School Daze: Grade Eight

Day 312

This will probably be my last School Daze column devoting itself to a specific grade. I attended Sky View High School for grades 9-12 and I will probably blog about them in the future but I will combine them since they all seem meshed together anyway.

This was an interesting time in my life. There were some big changes happening. The biggest change being that I moved from Canada to the United States. My parents divorced and my mom and I moved down to Richmond, Utah and lived with my grandparents. I was used to a large city and now I was living in this tiny town. I had cows, real cows, as neighbors. This was something completely foreign to me.

And I had to attend a new school in less than a few weeks. I was going to attend North Cache Middle School (they call Junior High schools, Middle Schools) and I was going into the 8th grade.

I was an outcast. The predominantly Mormon community I moved into was filled with people that lived very sheltered lives. It is not to say that I was a wild child or "worldly" or anything like that but I was more experienced. I guess I was so experienced that some parents out there didn't like me hanging out with their kids since I was so "worldly". Yeah, I was a real hellion.

Since I was such an outsider I was picked on and bullied. Most of these jerkholes came from a neighboring city of Lewiston. I tried to fit in but I was the new guy. One of the lessons I learned while at my last school was to strategically get a girlfriend and get one that would place me with those "kewl" people. There was a cute girl that I liked named Liz Wheeler and I asked her to go with me. Unfortunately this backfired on me. While it did protect me from some of the bullies, it also caused the real jerkholes to double their efforts in picking on me. So I was accepted by the general student body, I was a bigger target to that select crowd of jerkholes. While I was at Killarney and going with Lori, you were supposed to hang out all the time and hold hands and stuff like that. I think that was a little much for the North Cache folk. My whirlwind romance with Liz quickly died out but at least I made some good friends.

I don't have my school pictures here so I had to snag this out of my yearbook.

I was still bullied and most of that came while in gym class. (How cliche!) I hated gym class with a passion and my gym teacher didn't help out. My teacher was named Mr. Lindley and he knew my family. He had lived in Edmonton before my parents moved up there and he knew my grandpa since my grandpa was a respected educator. My gym teacher had these fingers that were dislocated and broken from playing football but now they were hardened and unbending. He used to jab these fingers right in your chest when you did something stupid or wrong. He would line us all up to take roll and he would stop and ask each student. "Clean or dirty?" He was referring to our jock straps. You would have to pull out the strap so he could see that you were actually wearing a jock and not faking it. Only the stupid students would say "dirty". If you did he would jab those fingers right in your chest so hard it would leave a bruise. But I would rather deal with him than with my fellow students. What is really funny is that I could share some real horrific and embarrassing stories of what went on in the gym locker room. I could name names but I think I would be too embarrassed to actually say what went on in there Especially about the three jockholes who thought they were really all that.

Gym class is where I also got into the infamous Rock Fight with Mr. Forsgren.

Like I said, I made some very good friends back in the 8th grade. Most of them I am still in some sort of contact with. My first friend that I made was Casey. I would walk home with Casey (he lived on the other side of the highway in Richmond) and we became fast friends. His family was so nice to welcome me in and I spent a lot of time at his house playing around. Unfortunately he lived by some horrible neighbors that tried to bully him and of course they would bully me when I walked over to his house. The Bair brothers were the worst. They actually shot Casey's dog with a .22 and killed it. They were horrible people. I remember one night I was at Casey's with my other friend Bruce for a sleepover. We noticed that the Bair dad had left one of his beers out on the porch and we snuck over and stole it and then later poured it over the kid's jacket and bike and hid the bottle inside the pocket. Later on his dad smelled the beer on the jacket and really let them have it. We could hear the dad just cussing and beating those boys.  You know, it is not as funny now as it was then.

I also had some great teachers that I felt actually cared for me. A few of them made me who I am today. I also had teachers that had taught my Uncle Kurt when he attended North Cache. I'll let you decide if that is a good thing or not.

By the end of the school year I was feeling better. This year was hard but not as horrible as my last year in the 7th grade was. I got another girlfriend named Rochelle but we were really just friends towards the end. At the end of the year we got our yearbooks and we got to spend the day autographing and writing messages in them. That was a new experience for me too. Looking back, I would love to see what I wrote other people in their yearbooks. Hmmmm... I don't know if I would really want too, I bet I wrote some embarrassing things. I made sure that my yearbook was passed to all the cute and popular girls and there was one signature that made my day. And it really irked Bruce since he had a major crush on this girl.

