A few years ago I communicated with him and he insisted that I "read" a coded message that he sent me. I could still but just barely. Essentially it evolved over time as variation on the actually English alphabet. We kept changing the letters to things not likely to be identified by a casual observer. But they looked enough like the original letter that to us, who had been involved with its evolution, there was little problem reading it. I was never caught with a note but DM was once and he got a good laugh at the teacher's confusion.

That first year in 10th grade was OK scholastically. I don't think I ever fit it though. Some of it had to do with my being a year younger than the rest of them. But probably a lot of it had to do with my not being confident around people. Anyway it solidified the relationship with DM and I. It was us against the world a lot of the time. Later I would try to get dates with girls but that was almost entirely a failure. I guess if I had been willing to settle for a not so good looking girl but I wasn't. So when I finally did get dates it was with girls at other schools. I ruined my rep in my own school. But I did not mean to speak on that. I have covered it before.

I may have covered this before too but it is more appropriate here. My ninth grade Algebra class, called Algebra 1B was a class for those who got an F in the class in the spring semester. There must have been more than one class as D.M. was not in this class. I am sure teachers hated to teach this class. But the woman who taught my class was sort of an exception. She said she was involved with the college group that developed MAD magazine. She developed a crazy character where she described herself as a witch. She had ditties for each day of the week. The most famous were for Monday and Friday. We were to sing them in class. She had a souped up broom with stick shift and other silly ad-ons. Some of these kids would make her a new one to try to get brownie points.

That was another class where I felt out of place. There may have been a few others who were serious about trying to learn but here I think even the teacher had given up teaching seriously. That was really weird to me. I hate to waste my time. If I am there I might as well do my best. I guess that applies mostly to learning anyway.