Blog 9: Babysitter,Self-proclaimed Know-It-All, and more

(I don’t know what I did in Permalink above, but you can ignore it.)

(Self Proclaimed Know-It-All)

          By the middle of the seventh grade, it was pointed out by my mom that I had never made a grade lower than an A on any report card. She would tell everyone this, which got me believing that I was special. It was around the time that “cliques” began and I was “placed” in the smart group. I loved school, and I loved to learn. Because I still hung around the guys, (girls were our enemies!), I ran for Jr High Student Counsel President. We had a pact between other guys running, that all the guys would vote for the guys running. I won and thought I made the popular group. The hardest part was that Terri ran for President , also. I did not know this until we made our first announcements. I did not want to compete against her because I already knew what the guys were doing. But, I DID want to run! Later that year, they had the Cheerleader tryouts. I signed up to run to be the Mascot. Terri signed up for cheerleader. Boy, the rumors flew, but I did not care, until the unthinkable happened. A student broke her leg and was unable to tryout. The sponsor made her the MASCOT! I had to tryout for cheerleader, which I DID NOT want. No other guy ran because it was a “girls” club. To say the least, I blew it badly. But, I prayed very hard for Terri and she won. This made me feel exonerated for winning President. Our friendship stayed strong.
          One night, Billy Boy and I took dad to work. In downtown, there was theater that had the word, “Homosexual” on it. Billy started saying how sick and perverted it was. I did not understand. I asked DAD what it meant and he told me saying the bible called it a sin. I fell into my seat and got very quiet. I kept saying it over and over and over in my mind,” I am a homosexual, I am a homosexual!” I did ask what do they call a regular boy/girl relation and they told me. Then I asked about someone who liked both. They said it was “bisexual.”….. Okay, I could live with that! I still wanted to pretend that I was straight. To do that, I had to have multiple identities. At school, because of my grades, I was placed in classes that might have 5-6 guys and the rest were girls. Out of school, I had to have true boy FRIENDS. (to make this easy, if you saw me walking around school or around town with another guy, they, to my knowledge, were straight. My third thing was to hide anything about a guy that I liked or had hooked up with. I just hoped that they did the same. Their secrets were AND are safe with me.
           I really liked girls. In seventh grade, another elementary school came to our Jr and High school. This very nice, smart and cute girl with long hair sat in front of me in a few classes. I acted like a fool, just like many other 7th grade boys. I had a way of taking my pencils and braided her hair without her feeling me do it. I left the pencils in her hair to keep the braids in place. Many times, she walked out of the room unknowing what she looked like. I thought this would get her to like me. (HELLO!!!!!) I did it in 8th grade, too. But as I got to know her, I wanted to be her friend. We are to this day! We helped each other with our homework, and realized she was straight A’s, as well. The girl invited me to go to her church. I said yes, and again, I got active in church and tried to do things biblical. But, during this time, things at home were still changing at a blink of an eye.
            My maternal grandmother died. Within months, my grandfather remarried.  At the same time, my step-aunt moved in with us. Anna found out she was pregnant while I was still 12. She and her then boyfriend got married.  I turned thirteen in March and they had Del that summer. My family was very active with scouting and my mom was beginning to have “allergies” to the world. They thought it was affecting her heart so she was in the hospital many times that year. Terri and I still had our special friendship and we both started practicing on the swim team after school. My sister had to work when she divorced and I had to take care of Del when she did. I loved Del as if he was my own. I taught him all I could, and took him to church with me when I was allowed. But, my Aunt made a deal with me in eighth grade. Since she was very active with her boyfriends, I was the only one to care for Del. So she taught me how to drive, if I would pick up her boyfriend, go to the store, then drive around so that they could spend time together. I stipulated that she had to get me a large bag of M&M’s. Later, she showed me how she got the candy, and other things, by stealing them. This was before stores had cameras. It worked every time. I could not get myself to do it though.
           One day, it was my dad, Del and I by ourselves. I was confronted about doing something with dad. I looked down at Del in my arms and pictured something like this happening to him one day. I took a deep breath and told my dad no. I said it was over and if he tried to do anything like that to Del, he would regret it for the rest of his life. He never touched me again and stayed away from Del. He knew I meant it, and as far as I know, nothing ever happened to Del either.

(Being Student Counsel President)

          I wanted to be friends with everyone. I always felt bad when people would pick on other kids just because they were different. If that happened, I made it my desire to meet the person and become friends with them. As for President, I was more selfish than really helpful. My goal was two things. One, to get the National Jr High Honor Society placed in our school. (Why? I knew I would be selected to be on it.) Second, I pushed to have a Jr High Homecoming and include choosing a Homecoming Princess! {Why?) I got to crown the Princess, and I kissed her on her cheek. They both passed and everything went my way. Two other things happened in eighth grade. Terri and I learned finger spelling and could help each other on tests without anyone knowing. Of course, we knew most the answers, so it was just a way to assure we got an A. Second,(very unbelievable) another A student and I had Earth Science together and we sat next to each other. The teacher gave a VERY HARD test one day and we helped each other a lot. The next day, the teacher did not pass back the tests. When asked why, he said, “If my two best students had to cheat to pass, it was too hard of a test, So I threw it away!”

           I learned a big lesson that day. Teachers had to meet a quota of A and B students each year to keep their job. We were already chosen to be the A students. I learned that we could get away with murder. And we did. I promised that Blog 10 would be about Darrell and me. So, I will begin 9th and 10th grade in Blog 11. More surprises start there. I hope you really enjoy Blog 10….

• 6th Aug 2017
• mylife
• 4 Comments
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