The Greatest Hits of Middle School
A Memoir of Buddies, Girlfriends, Bullies, and Catholics
Dating at thirteen is never what you expect: a mishmash of guesswork and lucky moves.
Diary Entry, May 8, 1961[1]
IN WHICH I learn not quite enough about love.
On the playing field of girlfriend getting, my best friend Steve scored a touchdown his first try. Continue reading “First Girl”
IN WHICH I learn the Facts of Life. Twice.
Dad picked the wrong time and place to explain The Facts to me. The time, well that’s complicated. I’ll get to that. But the place . . .
Had I known I’d be writing about Steve, my first adolescent friend, I would have carried my Brownie Hawkeye camera around with me more.
IN WHICH I learn one way of dealing with a bully.
The solution to three years of Dickie Shears whaling on me was right in front of me and I wasn’t getting it.
There had to have been something about me that attracted these hoods.
You may not believe what I’m about to tell you, and I wouldn’t blame you. I have trouble believing it myself, nearly sixty years later.
Continue reading “Bullyland, Part III: Fists Don’t Fail Me Now”
IN WHICH I learn the subtle side of conflict.
Paul Dabuse was the toughest kid in the seventh grade and I knew this because I once saw him fight. It was enough to brand him in my brain as someone I didn’t want to mess with. Continue reading “Bullyland, Part II: Up a Notch”
Chris Montez1 had it right. “Any old dance that you wanna do.” When I was 13 at Holton-Richmond Junior High2, attending class in wooden desks with dried-up ink wells, I used to go to the school dances that happened third Friday each month. They were called “mixers,” because that’s what the girls and boys were supposed to do. Mix with adults gaping on. Of course not many of us did. The concept of a sock hop, with minimal supervision and an outta sight disk jockey, was yet to be in Danvers, Massachusetts.
Continue reading ““. . . the Twist, the Stomp, the Mash Potato too . . .””
