Monday
Whether you have kids or not, we’re sure you have a great school story that you haven’t shared. It might be a teacher who inspired you, a disastrously funny moment, or getting your first kiss by the lockers before 4th period Geometry class – we want to read your best school memory. Believe it or not, I've been thinking about this prompt all weekend. I intended to start this thing days ago and just schedule the posts, but after I read the prompt I wasn't entirely certain what to write about. First, absolutely nothing came to mind. I've been out of high school for 16 1/2 years and all of my high school memories are sort of marred by and tangled up with my images and memories shared with my ex-husband. Then, after a while, tons of things started coming to mind, but just as snippets of this and that, not enough to make one cohesive story--memories of jr. high, high school, and even from college. But now, as I write this, I'm thinking so what?! So what if my favorite memories are just little bits of this and that, a sort of collage of the past? If that's what I've got, that's what I'll share, so this might be a little bit disjointed, just hang in there. It's not exactly what the prompt asks for, but close enough! ~.^
Some pretty general memories come to mind...
- Writing notes with my friend Mindy (like, every period) from 7th to 10th grade. Some of them were written upside down and backward. All of them, on my part, had terrible spelling and grammar. She use to tease me about my atrocious spelling and grammar.
- Strangely, I remember very clearly the day that I met my ex-husband in tenth grade English class. We had Dr. Redmond (Redmon?) and he sat between me and Mindy.
- In 9th grade, I got an F- on an English paper/assignment in Mr. Baker's class.
- In 10th grade, I changed "tracks" and read Shakespeare's Julius Cesar twice (Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears... ha!).
- In 11th grade, Mr. Redmond assigned us a poem that we had to read and discuss in front of the class. I actually planned not to do it, but when Mike got wind of it he talked me into doing it. He told me to tell Mr. Redmond that I had no idea what it was about, to listen closely as he explained it, and then to regurgitate what he told me. I did it and got a good grade. The poem was something about mushrooms, I think. I don't know why I remember that.
- Let's see, all my friends took senior honor's English with Ms. French and were given assignment based on novels, one of them (who shall remain nameless) made a bad grade because his mother had done his assignment (ha!).
- Being humiliated in my senior psych class when my best pal decided to tell a guy that I had had a crush on him since the 7th grade. Right in front of everyone, including Mike, who thought it was hilarious. Although, it was only half true because in 7th grade, I, like many other girls, had a thing for Darren Rowe (again, not sure why I remember that!).
- Homecoming dances and prom, once I was talked into going. We always had a good time. I particularly enjoyed getting group pictures.
- One funny thing that stands out in my mind was having lunch with everyone and William French's funny little "11th commandment" quips. He particularly liked to make fun of the freshman.
- Oh, and Jodi refusing to say the f-word, replacing every f-word with "bunny."
- Or the time she [Jodi] left her shoes at school and went home barefoot once when we were seniors.
- French class, which I had with Shannon (pretty sure that's right). We had to make up French names and I cheated and used Marie, my middle name.
- Our French teacher, who made us do French journals, told me I had "beautiful handwriting."
- The time we got into a fender bender in the parking lot after school because Mike was rolling forward and not watching where he was going. Though I saw it coming, I couldn't quite find the words to tell him to STOP. We bumped into a truck and the front bumper of our blue VW bug got stuck under their back bumper.
- In tenth grade I use to walked home with this guy named Ray--he only lived around the block. He and I had a weird friendship where he called me "blondy" even though I wasn't really blonde. He also enjoyed pushing me off the road into the sandy shoulder because I was wearing flip flops and the sand would get into my shoes. He was quite cute.
Then there was the drama...
- Like Shannon's (dammit, what was her last name?!) constant obsessed relationship issues with Scott Erickson. He and I did not get along.
- I think it was in jr. high social studies when I made this really awesome sugar cube castle for a project and Scott totally showed me up with his Lego castle with a working drawbridge and little men. To be fair, he showed everyone up, but he was very smug about it.
- Or in jr. high when Krystal K. was always threatening to beat me up--something I remember in a sort of distant way, for whatever reason.
- Then there was the time I dated a friend's brother. When we broke up her friends made my life miserable, following me around and threatening to beat me up.
Well, not quite. There's one more thing.
- The only really memorable moments as an undergrad was the Backgrounds to Western Lit class when our professor brought our papers back and gave the class a lecture about what is and is not appropriate in college papers. She said, "Your mothers may care about your opinion, but no one else does." She didn't mean everyone, Melanie and I had made really good grades on that paper, but it was a really amusing moment and something that has become, and remained, a running joke between us.
