The older I become the more I realize the absolute absurdity in the education system. You are thrown into building at a young age with a bunch of kids and adults that you don’t know. Somewhat like a daycare but it lasts for 6 hours a day 5 days a week for around a total of 13 years. For myself it was 14 years.
From the very beginning of my education I felt trapped when I was at school. Claustrophobic is a good word. Sitting in rows alphabetically. Roll call. So formulated it made me sick. Don’t talk! Don’t chew gum! Are you paying attention?
I really wanted to be at home in my nice warm bed. My school lunch was really the best thing of the day. If my parents could afford it they would give me lunch money. If not I would make something for lunch. Besides recess, lunch was the only thing in the school day that could disrupt the slow and boring six hours of forced I had to suffer. Recess and lunch equaled freedom! In grade school art was alright, but making paper snowflakes and kidney bean art was not really my thing. I would much rather be at home blowing up my GI joes with firecrackers or launching my action figures out of the upstairs window to see if they would be injured after they hit the ground! Now that was real fun at eight years old.
First of all I have to go back to when I was a child and put myself back in the shoes of being a student. I really had no choice what I wanted to learn. It was all about what I had to learn so I would be someday go to collage and be successful and wealthy in life. But if you don’t graduate high school you will fail in life and most likely be homeless. My parents didn’t have the time to teach me to read and learn math because they are to busy making money to support the family so I was thrust into the school system like most any kid. The school systems promises our parents that they can teach you better with their organized teaching techniques .
The fact is I did not like most of my teachers. I thought many of them were mean and to strict and just plain boring. I just did not like people that I did not know telling me what to do. I would absolutely not grow up an be like these people. I would much rather stay a kid my whole life and just have fun!. I learned a lot more on the days I was home sick by watching shows like The electric company, captain kangaroo, J.P. Patches. When I became a little older my real teachers were the Beverly hillbillies, Sanford and son, and Gilligan’s island.
I really wanted to be creative and use my imagination. While I was at school I felt my creativity was pushed away and compressed to only a very limited amount of time during any school day.. By the time I got home I was tired and couldn’t really think clearly. I would be forced to do home work, which is almost torture at any age. My family and myself were now servants to the compulsory school system. My parents were taught in a similar school system and even if they did not like how I was being taught they felt it was the law. We needed to be a good family and follow the rules. 14 years of school really only taught me basic writing skills and some math. I’m sure there are a few other little things here and there but I just can’t put my finger on it. The school system would slowly Alienate me from my family one year at a time. I only had a few hours a day, five days a week to spend with my parents and brother. The dinner table was one of the only times we could all be together during the week. Unfortunately half the time conversation was about school.. Besides failing fifth grade I kept my grades up most years so that I would not have conflicts with my parents and teachers. I never liked school And I don’t think I had any friends that did. Learning should be a process through creative inspiration. Students should be excited about what they are learning and if they are not then they should absolutely be removed from that class. It’s not healthy for the student, teacher or parents to be in a forced teaching situation. The student ultimately should have a choice of what they are learning. I had only a handful of really good teachers in 14 years. I made a few good friends that I still have to this day. stopping my forced education after six grade and continuing private education would have been the best thing for me educationally!
SECOND GRADE AND COUNTING IN HANG TOWN
I absolutely do not remember first grade! I guess I probably learned how to put square blocks in square block holes.
The first few years of my compulsory government schooling is hard to remember at this point. The earliest grade I remember is second grade. This would have been at Chanel elementary in Placerville Ca, in around 1976. Placerville was a small town east of Sacramento with a population of around 9,000. Placerville began as a “Gold town” It’s previous historical names were “hang town, “blood and guts”, and Old dry diggin’s. It was known as Hang town for of course all the obvious reasons! There is even a full size human miner dummy hanging downtown above the hang town saloon. I could not stand being under the hanged dummy because I was afraid his boot would fall off and hit me in the head. Out of pure enjoyment my older brother would pull me under the hanging miner while I cried, and screamed. What better place to start my education then good old hang town!
The earliest memory and almost only memory of second grade in Placerville is having to say the pledge of allegiance. Oh yeah I do remember lunchtime. How wonderful it was to have a sack lunch! I never quite knew what my mother would prepare for me, but I knew it would be good! Half way through second grade my Dad got a job in Seattle Wa working for the Army corp. of engineers. Much of my Family was from Tacoma and still lived there. Tacoma is a pretty big city south of Seattle with a population of around 180,000 people. Tacoma is somewhat an industrial and military based city sitting in the shadow of the ever majestic Mt. Rainier. This was a big move for me. I had never lived in a big city. It was kind of exciting and a little scary!
