Middle School Memories

 

It was September of 1978 when I began my three years at Butler Middle School in Waukesha, WI.  7^th, 8^th and 9^th grade.  I had just moved from Schenectady, NY to Waukesha in 1977 so I was fairly new to the area and still making friends.  I was desperately trying to make my way through puberty while overcoming all of the usual obstacles that seemed insurmountable at the time.  In addition to being a new kid and coming to a new school and trying to fit in, I had to get braces the day before my first day of 7^th grade.  I was in great pain and felt like a freak with a mouth full of metal.  I would have to learn how to smile and make friends with my mouth closed.  I remember trying to eat a hamburger in the lunchroom the first day after getting my braces and I was appalled at the massive amounts of food stuck in there.  It felt and looked ridiculous and I was convinced I would be eating no solids foods for the next two years.  At least they told me I would have them on for two years.  Of course that stretched to three years.  In fact I got them off the day after 9^th grade ended, so my time in braces neatly bookended my Middle School career…from September of 1978 to June of 1981.

 

In addition to my funky teeth, I was quickly realizing I had funky eyes.  I found myself squinting to see the chalkboard in class.  Instead of sitting in the back of the class with the cool kids, as the days wore on I gradually migrated row by row to the front of the class just so I could see what was going on.  Pretty soon I was in the front row with the nerds.  Even then I had to squint and eventually I had to break down and tell my mom that I was nearly blind.  She took me in for an eye exam and my 20/400 vision meant I was getting a new pair of cool glasses to go with my awesome braces.  I hated them and never wore them unless I was sitting at my desk not talking to anyone and looking at the chalkboard.  I hated them so much (flash forward to high school) I remember being on a date with my new girlfriend Dawn Blaedow and almost getting us killed on an off-ramp because I was too embarrassed to wear glasses on a date, even while driving blind.

 

To increase my nerd-quotient I also played the cello which I had to haul to school every day on the school bus.  So instead of sitting on the back of the bus with the cool kids, I had to sit by myself up front with my cello picking food out of my braces.  One day I was sitting at a table during lunch with some kids who were talking about the musical instruments they played.  One guy said he played the guitar and the other guy (I think it was Bryan Belmer?) said he played bass.  They were talking about getting together and jamming and maybe putting a band together.  The bass?  I naively thought he meant an acoustic stand-up bass that people played in my school orchestra.  But I never saw that guy in there.  Maybe he took lessons outside of school.  Enthusiastically I broke in and said I played the cello and that I would love to join their band.  They both stopped talking and looked at me like I was an alien, trying to figure out if I was just joking or if I was really that dumb.  I just sat there smiling hopefully until it was apparent to them that I was that dumb, so they ignored me and continued their conversation with their backs to me.  I eventually got good enough at the cello to be invited to try out for the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra.  That was my cue to quit what is one of the most beautiful instruments in the world.  I regret it now of course, but I had to do whatever I could back then to shed my nerdness.  I was never going to get a girlfriend hauling a cello around town.

 

I remember one day in 7^th grade sitting in the lunchroom and a bunch of guys were all hunched together at a table giggling at something.  It was a Sports Illustrated.  I sat down and asked what was up and one of them handed me the magazine.  Except it was more than a Sports Illustrated…much more.  Hidden inside the sports mag was a Playboy!  Oh boy.  It was genius.  We would never get caught because anybody walking by would think we were simply reading a Sports Illustrated!  I eagerly flipped though the Playboy, shocked and delighted in ways that I was only just beginning to discover.  I was completely lost in the magazine.  I tuned out everything in the world except the voluptuous delights laid out before my eager young eyes when suddenly I felt a strong firm hand on my shoulder and the magazine was ripped from my grasp.  Hey!  Oh.  Uh, oh.  It was the science teacher Mr. Prust walking by who noticed the magazine and came over to investigate.  All of the other kids at the table melted away and it was just me and the teacher with the rest of the lunchroom staring at us.  He took the magazine and told me to be in the principal’s office in 5 minutes.  Dammit.  I finished my sandwich and headed to Mr. Fink’s office.  When I got there he was kicked back in his chair holding up the magazine sideways checking out the centerfold.  I cleared my throat and he quickly folded it back up and laid it on the desk.  He asked me if this was mine and I said no.  He asked me whose it was and I said I didn’t know.  You could tell he was trying to act angry, but in reality he was amused at the ol’ Playboy-inside-a-Sports-Illustrated trick and was doing his best to keep from laughing.  He let me off with a warning and told me to never be seen on the school grounds holding a Playboy ever again.

