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There are a few memories I have that I’m not exactly sure where they fit, so I thought I’d do one last hodge-podge entry and stick them in here. I hope that’s okay with you.

Some of my teachers were outside the grade level structure – the art teacher, PE teacher, and music teacher all taught any level that had those classes, so I think that’s why I get confused about where some of these memories should fit.

For a while in elementary school I was on a pretty big Texas kick. I’m pretty sure it had everything to do with the Dallas Cowboys, but there it was. I also, for a while, had a belt buckle kick. I had a belt buckle that looked like 5 bullets, a Spider-Man belt buckle, that sort of thing. For a brief amount of time, my Texas kick coincided with my belt buckle kick (it seems a natural pairing now, actually), and I had a belt buckle in the shape of Texas. I bring this up because I remember having to do sit-ups in PE and the upper part of Texas kept jabbing me in the stomach, much like the real upper part of Texas does to Oklahoma.

Art class wasn’t my thing. While I wish I could draw and all of the other artsy things, I just wasn’t naturally adept at them, and I’m not one for working at stuff I’m not good at it. It’s actually my least favorite thing about me, but that’s a topic for another time. While everyone else was woodburning pictures of cars or horses on their bookends, I did a geometric shape. My doodles tend to be squares and things with angles. I’m no Piet Mondrian, but I get by. My mom still has those bookends…

I really liked calligraphy, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because I could write fancy-like when I couldn’t normally.

When we made wallets, there were two different types of stitching: simple one-over type, and a more complicated weaved type. Our art teacher told us the weaved one would be more sturdy, but we didn’t have to do it because it was harder. Something about the idea of sturdiness and having it last longer led me to try the weaved pattern. I was the only one in the class to try it, and I think the other guys thought I was trying to show off, but I just wanted my wallet to last longer. As it turned out, as we all started using our wallets when they were done, everybody else’s kept falling apart. Last time I saw mine, it was still in good shape. My mom might have that somewhere in the house, too.

I had a few run-ins with the music teacher over the years. Miss O’Neil and I just never seemed to see eye-to-eye. I think the looser structure of a music class coupled with my tendencies towards class clowning were not a good match. She wouldn’t let us sing “Tom Dooley” in class (probably because of the murder/execution themes, but still!) and if we got too rowdy, her method of getting our attention was to turn off the lights. It was more successful at making us laugh, unfortunately.

Miss O’Neil sent a letter home to my parents once because she had said to the class at large “Grow up” and I, of course, snickered to my buddies, “Throw up.” She detailed that in the letter, and it’s one of my first memories of my parents looking at me like I was a little weird.

My favorite memory from music class had nothing to do with me, though. One recess, Jim S., Matt M., and I were serving time in the Music Room, no doubt for some fooling around in Music Class. Miss O’Neil left the room for a few minutes (after warning us, of course), so we were all alone. Jim says out loud, “I wonder if I can lift the piano?” It was an upright piano, and I suspect he was wondering if he could lift it off the ground at all, not completely above his head or anything. He decides to try it. He goes to the piano, hunkers down in front of the keyboard, and lifts.

The laws of physics and gravity being what they are, his lifting of the keyboard had the effect of tipping the piano completely over onto its back. There was a mighty clamor, a surprised Jim, a laughing-in-disbelief Matt and Mark, and a furious Miss O’Neil running through the door to see what had made the racket.

The piano was in need of repair, of course, and I don’t know how Jim worked all that out, but I do know he earned himself a few days off school for that one. There’ll be a little bit more about Jim in 9th grade, but even if there wasn’t, this’d be enough, I think.

I think that’s pretty much it for elementary school. Other random bits pop into my head here and there, but these are my strongest memories. High school’s next, and I’ve got yearbooks for those years to help jog my memory.

A few weeks back I bought the Beach Boys album Pet Sounds. I have always liked The Beach Boys, but I only owned a couple of compilation albums that had all of their most popular songs. I had always heard that Pet Sounds was “groundbreaking” and a “must have,” so I finally bought it.

I had heard four of the thirteen songs on the album before, but the rest were new to me. To my untrained ear, it sounded like, well, The Beach Boys. So what was so groundbreaking? After all, I had heard that after The Beatles heard this album they freaked out, along the lines of “Brian Wilson is so far ahead of us!” and “We better catch up!” (Their answer was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, an album widely acknowledged as an album that changed the face of pop music forever.)

I asked a friend of mine why Pet Sounds was so groundbreaking. Those of you who grew up with me will immediately know who this friend is, as he is widely considered the “go-to guy” for all things Beach Boys, but he has asked me not to name him here. The internet celebrity afforded by my site would, no doubt, overwhelm him and he would be swamped with offers.