I blocked out the phone number and the poor girl's name. If you think you have figured it out, please do not post it. I want to avoid further embarrassment!

She was one of the most popular girl's in school! And she thought I was sexy! (Like I really knew what that meant) She made such an impression that my friend and I walked all the way to Smithfield one hot summer day to visit her. I didn't walk 500 miles to be with this girl but I did walk six miles! Sadly she was not home but her cool mother gave us a ride home after giving us something to drink. She was impressed that I walked that far to see her daughter.

My 8th grade year was not as bad as I thought it was. It was still difficult but I think I was being a tad too harsh in my former columns.

School Daze: Grade 5

Day 236

Grade Five was probably one of my favorite grades of all my school years. Surprisingly I don't have that many memories of the fifth grade probably because it melds right into my sixth grade since I had the same wonderful teacher in Ms. Archer.

I don't think we had a class picture this year or at least I didn't get one. We only had a yearbook which is now very beaten up.

CONFESSION TIME: I had to alter these pictures with Photoshop because I ranked each one of my classmates with either a star, check mark or an "X". I don't want to offend anyone here.

What made this class so special was that it had one row of 6th graders and the rest was 5th graders. I really wanted to be a sixth grader and be like these guys. I thought they were so cool. It added a unique atmosphere to the class. What I enjoyed the most about having the sixth graders in my class is that I had a major crush on one of them. All I can remember about her is that she wore this awesome "Men at Work" t-shirt that I thought she looked so darn good in. Unfortunately that also led to one of my biggest regrets. I tried way too hard to get her to like me.

One of the things that I remember strangely enough is that Ms. Archer had a huge row of books above the cubbyholes. So if we didn't have a book to read during reading time we could get one of those. Towards the end of the 5th grade we would write and hide notes in one of the books on that shelf for other classmates. This was how we found out who likes who and how much. The problem with this system is that you would just watch to see who placed what note in what book. But it was way too much fun to stop and think about it.

Ms. Archer turned out to be my favorite teacher through Sifton. What I liked about her was that she was very patient, funny and was deeply concerned about her students. I have shared this story here on the blog but I think I will share it again. I felt that Ms. Archer cared more about me as a person than by just making sure I got good grades. Towards the end of the 5th grade I began to hang out with this other kid in my class and he was not the nicest kid. He would threaten other kids and bully some of them and threaten beatings but for some stupid reason I wanted to be like this kid. Ms. Archer noticed this too and saw that I was changing and not for the good. So she made the decision to move my desk away from him and back to some of my other friends. And she asked me to stay after school for a couple of minutes. She told me after school that I was not being true to myself and that I should stop trying to be like this kid. She then told me that I was not being nice and I would lose people's respect and friendship. At the time those words hurt since I liked Ms. Archer a lot. After walking home and thinking about it, I knew she made sense. So I eventually stopped hanging around this kid and went back to my normal circle of friends. What she did had nothing to do with school work, nothing at all with my grades but she was so concerned about me. What she did that day will stay with me for as long as I live.

I don't think it tastes like soap at all. More like Sen-Sens.

One thing that I remember about Ms. Archer is that the smell of Thrills gum made her sick. I love this gum and would chew it often after lunch but would always spit it out when I got back to class. One time I chewed it on purpose to make her sick and all it really did was make her mad. And she caught me and made me do a special essay.

One of the things she would do to make us quiet was institute the Traveling Essay. Whoever would speak last or make a noise last would get the essay. Fortunately I never got the Traveling Essay, unfortunately I didn't need to get the Traveling Essay since I got essays assigned to me on my own.

Now I know where Logan gets it from. I didn't know I was such a talker but so far all of my teachers have agreed. At least I was polite about it. It is really surprising that I never got that Traveling Essay.

We had a new principal of the school named Mr. Chester. And we didn't like him at all. He issued a rule that stated that all students were not allowed to pick up snow during recess. Of course we ignored this rule, how could you not ignore this rule when you had to go out for recess during the winter? We didn't throw snowballs at other kids but one time we were throwing snow outside. We were just seeing how far we could throw. One of our classmates saw us do this and she turned us in and he yelled at us like nothing else. His face got all red and looked like it was ready to explode. I thought for sure I was going to get the strap. He was such a jerk.