 

One thing I learned in Middle School was how to be a dealer.  I noticed there was a guy who used to carry a box of pencils around.  Sometimes when a kid or even a teacher needed a pencil they would borrow one from him.  Hey I thought…why lend out pencils when you could sell them?  I got an old cigar box I found in my garage and started collecting pencils.  Whenever I saw a pencil laying around I would grab it.  Pencils from home and pencils from school laying in the hallway or left behind on desks or in the library.  My eyes were constantly on the alert for pencils.  Any size from stubs on up to new ones.  I carried my cigar box full of pencils and a little pencil-sharpener around with me at school all day every day.  After awhile I had enough pencil stock to start my business.  I let it be known that my pencils were for sale, 1 penny per inch and I would sharpen your new pencil free of charge.  If you needed a pencil and the guy with the free pencils wasn’t around, you could buy one from me.

 

That was okay for awhile.  I made a few cents here and there which seemed like a lot in the 70’s (a white milk carton from the cafeteria was 2 cents and chocolate 4 cents for example) and it felt cool to be ‘the guy’…making money selling stuff people needed.  But I wanted more.  More money…more power.  So I turned to something less legal.  Gum.  There was a gas station a couple blocks from my school so in the morning I had just enough time after I got off the school bus to run to the store and use the 50 cents my parents had given me for lunch to buy gum.  At first I was buying Juicy Fruit for 20 cents a pack.  There were 7 sticks in a pack and I would sell them for 5 cents a stick so I was almost doubling my money.  But it was about then that Bubble Yum was invented, with Bubblicious and Hubba Bubba soon to follow.  The soft bubble gum craze was on.  Packs of this stuff were also 20 to 25 cents with only 5 pieces per pack, but I would sell those for 10 cents apiece to regular people and 5 cents apiece to the cool kids.  This new gum was so popular that I could barely keep it in stock.  I was making good money as well as making headway with the cool kids.  My mom did not allow my sisters and I to chew gum, so I was following the dealer’s age-old adage:  Don’t get high on your own supply.  My prowess at dealing gum however soon led to widespread gum usage which in turn led to the school banning chewing gum in school.  My empire was beginning to crumble, but I was not deterred until eventually I got busted and hauled into Principal Fink’s office.  He took all the gum I had on me but he let me off with a warning…no more selling gum in school or I would be in big trouble.  I was not sure what ‘big trouble’ was, but I did not want to find out so I quit dealing.

 

Another fond memory was the school-wide field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.  One warm spring morning all of us kids were loaded on to school buses and hauled down I-94 from Waukesha to Chicago.  It was 2 hours each way so we left as soon as we got to school which got us to the museum around 10 am.  We had to leave the museum by 12:30 pm to get us back to school by 2:30 pm, so that only left us about 2 ½ hours to explore the museum.  I was in 8^th grade and had recently started talking to a girl in class named Jill.  She was not especially pretty or smart or popular, but she was a girl and she was talking to me.  When we got off the bus I asked her if she wanted to check out the museum with me.  She nodded yes and we headed into the deep dark vast maze of corridors and rooms to explore.  We kept on walking and walking and eventually we ended up in a back back exhibit room.  We ate our lunch there and I noticed we were the only ones in the whole room.  We started holding hands and then I leaned over and kissed her!  This was like a dream come true…I was making out with a chick while on a school field trip!  We completely lost track of time and after awhile an out-of-breath teacher came running into the room, saw us kissing and let out a huge sigh of relief.  He was really pissed off though.  He grabbed us each by the arm and marched us out towards the entrance, letting us know that the entire school was waiting for us.  Per policy nobody could leave till everyone was accounted for.  He got us out into the blinding sunlight and there were 3 or 4 waiting school buses full of kids all staring at me and Jill.  I did not know whether to be embarrassed, proud or scared of being in trouble.  I ended up being all three.

