yikes – it’s a flashback to ninth grade

We’re having a kind of strange day at work today. My co-worker, known as Draaaama Queen in previous entries, has been out for the past two days because her mom is in the hospital. Her mom is in critical condition, and may not live. So for once poor L is not a Draaaama Queen. Her mom was diagnosed with cancer at least four months ago, and they can’t figure out exactly what kind of cancer she has. Which just seems bizarre. They first said it was pancreatic cancer and then said no, it’s not, it’s probably something less serious but they don’t know exactly what.  Meanwhile we can’t quite figure out why she hasn’t gone to Baptist in Winston-Salem long ago for a second opinion, but in the last few weeks she’s been in and out of the hospital constantly. And I will give L many many points for NEVER using her mom as an excuse for being late or missing work. So I know this is really really bad. She had a bile blockage and they were operating on her for that, and apparently she went into cardiac arrest. So poor L has been at the hospital round the clock for the past couple of days.

And Aggravation Receptionist is having her wisdom teeth out today. And we’re still one person short. So it’s just me. Luckily it’s very very quiet. I’m sitting out at L’s desk – my old desk – because I can’t hear people come in and can’t hear the phone very well from my office. So now I can’t really do a lot of real work. Oh, well.

Search Results did this very entertaining survey about ninth grade, and I was one of many who swiped it from her, so I think I’ll just sit here and do that. I won’t have a lot of computer time this weekend. My little teeny baby nephew, who is 6’4 and 18, is graduating from high school tomorrow. So we’re going down there tonight. It’s a little shocking. I don’t know how it is that everyone is getting so old.

Who was your best friend? My best friend in 9th grade was Steve, who I actually recently wrote about in this entry,  pictures and all. How timely – some of those pictures are even from 9th grade.

Who did you "go out" with? I didn’t really go out with anyone in 9th grade. I think it was more like 10th grade when Steve and I started "dating".

Did you have a crush on anyone? You know, I’m sure I did, but I don’t really remember who. I was still kind of in that tomboy stage in 9th grade. I do remember clearly thinking, "Oh, I hope Steve doesn’t feel like THAT about me!!!!" And then realizing pretty quickly that, ummmmm, maybe I DID hope he felt like THAT about me.

What sports did you play? Hahahaha!!!! My sport of choice was lying around reading. I did run track, but that was not till 11th grade.

Did you buy your lunch? I usually packed a lunch. It seems like 9th grade was when I went through my lemon yogurt phase. I ate lemon yogurt for lunch nearly every day. That was also when I started getting quite skinny, not surprisingly.

Did you skip? Skip school??? Not a chance. I’d have loved to skip, but I didn’t have the nerve. I would have also been caught and killed in very short order. My mother didn’t work, and the school called your house if you didn’t show up. Baker B on the other hand skipped all the time and went hiking. I think he didn’t do that until he was in 11th and 12th grade, though.
 
Were you in any fist fights? Not one. I’ve always been quite the pacifist. Well, my brother and I got in more than one fistfight, but I think that was when we were younger than 9th grade.

What was your favorite class? I’d say English but I had a really bad teacher in 9th and 11th grades. Actually, though, it was my favorite as far as classmates. I was in an honors English class all four years, and we had two different teachers alternating the four years and I pretty much had the same classmates all four. Steve was in it. So that was probably my favorite for socializing. My favorite for the class itself was Art.
 
What was your school’s name? AC Reynolds. Oddly, one of my cousins lived in Winston Salem and went to RJ Reynolds. Well, it seemed odd at the time. And she was enough older than me that she was VERY cool so I loved that our high schools had such similar names.
 
If you could go back would you? NO. Well, going back to 9th grade wouldn’t be so bad – I actually liked 9th grade. It was the only year of school in my entire elementary and high career that I DID like. We didn’t have middle school so I went directly from elementary to high. So 9th grade was a new school and a whole lot of new people – including Steve, who had gone to a different elementary school – and I did like it. That did not continue, however.

 
Where did you sit at lunch? With the weirdos, I’m sure. I actually don’t really remember where I sat. It’s been a few years since I was a ninth grader. Those 4 years of my high school career are kind of blending together.
 
Was there a smoking lounge? There sure was! Although it wasn’t a "lounge" as much as it was a smoking area. It was outside. The teachers had an indoor smoking lounge. I think you had to walk through the student smoking area to get inside the school from the buses. Not a lot of worry about secondhand smoke back then, obviously. Or kids smoking. This WAS North Carolina. Where high schools are named after tobacco barons.

<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";”>Who was your science teacher? Mr. Steele, who taught biology. Most.Boring.Class.EVER. It was just awful. All we did was read the book, and draw the pictures. Well, okay, I liked drawing the pictures. But he’d just lecture to us and it was HORRRRRIBLE. Okay, here’s the funny thing. I could swear that someone told me Mr. Steele dropped dead during a class years later. But I also am pretty certain that I saw a movie once where they had an unbearably boring science teacher who looked just like Mr. Steele, and was always seated at his desk, not moving. At some point it was revealed that he had been dead for days. SO I could be mixing reality with movies. Not that there’s anything unusual about THAT.
 