My parents thought Tacoma would be a pretty good place to call home. We moved to a suburb of Tacoma called Fircrest. It was actually referred to as a town but because Tacoma stretched all the way to Fircrest it was basically part of Tacoma. I was put into a school only a few blocks -from where we lived called “Wainwright”. This would be where I would continue second grade. From my first day I can remember Wainwright being difficult much harder then Chanel. I did meet some friends right away. Within weeks, my parents were contacted by the school and wanted permission to give me an IQ test. I had know Idea what that was and I was really not interested. I remember being given a bunch of tests that made no sense to me so I would not complete the IQ test. My parents really did not care so I was not forced to complete it. I had a stuttering problem at a young age . Though it was never thought to be a problem up until this point, wainwright noticed it and thought it might be a learning disability. I would not be surprised if the reason I stuttered is these people teaching me were not very friendly and forcing me to learn.
My parents were contacted about my stuttering problem and the school thought they had a cure. I was sent to a speech therapist whom would give me many tests. She made me make letter sounds like sssssss and aaaaaa. I hated it! At one point the therapist told me in order to correct my stuttering she would yell at me and continue this until my response was without any stuttering of words. I thought to myself “no way”! I told my mother about this when I got home from school. She was furious and demanded that I did not have anymore speech therapy. I figured out how to stop stuttering on my own! Another strange thing I remember in second grade is that we would have to do fluoride rinses and put these chalky red tablets in our mouth that would leave marks on out teeth. I guess this was to show us where we had plack build up then we would have to brush our teeth. Why is the school so concerned about my teeth? Like a normal kid , I could not wait until after school when I could ride my bike and play with my friends.
THIRD GRADE AND COUNTING
Third grade was one of the most important years of my learning in the compulsory government school system! I remember having a friendly teacher. Wow! What a difference a friendly teacher could make!
I learned to add and subtract and all the other wonderful basics of math!
In third grade I also learned to write! Cursive! What is this??
I just learned how to make my letters one way and now I have to make my letters completely different? OK. I was pretty good at it. I followed the rules and learned to write in cursive. Really it’s only good for love letters and Christmas cards.
I remember show and tell. I think I brought my hamster to school one day. Also, there were the weekly fire drills, and monthly earthquake drills.
I think I caught on to the forced learning process quick. If teachers were nice to you and offered a reward like good grades or something good, then I would happily follow the rules and only complain about getting up early in the morning and doing my homework.
Just imagine if I was able to sleep in every morning when I was a kid. I could wake up refreshed and ready to take on the world! That is not the way of the compulsory government school system. Slowly I was being weened that life is full of things you have to do and too bad if you don’t like it. Brainwashing 101. And so far my grades were good!
Oh Summer time! What a relief you are! The warm sun beating on my fingers punished by months of writing and erasing! Oh how I cannot wait to ride my bike to the lake and play softball until I fall over.
FORTH GRADE AND COUNTING
I was born with club feet. Or club foot as a doctor might call it. It is a foot disability that deforms your feet. Most of the time club foot causes feet to be turned in this makes it difficult to walk and operations are usually needed. I had one operation when I was a year old! After the operation I had to wear braces on my feet until I was about four. After the braces came off I had to wear these funny shoes with big soles on them. They would eventually help my feet.
Through out the first couple years of elementary school I had to wear the shoes with big funny soles on them to my school. I really got picked on.
I was called things like”Frankenstein feet”!
While my brother was wearing the coolest nikes I had these stupid big shoes on. This was not helping me deal with school any better. At one point I wanted to wear adiddas and nikes and run fast! I knew once I got those big clunky shoes off I could do anything! I started excelling in Physical education. I was fast!! I could run the 30 yard dash faster then anyone! I could run around the bases like a little lightning bolt! I had a super cool BMX bicycle that I would ride and I ever competed in some races. In forth grade I remember a guest juggler was in our PE class to teach us to Juggle and I picked it up right away! At this time in my life I was really starting to tap into who I was and my talents. School was just something I had to do that did not help me excel at what I was really talented at.