 

Middle school was a time of puberty, getting uncontrollable boners in class for no reason, getting naked for the first time in the school locker-room (no boners in there btw), the presidential fitness award, glasses, braces, crushes on girls (Vicky Ross, Kelly Welch, Stacey Anders, June Hansen, Tracy Lapp, Megan Rowlands, etc.), hot teachers (a big rumor was that Ms. Carlson was a Playboy model before she was a teacher), awesome teachers (Miss Bischoff taught us all about the Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Who while listening to their albums in class), bad teachers (Mr. Harding’s nickname was Mr. Hard-on because he was such a tool), my awesome music slide-show, school dances, algebra, elective classes...so many good times and bad.  It was a precursor for what was to come in high school.  If you made it through these formative years relatively unscathed mentally you were ready to take it all on.  Middle school was scary, fun, humbling, exciting and a good learning experience.  High school was mostly an all-out total blast.  We will get to that some time down the road…

Massage Fun

I woke up a few months ago on 'Super Sunday' with a weird neck ache.  It was 2/1/15 and Super Bowl XLIX was ready to kick off that day in Arizona and I had a pain in my neck.  I figured I had just slept on it wrong and it would be fine.  But over the next few days it got progressively worse, moving down to my back and eventually my left arm.  I kept thinking it would get better but it did not.  It felt like there was knife sticking into my upper left back, with pain and numbness running down my left arm to the point that I could not feel my elbow or pinkie finger.  The only slight relief I could find was if I hunched my left shoulder up and mashed my left cheek onto it while raising my left arm over my head.  I could not walk around like that though because it looked like I was giving some weird Nazi salute.  The pain was constant, day and night, making it hard to sleep.

Finally a week later I realized it was not going to get better on its own so on Tuesday the 10^th I made an appointment to see my chiropractor.  She is a totally cool lady and fun to talk to and I hoped she could fix me up.  She cranked on me for awhile and told me to give her 4 appointments and she would have me back on the right track.  It felt a little better but not much.  I went back two days later on Thursday and she cranked on me again and told me I should get a massage.  The pain was not getting any better but she said a deep tissue massage would help.  I had done a little research of my own on the problem and I was starting to think it was a pinched nerve, but she insisted that I should get that a massage so I said I would.

My wife Nadia had a gift certificate for a $100 massage at Simonson’s Salon & Spa that she had gotten for Christmas.  She said I could use it, but I was a little dubious.  Was I, a guy, supposed to be going to a beauty salon?  With relief I then remembered I also had a Christmas gift card for a massage with the awesome daughter of a friend of mine from work.  I had been to her a few times in the past and she has magic hands.  She is so good though that when I tried to make an appointment with her she was booked out at least 3 weeks.  I could not wait that long as I was getting no sleep with the constant pain and needed help right away.  I guess I was going to have to go to the salon.

So I called Simonson’s and was told that their female masseuse was on vacation so they only had a guy available.  He could see me the next day on Friday.  Really?  My only option was to get rubbed down by a dude at a salon??  I hesitated with the girl on the phone and said I didn’t know if I was cool with that, but she said that guys tend to have stronger hands and if I am having a medical issue it is better to have a guy.  I stalled for a bit and finally relented…she talked me into it.  My massage was scheduled for the next day at 4 pm after work.

I had strong reservations the second I hung up the phone.  I have had probably ten pro-massages in my life, but they have all been with girls.  I had mixed feelings.  A guy??  Rubbing and touching me…touching and rubbing.  What if I enjoy it?  Usually I have had them done by the daughter of the work friend I mentioned.  She is female, but she is a lesbian so I know there is no possibility of anything sexual.  Although lesbians of course turn me on in general, I have known her since she was a kid so I do not think of her that way…even when she is rubbing me and getting close to my good parts.  I was not sure if I was going to feel comfortable having some dude oiling me down and rubbing my whole body and getting close to my good parts.  It seemed very weird to me.  What if…what if it moved?  I felt exactly like George Costanza.