Who was your history teacher? My history teacher was this 100 year old woman with green hair named Ms. Jacobs. Or Jacobson? All I can remember is that I didn’t like her at ALL. I felt she treated us very unfairly, although I don’t know why I felt that now.

Who was your math teacher?  That would be Mrs. Carr. I had her for algebra. As I recall, she was pretty boring too, but I remember kind of liking her. I actually liked algebra until about halfway through the year, when I suddenly stopped understanding it. And I never understood it again. I had Geometry the next year and liked it a lot. For a math-hater, anyhow.

Who was your English teacher?   That would be Miss Dillingham. She was a terrible teacher, but I realized in later years that she was very young and she was probably scared to death of us. Because you know there is nothing worse than a bunch of smartass English students who KNOW they are smart. I know we made her life hell. The really odd thing is that I ran into her years later, and talked to her for quite some time. And I enjoyed talking to her and thought it was a shame that our English experience was so terrible, because she was a very nice, very intelligent person. In the wrong field. She actually quit teaching shortly after we graduated (we had her for 11th grade too) and became a missionary. How awful is THAT, making your teacher hate her job so much that she becomes a missionary??
 
Did you think you were cool? No, I did not. I thought I was a total hopeless geek. Or whatever the term was back then. I think that was before geek-dom. I was a complete oddball. And was well aware of my status.

Describe your outfits in ninth grade. Jeans and tee-shirts. And Keds. And it wasn’t particularly cool. As another example of how different those days were, though, my very favorite tee-shirt sported a big mug of beer, and said, across the top in great big ornate letters, BEER. I forgot it was picture day and in my class picture that year I’m wearing my BEER shirt. My hair was long and I was able to arrange it to hide most of the letters, though. I can’t imagine how quick you’d get jerked out of school today for wearing a BEER shirt. Nobody seemed to find it at all odd way back then.

Did you have a cell-phone? This was 1975. Nobody had a cellphone. I’m sure I wouldn’t have had one if they did exist, though. My parents didn’t let us have a lot of extras.
 
Who was your favorite teacher? Probably the Art teacher – Mr. Leftowitch. Leftowich? I forget. He let us do pretty much what we wanted, as long as it involved making stuff. I had him for several years.
 
What’s your most memorable moment? I think it would have to be the time Steve stole my sandal – which was one of those weird wooden Dr. Scholls shoes – during English, and shoved it through the sliding wall that separated us from the next classroom. We both got in trouble for that. And there’s one small example of why poor Miss Dillingham became a missionary.

What is your least favorite memory? Oddly I can’t come up with a good least favorite memory. I’m sure it involved PE, though. My least favorite class. And that generalized feeling of not fitting in and being a total weirdo.
 
What action do you regret the most? Well, I regret being a party to the driving of Miss Dillingham to life as a missionary. I also regret letting myself believe I was a hopeless oddball. I was very shy, and had I had more confidence in myself I think I could have, oh, done something with my life. Because we all know that 9th grade is the dealbreaker, and whatever we end up being or doing is because of 9th grade!!! Well, I guess it’s a good excuse at least.

OH, here’s something I’ve always regretted, although I had no control at all over it. Our high school was brand new when I was a freshman, and like I said, we didn’t have middle school when I was of middle school age. The new high school was a replacement for the old high school, and that year they turned the old high school into the middle school. I’ve loved old buildings as long as I can remember – yes, I WAS a weird weird kid – and I was SO DISAPPOINTED that I never got to go to the old school. It was one of those cool kind of gothic looking buildings with dark old bricks – my favorite kind! SO of course my class ended up being the only one in AC Reynolds history that didn’t get to go to the old school, either as a high school or middle school student. 

What were your best accomplishments? Probably making good grades. And not getting into serious trouble. Mostly because I was really really good at sneaking around. And I was afraid to do anything TOO bad.
 
What did you spend the most time doing on weekends? Reading. Riding our horse. Reading some more.
 
Did you make any lifelong friendships? Kim and I met in 9th grade, but oddly we didn’t hang around together in high school. We had mutual friends – Steve, and my friend/enemy Barbara who I haven’t even MENTIONED here – and we had at least one class together – Biology. And we always liked each other, but I think we both had so much drama going on with our mutual dramatic friends that we were too busy to realize what good friends we’d make. Actually, I think that would be my biggest regret – that Kim and I didn’t become best buddies until we were freshmen in college. High school would have been a LOT happier for both of us.

 Got invited to any proms? Not in 9th grade.

How many years ago was this for you to remember back to? THIRTY THREE YEARS???!!!??? Excuse me while I hyperventilate… I guess that’s right, because Kim and I were just discussing how we’re having our 30th reunion next summer. And we might go, for the first time since our miserable 10th.