Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Middle School Memories

 


It was September of 1978 when I began my three years at Butler Middle School in Waukesha, WI.  7th, 8th and 9th 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 7th 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 9th 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 7th 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 8th 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…

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