FIRST YEAR OF FIFTH GRADE AND COUNTING -- I FLUNKED!
Fifth grade was horrible! My creativity was excelling and I did not want to do any school work! I guess I knew at an early age school was a sham. I knew if I used my creative and artistic abilities I could create things that were exciting and also fun to share with others.
I sat in the back of the class with a friend I had met the previous year. We drew pictures of monsters and aliens. I loved the band KISS so I would draw lots of pictures of Gene Simmons and Ace Freely. I would dream and draw all year. I hated school work and would not do my homework. I just didn’t care about all of these boring subjects. I would never study, failed tests over and over. I really just wanted to enjoy myself and draw! My teacher would contact my parents explaining the problems. At one point we had to do a state report, I did a report on Utah.
I received an A. My father would take my brother and myself on many exciting vacations and truly learn from experiences this helped me to write a more accurate report on Utah. At this time I was learning the value of copying out of an encyclopedia to help receive a better grade. It worked really good! The report on Utah was pretty much the only thing I did all school year. It was getting close to the end of the school year and my teacher called my parents and told them I was failing miserably! And may need to be held back and do fifth grade all over again. Or go to summer school. The ultimatum I was given was go to summer school and proceed on to sixth grade or FLUNK!. If I went to summer school then I would miss the trip to the Grand canyon and San Diego. I didn’t want to flunk. But I did not want to miss the trip. I was so upset! I decided on the vacation instead of summer school! There was a huge round of applause in my head. I knew somehow I made the right decision. I remember thinking that I would be a year older and smarter then the other kids I went to school with and fifth grade would be much easier the second time.
SECOND YEAR OF FIFTH GRADE AND COUNTING – DEJA VOUS
The glorious summer ended and I had to return to school. I was forced to go to another
elementary school for my second attempt at fifth grade. I went to a school named Whittier. It was also in Fircrest. It was a little farther of a walk then before. At this point I was totally brainwashed by the system. In my head being held back would never happen again. I be be a great student and would excel like I am supposed too. Ace every test! Always do my homework. Now I was completely trained by the compulsory government school system. I remember being taught sex education this year I think we had to get a permission slip from our parents saying it was ok. We really could not stop laughing when we watched the these films.
We also were shown anti drug and drug awareness films. I remember animated films about kids sniffing glue and taking pills. I had never heard of sniffing glue until this film. It made me interested in trying it. The next time I had a model and glue I tried it. It really
did not do anything except it made me feel kind of sick. There was another film I remember seeing a few times also at wainwright. It was called the “shopping bag lady”. It was a film about a homeless shopping bag lady. I guess it was either to make us feel sorry for the homeless or to tell us something like if you don’t do well in school you might end up like the shopping bag lady.
Continuing fifth grade at another school was almost like moving to another city. I met a few of the kids I got along but I really did not have the same friends. I kind of had to start over with making friends. I was treated like an outcast by a lot of the kids. A couple of them even wanted to fight! Now my school work was so easy!. Even that I did not do much homework the year before I felt like I had already taken in the same information. It really was deja vous. Ive got this year in the bag.
SIXTH GRADE AND COUNTING
I was now at the pinnacle! sixth grade!! How exciting! This year would teach me how to be competitive and to use whatever means so that I could to win in life.
I wanted to go back to wainwright so I could have the same teacher that my brother had in sixth grade. I was not attached to staying at Whittier and Wainwright was closer to home. I was somewhat refreshed to be back at my old school. It did not take long for the school work to get very difficult. The first day we were sent home with homework! This was a bad sign. Mr Hill would give two awards each week for best in citizenship and academic. It was a trophy award you could take home then you would bring it back the following week. I wanted the trophy every week and most weeks I received the citizenship trophy for my hard work. I would copy details out of the encyclopedias we had at our home. My papers I turned in made me look really smart!! My cursive writing was perfect and beautiful! My papers looked like a work of art! Flawless! I was quickly at the top of my class! I consistently got really good grades and trophies!! Week after week the citizenship trophy would fly into my hands. The extra year of elementary has now truly made me head of my class. Why wasn’t I getting the academic trophy? I didn’t understand? My memorization skills were getting very good! We had to memorize Lincolns declaration proclamation. and all of the presidents in order from Washington to Reagan. Mr Hill promised who ever received the most trophies for either academics or citizenship would win a trophy of their own to bring home!! By the end of the year I had the most citizenship trophies and I received my own with my name engraved on it!! Wow what a fantastic way to end my elementary school years!
