The Awkward Years

My awkward years in school started at age six and lasted until I was twenty. The only reason that they weren’t longer is that I didn’t go to preschool.

The first six years of elementary school were merely to teach me to associate correct names to the appropriate color crayons. Then, like the water park attendant who used her foot to push me over the edge of the Drop of Death slide, my fifth-grade teacher pushed me against my will, kicking and screaming, into Shuksan Middle School.

Although I am one who hates to try anything new, I found middle school to have new freedoms which were granted to children who were now twelve years old. No longer were we stuck in the same classroom with the same teacher day after day. We were trusted to leave the home room class and walk the halls to our next class which might be art, and of course I entered that classroom with the full confidence of knowing I could identify color crayon names with their colors.

We now had shop classes where you could experience all means of maiming yourself, such as the table and band saws, the torch and arc welders, and varnish which when slapped alongside of your head with a brush left an interesting hairdo until you were driven to the barber to have it removed.

We had science class with natural gas and Bunsen burners. I can remember sitting in the room five minutes before class and watching one of the ne’er-do-well boys, who spent much time in juvenile detention, open all the gas valves. When the teacher came in, the smell of natural gas was heavy in the air.  As he ran around shutting off the valves, he angrily shouted at the students to give up the perpetrator. As fingers started to point, the boy pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket and held it high for everyone to see. Open windows eventually carried the gas away. Coincidently, the police carried the boy away also.

For the first time we had a real band and a band room. It was insulated with sound absorbing tiles to prevent the rest of the school from hearing the non-musical noise which was produced by the band. It also prevented the school from hearing the sorrowful wailing of the band director. I have never understood why an adult would teach that class. While it is true that middle school bands feed musicians into the high school program, the middle school band director never has the satisfaction of having polished musicians. This could be the reason that so many middle school band directors are on medication for chronic depression. Non-musical noise is as good as it gets.

P.E. was another first for the boys, and an embarrassing trauma which we didn’t have to face in elementary school. Two things happened: first, boys were told that they must wear jock straps and because some boys refused, we had jock strap inspections done by the coach. Second, we had showers and a coach who told us we were required to shower after P.E. because, as you know, middle school boys have B.O. We therefore combined the two acronyms and just called the phenomenon P.E.B.O. 

Twelve-year-old boys have no desire to wear jockstraps but even less desire to have a class shower. Therefore, many ran into the shower wearing their jockstraps which caused the exasperated coach to throw up his arms and lock himself in his office.

Walking the halls between classes under the watchful, suspicious eyes of the Principal, Vice-Principals and counselors, the shenanigans were kept to an acceptable level. Over a period of time, they even called us by our first names which I found out was not reciprocal. The only one who allowed us to call her by her first name was a 65-year-old janitor named Janet. She was a safe person, like somebody’s grandmother. She was medium height with graying hair, a little overweight, but always had a smile. I would pass her in the hall while she was pushing a broom or swabbing the floor with a mop and she would say, “Have a great day, Marty.” To which I would reply, “You too, Janet.”

My family was not made of money so hot lunch provided by the school wasn’t an option. Instead, mom would make my lunch which was preferable to my Nana making my lunch. Nana had dementia and many times the sandwiches she made consisted of two pieces of bread and ketchup –  no meat, or two pieces of bread with ketchup and peanut butter.

When I was informed that the school had a program which offered free hot lunches to students who would wash dirty dishes in the kitchen, I thought, “Hey, free hot lunch instead of ketchup sandwiches? I’ll take it!”

Each day I went to the cafeteria fifteen minutes early, ate my free hot lunch, then went to the wash rack to clean dishes and trays. The buzzer would sound for lunch and the cafeteria would fill with students eating sack and hot school lunches. When they were finished, their trays, plates, and silverware were set on shelves for me to wash and stack.

It was during this awkward point in my schooling life that I almost thought a girl in the cafeteria might have a crush on me. My buddy, Leslie, and I were busy washing. I would scrape the plates and put them in racks and Les would spray the worst of the food off and slide them into the dishwasher to be disinfected. It was on one of the trays I was handed that I found a dime. A tip. In middle school, big money.

“Hey Les,” I whispered. “A dime.”

I looked out into the cafeteria of departing girls to see if one was looking at me, but no one was smiling back. From then on, I would daily find a dime on one of the trays. Some young girl in that cafeteria had a crush on me.

I felt it was my obligation to put on my A-game to draw her out. Instead of wearing my shirt under my apron, I wore a tank top so the girls could see my sexy, noodle biceps. My hair, which my mother would slather with Goop when she combed it in the morning, I combed with my dad’s hair oil. As I scraped plates, I would whip the hair hanging over my face backward like a stallion to look sizzling sexy. But each day the cafeteria would empty, and my admirer would be gone.

Then one day there was no dime left for me. I looked out across the emptying cafeteria for any straggling young girls with food trays but only saw a table with school staff still eating.

“Well, this is bewildering,” I thought. “Maybe she is sick and absent from school today.” I felt a twinge of discouragement.

At that moment, a dirty tray slid onto my counter from the eating area. Picking up the plate, I found under it a shiny dime. Immediately turning to see who my admirer was, I stared into the face of Janet. She waved and said, “Have a great day Marty.”

Janet?

Janet was my admirer?

What a Charlie Brown moment. “Good grief!”

The middle school years. My middle awkward years. The years between 6th grade and 8th grade where my voice changed, I got pimples, body hair, and the sex lecture. The only comfort was knowing that, boy or girl, we were all in the same boat. A whole school of awkward kids.

And yet, we grew up and out of our awkward years with new and exciting challenges in life to look forward to. There is hope . . . except of course if you teach middle school band.

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