What Kind of Shenanigans Are Those Asian Kids Up to Now?

 80s, Essays, Humor, Kids, Memory Mondays, Pop Culture, School  2 Responses »
Jul 162012
 

I’ve never done a great job of keep­ing up with world events.  When I was in high school, for the longest time I thought Air Jor­dan was an Israeli air­port blown up by the Pales­tine Lib­er­a­tion Orga­ni­za­tion (PLO).  I must say that I felt rather fool­ish once I found out that they were ath­letic shoes named after bas­ket­ball player Michael Jordan.

About the same time, I remem­ber hear­ing every­one talk­ing about the youth in Asia.  I thought this was odd.  Why not just say kids?  Or chil­dren?  Any­way, I began to hear the youth in Asia men­tioned on the news and in ener­getic argu­ments by mem­bers of the debate team.  I wasn’t fol­low­ing the reports or con­ver­sa­tions; I just picked up on that phrase youth in Asia.

Finally, I heard some­one bring up those Asian kids again in news­pa­per class.  I threw down my pen­cil and asked, “What’s the big deal about those darn kids in Asia?  I’m sick of  hear­ing about them!”

My class­mates turned and looked at me.  “We’re not talk­ing about the youth in Asia,” one said.  “We’re dis­cussing assisted sui­cide, which is also known as euthana­sia.”  It dawned on me that Dr. Kevorkian’s name had been men­tioned, along with the youth in Asia.  It was a mis­take that any­one could have made, although I had wished that any­one else would have made it instead of me.

My Best Friend and His Satanic Bible

 80s, Essays, Friends, Humor, Kids, Memory Mondays, School  3 Responses »
Jul 092012
 

When I hear about bul­ly­ing in schools these days, I’m always reminded of my best friend Kent and his Satanic Bible.  Kent was not a devil wor­ship­per; he played trom­bone in the march­ing band.  How­ever, when he started high school, he would walk through the halls with his Satanic Bible on top of his alge­bra and phys­i­cal sci­ence book.

One day, I asked him, “Kent, what’s up with The Satanic Bible?”

I asked this because my neigh­bor was our school prin­ci­pal, who also went to my church, and I was begin­ning to receive strange looks from Mr. Ford.  I’m sure he was begin­ning to won­der if I was guilty by asso­ci­a­tion.  Plus, Kent some­times spent the night at my house, and I didn’t want to wake up in the mid­dle of a pen­ta­gram drawn with a Sharpie while Kent, nude and wear­ing a goat’s horns, chanted in Latin.

““You know how the upper class­men some­times give younger class­men a hard time?” he asked.

““Yeah.”

““Well, I was think­ing to myself, ‘Self, what would keep an upper class­man from giv­ing me a hard time?’  And my Self said, ‘Satan,’” Kent said.  “So I asked my mom for ten bucks to buy a copy of To Kill a Mock­ing­bird to read for Eng­lish, and then I went to Walden Books at Hulen Mall and bought The Satanic Bible.”

““So you haven’t signed your name in blood in a black book, then?”

““You know how much I hate to read,” he said.  “I’ve never even opened the book.”

““So no upper class­men have both­ered you since you started high school because you’re car­ry­ing The Satanic Bible?” I said.

““Well, some of the goth girls have been flirt­ing with me, but other than that, no.”

How I Learned About the Power of Playing Dumb Against Sexism in the Seventh Grade

 80s, Essays, Humor, Kids, Memory Mondays, School, Sex  No Responses »
May 142012
 

When I was in the sev­enth grade, my fam­ily moved from Waco, Texas to Burleson, Texas, a small town just south of Forth Worth.  I shared a two-person desk with a boy in Life Sci­ence class.  He was an affa­ble red­neck with hard drugs in his future, and he enjoyed shar­ing the details of his sex­ual adven­tures with me before class began.  Being new to school and nei­ther hav­ing many friends nor know­ing the proper pro­to­col for respond­ing to the lurid details of a young boy’s dig­i­tal enhance­ment of a young girl’s plea­sure, I smiled, nod­ded, and inter­jected a few “uh-huh’s” and “tell me more’s,” while won­der­ing why God hated me.

He once shared with me a per­sonal solo sex tech­nique that he and another boy from school per­fected one after­noon.  I sup­pose I should have been appre­cia­tive of the infor­ma­tion; instead, I made a men­tal note to never shake the hand of either boy in a for­mal set­ting, for exam­ple, we met at a tea the next time the Queen of Eng­land came to town.

This was the boy who wrote in my year book, “Hope you get some @#%&* this sum­mer.”  Sur­pris­ingly, I laughed when I read it.  Sure, it was crude, but he had such a like­able per­son­al­ity that it seemed more absurd than dirty.  Besides, I sort of admired his bravado; if you’re going to be crass, do it boldly.

My mother and father, how­ever, were livid.  “You’re the ones who moved me to this god­for­saken place,” I reminded them.  “I was per­fectly happy in Waco, thank you very much.”

One of the cheer­lead­ers sat at the desk behind us.  She was a bub­bly girl who always seemed to be chew­ing on a cud of bub­blegum with the inten­tion of anni­hi­la­tion.  My desk­mate con­stantly tried to embar­rass her by say­ing provoca­tive things to her.  One day he asked, “Are you a virgin?”

With­out bat­ting an eye, and per­fectly timed between chomps of gum, she replied, “No, I’m a Leo.”

The boy beside me busted out laugh­ing, and I laughed, too, yet for a dif­fer­ent rea­son.  While he thought she was just a dumb blonde, I saw a glim­mer in her eye when she responded that hinted that she was in on the joke.  She had bril­liantly side-stepped his ques­tion with­out a con­fronta­tion, while simul­ta­ne­ously prov­ing she was smarter than him than he was with­out him know­ing it.

I thought, This girl has a future in politics.