SEVENTH GRADE AND COUNTING – HUNT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
I was a little scared about junior high. I had heard stories about initiations where seventh graders would get beat up, thrown in trashcans. Gangs of kids blocking you in the hallway and stealing you lunch money. I did not feel like I was ready to have any of those things happen to me. Junior high was kind of scary. I was immediately in an unwanted competition with my brother. He was 4 years older so by this time he was already in high school. And to top that he had a fricken 4.0 grade average every quarter. So I was really on the spot for getting good grades.
Hunt had a few different buildings. I would have to pick six classes and stay around an hour for each class. There was also a homeroom you would go to at the beginning of the day. I thought it would be fun, but quickly it felt like what prison may be like.
Everyone looked older at hunt. It seemed like everyone grew a foot sense the last time I saw them. It was much more of a strict setting then elementary! Many of the teachers were mean. I had PE physical education. There were times PE was very uncomfortable! I had to get undressed and change into PE clothes in front of other kids and teachers. Then we were forced to exercise for an hour. We were required to take a shower after. I hated taking a shower in the first place, now I have to shower with my friends and teacher? I always despised PE. One day the nurse came in to check every kid for scoliosis. I turned out to be the only kid to have scoliosis. My parents were informed.
I was told my back could end up totally deformed from scoliosis. It turned out to be only a slight curvature of the spine and no big deal.
Tardy was a new term for me. It means if you were late to class you could be in trouble. Also if you wanted to go to the bathroom you would have to get a pass and then the hall monitor might check it in the hallway.
Once in a while I would be late to a class. There were a couple of teachers who had paddles at Hunt. One of the reasons you could be paddled was being late to class. I think I was only paddled once. My parents were more upset at my teacher then they were at me. I had another teacher who would come over and swat the table with a ruler if you were not paying full attention to your work. If he was really upset at the class he would make you stand up for the whole period. And if he caught you chewing gum in class you would have to put it in your ear. I reported this information to my mother and she pulled me out of that class. There was one teacher I really disliked or I should say hated. She was another mean teacher. We had to write in a journal everyday at the start of class and then she would read it and grade it. One day I wrote in the journal “that I wish she would be killed by a serial killer”! Well that evening my parents were called by the school. The school requested a parent teacher and school psychologist meeting. We all had to sit in a very small room and talk. All I could do was cry! I was very sorry and said I was just very mad at her that morning.
I really did not like Hunt. I was beginning to think of creative ways to not have to go to school. I knew it would be risky but I might be able to beat the compulsory system,
I had to be very careful and not flunk again. There were only a certain amount of days you could miss in a school year. If it went over you would flunk. Faking being sick was the easiest way to stay home. If you could convince the school nurse you were sick then she would send you home. I had to think of something else completely so I could stay home more often. Every day that you missed school your parents would have to write a note why you were absent. I felt my hand writing was so good that I may be able to copy my parents handwriting perfectly and stay home with out them knowing. As long as the school received the note then everything was fine. My parents left for work before I went to school and I got home before they did.. My plan worked!
I successfully forged my parents handwriting and created my own vacation days. It was now nearing the end of the school year. Hunt was not much short of a little prison. I knew there must be something better. I would rather dropout then go to hunt for another year.
I had made some new friends towards the end of this school year and they all went to Jason Lee. They were some of the coolest kids I had ever met! There were only a couple of kids I could relate with at hunt it was not enough for me to stay. At this point the only thing I liked about school was meeting new friends Though my grades were good! Around a 3.5 average. I would not continue my compulsory education at a school I hated! Period!
EIGHTH GRADE AND COUNTING JASON LEE
The summer after seventh grade I hung out in north end Tacoma as much as possible.
I had now found a few friends I could really relate too . Hopefully I would like Jason Lee and all of the wonderful things it could offer. Jason Lee’s location was much different then Hunt. It was located right between a lower income ghetto area and the most wealthy part of Tacoma.
