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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.

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.

Years: 1984-85
Teachers: Miss Appling, Mr. Bicknell, Mrs. Price, Pastor Tanis

Seventh grade is when they started getting us used to the idea of having different teachers for different subjects like we’d have in high school. We stayed in one room and they moved around, which I’m sure was just loads of fun for them.

Miss Appling (you might remember her from First Grade) taught us history and English, and I have a solid memory from each subject. In English, she was teaching us prepositions and was doing so by standing on the desk or in the trashcan. She was already an imposing person, and having her height increased so much the more by the teacher’s desk made for many a wide-eye.

My memory of her world history class is actually from History of Civilization my freshmen year of college (1990-91). Our teacher for that class was … hmm. There’s no nice way to put it. He talked over our heads and was hard to follow, let us say. I remember that on several tests my memories of Miss Appling’s class are what got me a passing grade. To this day I still remember her telling us about Hammurabi and how “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” That made a lasting impression.

Our class went on a field trip to a planetarium and Miss Appling was along as a chaperone. I don’t remember what he was doing or saying, but Matt M. was doing something and Miss Appling reprimanded him and he made some reply and she said, “Where’s your chain?” and her tone suggested she was mocking him quite severely. It was very perplexing at the time, and frankly, after all these years, I still can’t figure out what she meant.

Mrs. Price was new to the area and her son Phil was new to our class this year. She taught speech class, which would turn out to be the only speech class I took until midway through my college career. Mrs. Price’s method of in-class punishment was to make the offender to pushups. As it happened, I was talking in class one day (shocking, I know) and she told me to do 10. I was … chubby in seventh grade, and this was more than I was able to do. Phil told me later that I looked like I was “doing The Worm,” a reference that those of you familiar with breakdancing are more likely to get.

One day we were split up for speech class and I was in a group headed by another teacher. The speech I was working on was about getting rid of a cold, and it included a reference to a theoretical support group whose initials spelled “ACHOO.” The teacher’s comment after I went through it was that I should say that word “more like an actual sneeze.” I knew he was wrong but I didn’t say so since he was only helping temporarily. It set me on a course of “knowing” when I was getting bad suggestions. By this, of course, I mean that thought I was more knowledgeable about some things than those who were trying to instruct me. Not a good place to be, especially as a twelve-year-old.

One assignment we had for speech class was to do a pantomime of something. Most people did things like “baking a cake” or some other similarly mundane task. I did not prepare anything. This is my earliest memory of this sort of behavior, another habit I would carry with me until … well, now, I guess. When asked by classmates, I told them I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I never did actually prepare anything, either. I toyed with an idea or two, but never practiced – which, of course, we were supposed to do. When it came time for me to perform in class for my grade, I gave my title as “Snoopy versus the Red Baron” and proceeded to do a scene based on a dogfight (no pun intended). I remember Mrs. Price laughing a few times and I remember I made a few inadvertent noises (gunfire, most likely), which cost me, grade-wise. I still got a good grade, though, and it taught me two things: 1) I could slack and still do all right, and 2) I liked doing improv, even though I didn’t know that word yet. That first lesson is one that’s stuck with me a long time, to my very great detriment.

One more year of elementary school left, and I’m noticing most of my memories don’t have other people involved. I had friends, I know – in fact, I remember that summers were sad for me, because all my friends lived 30 minutes away and I never saw them. I fell in with a new group of friends in seventh grade that … weren’t so good for me. We were a collective bad influence on each other. I didn’t really figure that out for another two years, though.

Up next: eighth grade, in which it is discovered that at this point in my life, I was not to be trusted with any sort of leadership position.