I mock him here, but he really is quite knowledgeable on this subject, so I post his response in its entirety (though edited for various things such as non-capitalized letters and such). I realize this will be interesting to exactly .02% of you reading this, but I felt his breakdown was … breakdown-y enough that other people ought to be able to read it.

It is ground breaking in that it turned pop song form inside out and then tore it up and then taped it back together again. The structure of “You Still Believe in Me,” “Don’t Talk,” and “That’s Not Me” were very bold compared to the standard verse chorus verse chorus bridge (maybe a third verse) chorus. Even songs like “God Only Knows” which was fairly traditional in construction were ground breaking in chord progressions, modulations within the verse and chorus that required another modulation to get back to the original key for the start of the second verse.

Also all of the instrumentation and orchestration was pretty unusual. Most songs have 2 or three basses (2 different electric basses and one acoustic) to give the bass line a really fat sound. Throughout you will hear such exotic (at the time) instruments as the bass harmonica (“I Know There’s an Answer”), accordion (“Wouldn’t It Be Nice”), flute (“God Only Knows”), all manner of other wind instruments (listen for the oboe that doubles the vocal melody on the verses of “I’m Waiting For the Day”) and strings (the surprise slow down at the end of that same “I’m Waiting” as well as all of “Don’t Talk”). Also the intro to “You Still Believe in Me,” is Brian [Wilson] plucking the piano strings of a piano prepared with little washers and stuff on the strings to give it a funny jangly sound. The weird guitar solo in the middle of “Let’s Go Away for a While” was made by using a coke bottle on the guitar strings. These are just a few examples of the kind of innovation and experimentation that the album is chock full of.

Then there is the percussion. Brian had been eschewing the simple backbeat played on the normal drumset and cymbals for a few albums now (check out the original version of “Let Him Run Wild”). The best examples of his spare but dramatic use of percussion are found in “Don’t Talk” (in which the bass provides most of the “beat” and also contains timpani), the tambourine featured throughout “I Know There’s an Answer,” the carefully placed and fairly raucus (for a relatively contemplative song) drums in “That’s Not Me.” The exotic sounding “drums” at the beginning of “Caroline No” (that alternate with the tambourine) are actually orange juice bottles filled with water to achieve the exact sound Brian wanted. Then of course there is “Pet Sounds” which is a percussionist extravaganza.

Also the subject matter was very advanced for the time. Consider what songs topped the charts the same year as “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” (a song about yearning for the day when they could spend the night together) and “God Only Knows” broke into the top 40:

“We Can Work It Out” (Beatles)
“Wild Thing” (Troggs)
“Counting Flowers on the Wall” (Statler Brothers)
“You Can’t Hurry Love” (Supremes)
“Good Lovin'” (Young Rascals)
“Ballad of the Green Beret” (Sgt. Barry Sadler)
“Barbara Ann” (Beach Boys)

Lyrics like “I once had a dream so I packed up and split for the city/I soon found out that my lonely life wasn’t so pretty” strike a sharp contrast to the relatively fun, straightforward approach those other songs took.

Finally there was the depth of the production which in part was based in everything above. You will hear this especially in the stereo version of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.” Ignore the words and listen to just the instruments. No one else sounded this . . . full and wide open at the time, with the possible exception of Phil Spector productions. I could go on. I have probably said more than you care to read anyway. Enjoy.

On top of all that, the album is enjoyable to listen to. Many “concept albums” are a chore to listen to, as you feel like you ought to be getting something more out of them, but this album still succeeds as listenable.

Rest assured this won’t be turning into a “music blog” any time soon. Though you might (read: probably will) get a song-by-song breakdown of the new Weird Al album when it’s released, that’ll be about it. I just wanted to share Da — oops, I almost told you his name!

That was close.

Years: 1985-86
Teachers: Mr. Bicknell, Mr. Kutz, Pastor Tanis, Miss Westphall

There was a convergence of a few factors in eighth grade that were … unfortunate, I think. First, I was “at the top of the heap.” As the oldest students in the school, there was a natural inclination to feel like we could do what we wanted and the younger students would have to listen to us.

Secondly, the group of friends I had at the time was not what I would call a source for improvement.

There’s no way around saying it: I was a bully in eighth grade.

It still bothers me, twenty years later. I don’t think I’m a bully now, but knowing I was once embarrasses me. I wasn’t the “Give me your lunch money!” sort of bully, I was more of a “I’m going to hassle you” sort of bully. I had been bullied and pushed around pretty much my whole life up to this point, and I guess maybe I thought it was my way of passing it along. I was still getting picked on by people older than me at this point, too, so I had some frustration to work out. That’s certainly no excuse for my behavior, but looking back at it from my current vantage point, I can see why I was the way I was.

I’m pretty sure this was the year I held a fifth grader upside-down over a trash can, but that wasn’t because I was a bully, that was because he was being a super-jerk who thought he could get away with being a super-jerk because his dad was the new (something) coach. Since he was small and I was large, I was able to hold him over a trash can all by myself. I was also able to get in trouble for it all by myself once the super-jerk activated his super-whining abilities.