Eighth grade started much like seventh except this school was an older three story brick building. It was really a different mix of kids. A lot of the kids looked really sad and were probably low income what the state might call minorities. I always thought the word minorities sound kind of mean and unfair. My family were somewhere in between. My parents were definitely not wealthy but they were not in line to get government cheese either! At least I hope not. There was many different ethnicity's of kids at Jason Lee. This was much different then going to Hunt. It was a little uncomfortable at first, but as I met some of the kids they were mostly nice. They just wanted to meet new friends like I did. My teachers were basically clones from the previous year. It’s like they’re reading from a script. I guess they’re really not aloud to express who they are so they are just boring adults doing what they are told. All of my classes were useless. English, math, science, blah. I just wanted to go back to sleep.
Sixth period was a surprise!! It was drama class! This teacher was different! He would tell us from the beginning “you are in control of your own destiny”! And “Everyone gets an A, as long as you show up to class. This was awesome! I started to look forward to drama class everyday! The teacher would come up with an idea and we would create a skit and present it to the class. We all laughed hysterically everyday!
With in a few months drama class was nicknamed “Junk food drama”! Drama class would be one of the only classes that ever made a difference in my life. It’s very difficult to remember most of my other classes in eighth grade. Just a slow droning day in between school bells.
It wasn’t long before I heard stories about the “pink room” at Jason Lee. It was a place you did not want to go. The story is that tests confirmed that the color pink will relax a human being and calm anger. So you would go into the pink room if you go out of line. Something about this made me very curious of what the pink room was like? It had almost a magical sound. I did end up in a detention room. Were you would have to sit and do nothing! I don’t remember it being very pink. Maybe it wasn’t the actual pink room. I was never a trouble maker but sometimes I would be late to class or talk when I was not supposed to. This may have lead to a detention. There were so many rules in school. The older and more responsible I became in my life the more rules I had to abide by. These people were not my family yet over and over I would be told what to do. Do this by this time, be here at this time, don’t do that. Don’t eat there. On and on! When I got home my parents would uphold many of the rules my teachers gave me. It was never ending until summer.
I started smoking cigarettes. They were pretty easy to get. Local convenient stores would even sell them to me even if I wasn’t 18. Smoking cigarettes were really tough to hide. The smell would permeate my clothes. If I wasn’t careful my parents would smell smoke on my clothes and I would have to explain myself.
It was a cool thing to do and very addicting. Once you started smoking for a couple of days you would be hooked. I would always bum cigarettes off of friends or visa versa if I had any. I also started getting stoned and drinking with friends around this time of my life. Sometimes I would get stoned before school or at lunch time. We would get stoned after school as much as possible! Sometimes I would show up stoned to class in a euphorically paranoid state.
I would have to really make it look like I was paying attention. Hopefully there would be some reason the teacher would turn out the lights. Like using the overhead projector or a educational film. That way I could be stoned in the dark and much less noticeable. Even though getting stoned during school made be paranoid It definitely made it more fun and tolerable in my head. I was getting sick over and over again. Most of the time it was sick of school! My parents would not let me stay home unless I was obviously sick. But that wasn’t enough. I could be absent something like 21 days in a year and damn it! I’m going to do it! I started to write my own sick notes and did it very neatly. I had it down to a science! Oh how I loved the munsters, The Andy Griffith show, The brady bunch, and I dream of Jeanie. Now these shows were truly educational. I could learn a lot from Barney Fife and Herman Munster! And they wouldn’t tell me what to do and require homework. If I had some weed at home then my education was even more fulfilling. It was great! no parents, no teachers, no one being bossy! Just me and my dog Simon. I would hope this is what it’s like when I finally get out of school. One day I got home from school and hanging out with friends and my parents were very upset with me. The school had called and wondered about all of my absentees. I was busted! The school got too nosey and called my parents. Of course there had to be a school and parent conference. The school has copied every one of the notes and sent them to our house so my parents could see them. There were pages of sick notes! I was really surprised they kept them all. I was getting really good grades so neither my parents or the school could get to upset. I did get in trouble. I couldn’t hang out with my friends for a while. I also got detention at school. This year was the beginning of my music career. I had a band with my brother and a couple friends we were called A.T.G. This year we got to play at the mid evil festival at Jason Lee. This was the highlight of the year!
NINTH GRADE AND COUNTING
Now I was completely brain washed! I would stay in school and be a really good student! Ninth grade was one of my most academic years! The compulsory school system had really done it now! If I remember correctly I my grade average was a 3.1 to a 3.5. Even with California coolers on the weekends! And getting stoned everyday! At this time the crips and bloods were in gang wars in the hill top area of Tacoma. We would hear about shootings and drive bys and gang related incidents all the time. There was one dude we went to school with that we used to buy weed from. One day he was shot dead by the bloods in front of his house. One of my good friends lived on hill top. The neighborhoods were split by sixth ave. This is right where Jason lee was. When we crossed sixth ave we would run all the way to his house. It definitely felt like a war zone.