The next day was Friday the 13^th.  I did not sleep very well…a combination of pain and uneasiness.  I thought about it all day at work.  Should I just call and cancel?  I could do that.  I did not have to go to the salon.  I could pay the $100 and go somewhere else.  It would be good for me though I finally decided.  One of life’s interesting little roadblocks that builds character as you maneuver through it.  I pulled into Simonson’s Salon & Spa in Plymouth, MN at 3:45pm that afternoon.  I thought one last time about ditching the whole thing as I parked next to a pink and blue ‘Molly Maid’ car.  What if someone I know sees me?  With a sigh I decided to go for it and quickly walked inside trying to act cool.  I had a cool black leather jacket on.  Was that cool enough?  I looked around and saw that I was the only guy in there.  My heart sank.  I was not supposed to be here, but I got in line with the rest of the women.  There was an incredibly large woman right in front of me that I could sort of hide behind which was nice.  But then an incredibly hot woman got in right behind me.  It did not matter though because I was not a man anymore…I had no illusions of trying to be cool.

When I finally got up to the counter I whispered:  “I’m here for my 4 o’clock massage.”  She asked me if I had been there before, and when I quickly shook my head ‘no’ she dutifully and carefully took down all of my information while the hot chick waited behind me.  Then she told me ‘Lanier’ would be with me in a bit as she led me down a hall and introduced me to a back waiting room with a few other ladies in there reading magazines.  I took a quick glance at the magazines strewn about and of course there was no Sports Illustrated or ESPN…just Glamour and Cosmopolitan.  So I sat down with my cell phone and tried to pull up ESPN, but I was not getting any reception back there so I had to stare at my phone and pretend to look at my manly messages while waiting for my masseuse.

Lanier came and got me after a few minutes and led me further down the hall to a back-back room.  It was dark, warm, and unpleasantly pleasant.  We stood there and sized each other up.  Lanier was short, muscular, Latino, wearing a skin-tight muscle-shirt and thankfully a man of few words.  He asked me if there was any particular part or parts of my body I wanted him to focus on, or should he give me the general full-body massage I had signed up for?  I told him about my back problem, and then I tried to tell him that my calves were also sore but it came out all wrong.  I wanted to tell him that I had been to a rock concert over the weekend (I had gone to see ‘The New Orleans Suspects’ at Bunkers Music Bar which meant a long night of rocking and partying), but for some reason it came out:  “Yeah I was out dancing at a downtown nightclub over the weekend so my calves are really sore.”  It sounded incredibly gay as I heard the words I was saying and I gave a nervous chuckle.  He politely laughed and said he would take care of my calves.

Then he left the room so I could get undressed.  I was not going to go commando so I stripped down to my boxers.  It was then I noticed I was wearing ‘Family Guy’ boxers that had a picture of a naked Stewie on the front looking like Cupid with the words ‘Sex Party’ in fancy writing beneath him.  “Well that’s just perfect” I thought.  Lanier totally thinks I’m gay, and now these boxers are an invitation for him to have his way with me.  When he came back and started in on my back with the oil I got scared and told him to abort the full body massage (“ABORT!”) and that he could just work on my back for the whole hour.  I tensely held on to the front of the table in a white-knuckle grip as his strong, firm, experienced hands slowly worked the oil into my back and my neck.  After a few minutes I began to relax just a little bit.  I gotta admit, he was good…but I am definitely going to stick with women from now on.  I tried the other team, but I am happy to report that it did not move and now I’m back baby!

Poor Lanier…I guess I totally led him on.  I am sure he probably wanted to massage my 12 lbs of dangling fury and instead he had to settle for just my back.  I gave him a nice tip though and then ran out of there as fast as I could.