This was the year I got my last in-school spanking, but I went out with style. Mr. Bicknell, delivered it, and he did so in front of the class. Matthew A. and I were, I don’t know, talking or something, and I think he warned us. I was most likely the cause of us both getting in trouble, but we had to, in turn, go to the front of the class, grab hold of the table edge, and get whacked with a yardstick a few times. I remember the look I had on my face and I can remember the look on Mr. Bicknell’s face: biggest grin you ever saw. He knew that I was more embarrassed than in pain, and that’s what he was after. Well played, Mr. Bicknell.

Mr. Bicknell brought in his Commodore 64 from home and that was the first experience I had with computers. It was a reward of sorts, and if I finished something up early, I was allowed to go back and “be on the computer.” That meant typing in programs from computer magazines, for the most part. There was this one program that generated a 3D maze that you could move through, and it was pretty popular. I remember having that as my science project that year, though I think the topic “Computers” wasn’t a take-anyone-by-storm subject, and my booth wasn’t visited much. The two more-memorable projects were the hurricane machine built by Mike C.’s dad and Jeremy V.’s cockatoo which certain disreputable types tried to teach to say words that would have gotten the poor bird killed in Jeremy’s household. Luckily it stuck with “Pretty boy!” and declined to veer off into pirate-parrot directions.

One day we were in science class and Mr. Kutz was teaching us about the stomach’s ability to… push things back up the way they came. This, of course, led to a discussion on burping and hiccups and such. This, of course, led to me asking some sort of question – possibly smart-alecky, but I really don’t think so. The reason I don’t think so is because I remember his response: “Why don’t you write a report on that and have it on my desk tomorrow?” A word to all you teachers and would-be teachers: if you want to snuff out a student’s desire to learn there is hardly a better way to do it than to say “Why don’t you write a report on it and have it on my desk tomorrow?” I remember asking him after class if he was serious, and, yes, he was. I don’t remember the exact question, so that tells you how wonderful this particular method of getting kids to learn works.

Our teacher for Bible class was the youth pastor of the church that had started the school, Pastor Tanis. It was pretty easy to determine that kids in his youth group were “kids he liked” and any students who were from out of town or from a different church were “kids who might or might not have been there that day, he’s not really sure.” It’s understandable, to a point, but it also made it easy to be less than motivated to pay attention.

My mom had given me some old stickers that said “Hello, My Name Is” with a space underneath for writing your name, like you’d use at a convention or a reunion or while on a crime spree if you were really dumb. I got the idea one day to put one of these on Pastor Tanis’s back – I think I was challenged to do so, but I’m not sure. So I filled in the name space with “Superman,” removed the backing, palmed the sticker, went up to his desk where he was answering questions, and dropped the sticker on the back of his suit coat. It landed perfectly and stuck. I went back to my seat, and then the giggles started. As the giggles built up and I knew the end was near, I slipped just outside the door so he wouldn’t immediately see me. Two things happened at this point: 1) In the classroom, JoAnn R. narced on me (it was the 80s, so I’m allowed to say “narced”) and 2) Miss Westphall, returning to the classroom, found me hiding in the doorwell and promptly deduced I was doing so because I was engaged in tomfoolery. I don’t remember my punishment, but I’m fairly certain there was some. I probably missed some recess. To this day, when I see a “Hello, My Name Is” sticker, my brain automatically fills in “Superman.”

I shall regale you with one last tale of bullyism and then put elementary school to rest.

After school was dismissed for the day, there were many kids who had to wait for their rides to arrive. We were corralled to the sidewalk in front of the building and there was at least one teacher on duty to keep an eye on us. One particular day there was someone who needed to be … reeducated. A quick glance down the sidewalk revealed no apparent teacher watching so I applied my default teaching method: a combination headlock/noogie. (It can very effective and persuasive in the right situation, let me assure you.) About three seconds after the initial lesson, I heard my name being called rather sternly and turned to find Miss Linder, the fourth grade teacher.

I had missed her in the scanning because she was so small. My surprise at seeing her, my dismay at being caught, and my memory of the crush I’d had on her all turned me into a meek soul immediately, and I calmly followed her when I was instructed to stand by her until the bus came. I didn’t mind so much. I think my crush wasn’t completely over, even in eighth grade.

And with that, elementary school ends. There was a graduation ceremony, in which I dared my friend John S. to empty his trumpet spitvalve onstage. (He did, and I laughed.) My parents bought me a used Commodore 64 for a graduation present, and I’ve had some form of computer almost ever since.

From the top of the heap in eighth grade to the bottom again in ninth. Ah, but lessons are learned! Sports are played! Nicknames are given! High school certainly had a lot waiting in store.