I also had band practice 2 times a week! I had a new punk band this year called Noxious fumes. I got to play quite a few shows during the school year! My band was absolutely the most important thing in my life. Girls were second. As long as I got good grades I could play as many shows as I wanted. Also I would make a little money on the side from playing shows.. It was 1984! Reagan was president. Nuclear war was always on the government radar. There were bomb warning test sirens every Wednesday at noon. The economy was pretty bad! My father still worked for the government so he was secure. My mom was working in nally valley doing different office jobs. My home life remained stable. I had drama class again this year. It was always the high light of the day! The skits were becoming so funny it was like we had our own Saturday night live right at school. I remember one teacher warning us, If you smoke pot you will forget many thing that happen in your life. Well he was right! Though many of the things I forget were not important anyway. Like his class.
I was starting to dress in a punk rock type look. I bought a leather jacket off a kid at Jason Lee. I also wore a army jacket with lots of home made drawings and pins of my favorite bands like Dead Kennedy’s, Black flag, and Iron Maiden. Fircrest, where I lived was ultra conservative. A grand ol’ flag and a flowerpot on every telephone poll. The cops would stop me for just walking down my street. I guess I looked out of place dressed how I was. The cops in Fircrest were harsh! They would stop you for driving 23 in a 20 mhr zone. Stadium high school was right around the corner. I started to hear many of the same initiation type stories as before I started junior high. I wasn’t worried I already had friend in high school I was almost old enough to learn how to drive
THREE YEARS AT STADIUM HIGH SCHOOL,
“STAY DUMB AND HIGH”
.Well I finally made it! I’m with the big boys now. The final stretch! I continued to take the bus across town to get to school. Stadium was even a little farther away so it was a good hour bus ride from Fircrest. This school was huge. 4 different floors in the school had classes. Sometimes the walk from class to class could be close to 10 minutes but they would only give us around five to make it in time.. Herds of teenagers rushing through the hallways trying to beat the tardy bell. Stadium was originally a hotel back in the early 1900’s. It’s been a high school for so many years that my grandma even graduated from Stadium! There were no elevators or at least that kids could use. It was it’s own little fortress! Stadium even had their own school cop! He would bust you for doing anything the school thought to be unfit for teenagers. It was pretty easy to avoid him! He was big and slow. But he could be sneaky and creep up when you weren’t looking. Many of the kids at Stadium were the same kids I went to junior high school with. I always made lots of friends so it was not hard to get comfortable right away. A bunch of us would stand around a smoke cigarettes before the first bell would ring. The school cop would take down our names if he saw us. Stadium was strict.! Like any school they condemned smoking, swearing, running and talking in class, They would really monitor what you were doing. Every teacher was a possible tattle tale. You really could not trust any of them. I was really starting to feel like I was trapped in a system I could not get out of. The control that these people had on my life was really becoming a drag. I was now being forced to learn things that I really did not care about. I has classes like Civics, world problems, algebra. It was a monotonous bore! I knew I had to get through high school so I would not be a failure in life. There was always the fear of not being able to get a job if I did not graduate. But on my other shoulder was a voice of hope that would tell me…Follow your dreams! You will have fun in life! This forced education will be over soon! I had a really inspiring art teacher. He would really push us to find our true artistic talents. As long as we tried to complete assignments we would get an A. I was never very artistic. My drawings and painting always looked like a fifth graders art work. Once in a while I would find a medium that I could work with. I would take pieces of colored glass that was discarded as trash and melt them together in the shape of colonial ships with huge sails. One side of the ships were iridescent so it made a unique style of glass art. Some of my iridescent ship are was displayed in a glass case in an hallway at stadium. I had them for sale with price tags. One of the employees at stadium ended up buying them all for around $40.
I was old enough to take drivers education this year. My driving teacher was really annoying! But I didn’t have a choice I had to take this class in order to get my permit.
