Seventh Grade
Just dropped the kid off for her first day of seventh grade, and in addition to feeling aggrieved over a teaching schedule that starts before Labor Day (just wrong!), I couldn’t help but be moved to reflect upon my own experience in that middle year of middle school way back in 1969-1970 when the world was simpler, home computers yet to be invented, and, according to Wikipedia, the Brady Bunch premiered on television.
Seventh grade was, for me, the year that my friends became way more important and influential in my life than my parents. I cared much more about what my fellow Guttersnipes (our neighborhood group of 10 or so little scofflaws) thought of me than whether or not Mom and Dad endorsed what I did.
That was the time of “buck-buck,” which we used to play at any and all parties and get-togethers; it was when I got given a super-flying wedgie from my pals for having been the first of us to go to a party with girls; those were the days I’d get up at 4:30 in the morning to deliver my paper route while listening to my transistor radio in the pocket of my fringed suede jacket; I remember one day being so frightened by the spooky guitar solo in Led Zepplin’s “Whole Lotta Love” that I had to turn it off.
Our homeroom teacher that year had perhaps the most unfortunate name ever for a 7th grade educator: Mrs. Hyman. I’m not sure any of us boys really knew what a hymen was, but it sure seemed funny when Charles Titterington held the Elmer’s glue bottle down by his crotch and squirted out sticky white gobs.
I got suspended from school for an afternoon when, in math study hall, I wouldn’t stop saying “mugwump, mugwump, mugwump;” the algebra teacher picked me up and threw me against the lockers; I wonder what similar adventures are in store for our kid this year.
Seventh grade was, for me, the year that my friends became way more important and influential in my life than my parents. I cared much more about what my fellow Guttersnipes (our neighborhood group of 10 or so little scofflaws) thought of me than whether or not Mom and Dad endorsed what I did.
That was the time of “buck-buck,” which we used to play at any and all parties and get-togethers; it was when I got given a super-flying wedgie from my pals for having been the first of us to go to a party with girls; those were the days I’d get up at 4:30 in the morning to deliver my paper route while listening to my transistor radio in the pocket of my fringed suede jacket; I remember one day being so frightened by the spooky guitar solo in Led Zepplin’s “Whole Lotta Love” that I had to turn it off.
Our homeroom teacher that year had perhaps the most unfortunate name ever for a 7th grade educator: Mrs. Hyman. I’m not sure any of us boys really knew what a hymen was, but it sure seemed funny when Charles Titterington held the Elmer’s glue bottle down by his crotch and squirted out sticky white gobs.
I got suspended from school for an afternoon when, in math study hall, I wouldn’t stop saying “mugwump, mugwump, mugwump;” the algebra teacher picked me up and threw me against the lockers; I wonder what similar adventures are in store for our kid this year.
posted by Professor Dave at 1:48 PM
1 Comments:
Joey Ramone was born Jeffrey Hyman - I'm sure that's why he became Joey Ramone!
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