Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Secondary High

Describe a typical day in high school.

Roll out of bed with minutes to go before the first bell. Apply quick hygiene. Clothes. Catch ride with friends or, if drive self, let truck warm up for 15 minutes. Seems like longer. Chug along. Truck stalls two or three times on way to school. Bell sounds as you're closing truck door.

Hastily walk to locker. Add a kick and a punch as part of combination. Gather books and homework. Pencil or pen. Kleenex or hanky (always had allergies, it seems, in high school. That is, until going to Dr. Dy, the acupuncturist.) Run to class and sneak in as the tardy bell rings.

Try sleeping with eyes open through boring first period. Clock watch last twenty minutes. Then off to 2nd period.

P.E.

Get changed and line up on gym basketball floor. Make fun of gym teacher's "thunder thighs". Lust after the great looking upperclass "girls". Still don't know what sex is. Still can't think of much else.

Run around for warm up, then split up for sports or workout. Some do aerobics. Some do the "try to disappear" thing. Others go to the weight room to "buff up." Typically you "run" the track.

Finish up and hit the showers. While changing back into clothes, start sweating again. Hope for a breeze while you wait outside for the bell.

Third period English. Like this teacher. She allows a fair amount of clowning around, as long as it's witty. Find my voice here. Discover creative writing. Discover an applied sense of humor. Discover confidence. All of it a daily build.

Next is Chemistry. A fairly good burn. Good people in class, quality learning. Remember liking doing the math.

Then, lunch. No, wait. When was the reading period? 40 minutes of just reading something. Mr. Mulvihill some days would start nodding off. Then he'd drop his book and wake up with a snort. He'd pick up the book, and within minutes would start repeating the routine...

And there was a "recess" in there, in the morning sometime... Typically we'd make fun of people walking by in the halls. Well, not make fun, as much as make noise. As people approached, we'd start a low drone... and as they got closer, we'd get louder and higher pitched. Then as they'd pass, we'd reach a crescendo and lower the tone and volume as the subjects passed. Sort of like "aaaaaaaaAAAAA!AAAAAaaaaaaa." But with lots of variant sounds-- whooping, hollering, barking, faux-Spanish... Yeah, we were weird. I still am.

Like how I've been shift tenses all through this post. Bother you? Oh, I apologize. But it's not my problem. aaaaaAAAAA!!!AAAAAaaaaa.

Lunch meant eating as fast as possible and then going back to our histrionics of the hallways. One day, one of us had an orange that was cut into four sections. We each took a section and shoved it into our mouth. We made each other laugh for the entire lunch period, blowing stuff out of our noses, doubled over in laughter.

After lunch we'd go our separate ways, off to the next set of classes. Depending on what lunch entailed, we'd fight to stay awake through filmstrip and lecture, until finally that last bell would sound and we would be free! Free to do anything! And yet we'd wonder-- what is there to do?

4 comments:

Suzy said...

Nice job taking me back to high school. I had to walk to school and was your typical outside the main pack student but have some good memories.

Deb said...

I believe you did that aaaaAAAAaaaa thing to me. And I can still see all you goofy boys with your oranges. In fact, isn't there a pic of that in the yearbook? Back then, I was envious of the fact that you were older and could do so much more. I thought of all of you as "comedic geniuses". Now, when my students act that way, I'm not envious at all. And I won't even begin to tell you what I call them in my head. Love you, Brudder.

Unknown said...

Yes, we were equal opportunity "aaAAaa-ers" and people were randomly selected, not singled out for differences. But then, we were biased little a-holes... Oh, what gets mistaken for "cool" in the mind of a teenager...

Gerri said...

High school was too long ago for me to remember...ha ha!

Although it wasn't the best time of my life, I do have some fond memories.

Thanks for the opportunity to re-visit that part of my life!