My father was a much better driving teacher. The driving instructor at stadium would sit in the passenger seat and he had his own brake pedal. If he didn’t like how you were driving he would slam on the brake. This was the most annoying way to learn how to drive. He would slam on the brake just to piss you off. Sometimes I was still a little stoned from our lunch brake. I would drive so carefully it was ridiculous. One day I got out of the car without on a slight embankment without putting on the parking brake. The teacher got very upset at me that day. I heard he used that as a “what not to do” example for years. I eventually passed the class and received my drivers permit. I was finally able to drive my parents car to school sometimes. It was such a relief! I could blast my heavy metal tapes and not have to deal with the buses. My first period class was architecture. Because it was first period we had to say the pledge of allegiance.. I had an issue with saying the pledge of allegiance. I just thought is was crap and I didn’t believe in the patriotic god. I felt like I was saying a prayer. My teacher complained about my rebellious tendencies so again my mother went into the school and talked the principal. The final decision was I had to stand at attention to the flag but I did not have to say the pledge. At least this class kept me interested for an hour. We just copied layouts of houses with exact measurements using various drafting instruments. .The drawings would have to be perfect! It really was not hard you just needed various rulers and a pencil. Wow I could imagine this is what Mr. Brady from the Brady bunch did everyday.! I did good in this class.
Most of my classes where unmemorable. Like world problems, civics, Washington history. One in particular was keyboarding which was typing. The first teacher seemed ok he was friendly and would help you with anything you were having difficulties with. One day we showed up to class and there was another teacher. We were informed that our teacher had died! This was of coarse a shock I had never had a teacher die. The teacher that took his place was one of the worst teachers I had ever had. One day I wanted to wear my headphones while typing so the sounds of the other typewriters would not bother me. This would help me concentrate. Even that I was listening to Motorhead and Iron Maiden on my headphones, I was still able to type and copy what was in front of me on to the paper in my typewriter. My teacher would send me out to the hallway. I was really upset I did not do anything wrong. My mother had to come to school to talk with the principal and teacher and I was released from the class. I did get and grade E! this was the only class I has ever failed.
At lunch break myself and a couple of friends would head up to the Stadium deli and buy some smokes. They were usually 10 cents a piece. The deli was considered off campus but as long as the school cop was not around we could make it there and back unnoticed. I had one firnd who lived really close by Stadium. There was an alley behind his house where we could hide in the garage and get stoned at lunch. The school cop would never find us. High school was so much more fun when you were stoned!. One day we were smoking up during lunch in my dads truck and I looked in the rear view mirror and there is the school cop right at the back of the truck. We freaked out and hid the pipe and weed got our life savers out of our pockets tried to freshen our breath in 20 seconds. Tick tick tick! There was a knock on the window. There he was! The unthinkable had happened. He asked us what we were doing. We somewhat played it off. We denied everything though it was obvious. It was somewhat like a Cheech and chong moment window rolls down, smoke pours out the window and wer’e like “what?” We coughed up one pipe and gave it to him. He wrote down our names. We weren’t sure what was going to happen.
A couple day later while I was in the middle of my ancient history class there was a voice over the loud speaker it said “ John Purkey please report to Mrs. Kean’s office!. She was the drug counselor. I went to her office and she was basically a psychologist. She talked to me a little bit about a test she would give me to find out if I was chemically dependent. Ok whatever! I took the test of course I didn’t completely spill the beans on how much and how many different intoxicants I was experimenting with. I liked to try different mind altering substances but I never would get to overly indulged in any of them. Another couple of days went by and Mrs. Kean called my mom.and told her I was most likely chemically dependent. I remember sitting very close to the phone and listening to the conversation. My mom did not really care to much. I told her that I tried different drugs but I felt I was not addicted to any of them, which was true. The most addicting thing was smoking and I could still keep that under wraps. At this point in my life while in high school I had tried, LSD, Mushrooms, marijuana, black hash, I had smoked opium, done speed. Beer, hard alcohol 151 proof, I had not tried cocaine though,
I mean crap! The sugar cereals we had in the morning were packed with chemicals and sugars and whatever. Anyway that whole shabacle ended quickly once the drug counselor was informed that my mother was not concerned and also I was almost 18.
It was amazing how much drug use and over the top drinking I saw around me. I didn’t even like drinking. I would drink one cooler once in a while. Most of my friend were getting obliterated every weekend. Kegers, hard alcohol one favorite being Bacardi 151 mixed in a 7-11 big gulp. This would absolutely send you to another planet in 10 minutes.