We were at the library one time and our Librarian was instructing us on what reference materials were. Ms. Archer told us what an almanac was and asked us to think of something we could look up. Michele (a nice girl but one we all thought was a bit off) asked Ms. Archer if she could look up sex. Ms. Archer didn't bat an eyelash. She opened the book and said she would see if there was anything new about sex we could find out. I remember looking over at Alvin and giggling about it. As if we knew what sex was anyway.

Our school had an indoor Floor Hockey League. We would have games before and after school and we would have a mix of 5th and 6th graders. We were named after the newest hockey team in the NHL, the New Jersey Devils. I really admired our Team Captain (I cannot remember his name, for some reason I want to call him Rusty) and we had a decent team but we were not loaded with talent like the Blackhawks were. I didn't think we could beat the Blackhawks but we did. And after a month or so, our team was in the school championship. The school decided to have the game at the end of the day and all the students were invited to attend. I was the only one in our class that was on one of the two teams fighting for the school championship. Ms. Archer was so cool enough that about an hour or so before the game she allowed us to make signs for the game to support me.

We won the game and I even scored a goal! We crushed our opponent 4-1. I usually played as a defender but my Team Captain wanted me to play Left Wing and so I did and that is when I scored the goal.

Every year in elementary school we would participate in the Canada Fitness Program and we would be awarded for how well we did. This year I was awarded the Platinum Canadian Fitness Award. The highest award you can get. The hardest part was the Endurance Run which we were all forced to do. Looking back that was probably what made me a fan of running. Still, I am glad that Canada made its students exercise.

One of the things that I really liked about Ms. Archer's class was creative writing. She usually had us write our own stories. One of my favorite stories to write was called "Teacher for a Day".  We would write what it would be like for us to substitute our own class. We could write serious or funny stuff, really whatever we wanted to write. She encouraged us to be as creative as we wanted to be. Writing was one of my favorite things to do in her class.

I was fortunate enough to have Ms. Archer again the next year. Which is why I am having a tough time remembering what happened in what year. I cannot remember if it was this year or the next that I joined the Ukulele club. I have a feeling it was this year since Mrs. Miller taught it and I had a different music teacher the next year. Hmmmm... I guess I will blog about that next time.

Sunday Confessional: The Little Mermaid

Day 197

I love the Little Mermaid.

There, I said it.

I don't know why this Disney film affected me the way it did but I absolutely love this movie, I love the story and I love the music. It ranks as one of my all-time favorite movies.

I remember the first time I saw it even. It was at high school towards the end of the school year. It was in Mr. Merkley's class. It was at the end of the year and we had taken our final tests so we had nothing to do. So he put on this Disney film that I had absolutely no interest in. I planned on falling asleep but instead I was enthralled by this movie. There was just something special about it.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. You only like the Little Mermaid because of her sea shells. Before you call Chris Hansen from Dateline on me, let me debunk this little rumor.

I do admit that Ariel is cute but that is all. And the reason I think she is cute is a legit one. She was based on Alyssa Milano (who was around the same age as I was at the time) and I had a mad crush on her. Maybe that is what made me pay attention.

I bought the soundtrack along with a bootleg video while serving my LDS mission in New York. We were allowed to watch and listen to these types of music. I also remember singing the Little Mermaid loudly while walking down the street in downtown Manhattan without anyone batting an eyelash.

Kristy knows of my secret too. In fact she bought me a Little Mermaid book and candy when she went to Disneyland with her track team a few years ago.

I remember a few years ago I was working at Dutro during the afternoon shift. They were re-releasing the Little Mermaid in the theatres again and the local radio station had a contest so you could win free tickets to a couple of showings. I was sad that I missed it in the theatres the first go around so I had to win tickets. I told Andy (a friend of mine at work) to call in along with me and a few other buddies to help me win tickets. Sadly, I didn't get through and neither did my friends.

Then I heard them announce the winner on the radio and I heard my name! I did win! Andy came over to me and said he was disappointed. He was the one that got through and won me the tickets. He said that when they told him that he was the winner he put on a high voice and made me sound like a complete idiot. He told the DJ that he luved the Little Mermaid and that he (being me) would act it out all the time and that this was a dream come true! Usually the DJ's will put the announcement on the air but this time they didn't. Andy was so disappointed that I didn't sound like a fool on air!

I still listen to the Little Mermaid pretty often and I have the Broadway version as well. While I enjoy the original the most, I would love to see the Broadway version. And I am excited that next summer they are coming to Salt Lake.