SCHOOL DAYS: LIFE AT CHS

Photos of Skitch at Food Service Contest 

and while a member of CHS color guard
(called Flag Corps, in those days)

Life at CHS Or How I Skipped High School Entirely 

I don't know if it was self prophecy or realism but, as I had predicted, everything truly was different in 8th grade, and I largely hated it. I missed my sweet little elementary school so much! In our back woods town, 8th graders were shuffled off to the high school, though "technically" high school is 9th through 12th grades. I went to classes from August to December and dropped out of school altogether after Christmas break. Later, I came back and finished the 8th grade with a different group of kids, but I did not go to one day in the 9th grade so, formally, I did not attend high school at all.

That first year of 8th, I enjoyed being able to see the kids that were a grade or more above me. I had some really great friends (Cindy D., and Jutannia, and Angie especially) that were in higher grades than I was. So, though it had been nice to be top of the heap in elementary, I preferred being able to see them. 

I liked Home Economics and finally learned how to boil an egg and a few other domestic chores that my mother would not allow me to practice at home. I had been taught how to mix up the cornbread and that was it! I was not allowed to pour the mix into the hot pan or remove the pan from the oven. I was not even allowed to slice up vegetables or make a grilled cheese sandwich.  My family had nicknamed me "The Spiller" and I am still occasionally called that today. It was true then (and now) that I earned that nickname. In fact, I made "clumsy" look uncoordinated, and Mother was taking no chances that I would burn or cut my awkward self. I pointed out that inept people had to eat too, and I was not always going to be where someone else could cook for me, but she was adamant. I was not allowed near anything hot or sharp until I figured out that they allowed it in Home Economics class and that my mother would be at home while I played with fire and serrated tools. To my surprise and delight, I found that I truly enjoyed cooking. I discovered that there was a certain art to whipping up a snow white frosting or sprinkling paprika over deviled eggs. Cooking was not only a necessary skill if you wanted to eat decently but it was creative too! Home Economics class also taught me to use a sewing machine, but that knowledge has since left me. I own a broken sewing machine. I hope to get it up and going (and to figure out how to use it) because I still sew crafty and necessary things rather often, only I do so by hand. Using the machine would have to be easier, as a rule, and possibly be a lot of fun!

I loved not only my combined English and Literature class but also my teacher, Miss Brooks. (The next year she would become Mrs. Meade.) She encouraged my love of reading and writing and once penned on one of my papers, "You write well and express yourself beautifully!" I was so thrilled with her compliment that I kept that paper for decades after she wrote it. At the time, though, I just smiled at her, thanked her, and looked away. I took that paper home and locked it away in my private tool box. Now and then I would pull it out and stare at the words with a secret thrill coursing through my brain. She saw some hint of the writer in me! Bob Dylan would later say "Destiny is a feeling you have that you know something about yourself nobody else does. The picture you have in your mind of what you're about will come true! It's a kind of a thing you... have to keep to your own self, because it's a fragile feeling, and (if) you put it out there, then someone will kill it. It's best to keep that all inside." I watched and listened carefully as he struggled to put that idea into words in a video I saw recently. It was not easy for him, but he did it. In the 8th grade, I did not "express myself beautifully" enough to put that deep protective instinct into any words, but when B.D. said that, I knew exactly what he meant. I had wanted to be a writer since first stringing words together well enough to read, perhaps even before that. I think that may be why I held desperately onto so many childhood memories, because I wanted to write about them later. But I held that dream deep inside my heart, like a precious but fragile flower. I believed that I could see myself for who I truly was better than those outside could see me, and I protected that belief vigilantly.

Miss Brooks was full of optimism. She was kind and funny when dealing with me and my classmates. On pretty days, she would take us outside on the steps to soak up the sunshine as long as we behaved and stayed on task with our work. She was a genius and an angel. She was young and fresh, but sadly, most of my teachers were jaded before the first day of the school year was over. Their enthusiasm (or lack thereof) for teaching reflected their high levels of apathy for their chosen career. It was not important to them that you like their class or even that you learn while there. Just sit down and shut up; sink or swim, but for God's sake do so quietly! That's the message many of them sent out with their droning voices and their annoyance over questions or interruptions of any kind. 

In many classes I complied and I sank. It seemed I could not fail Literature and English if I tried, and who wanted to? Health, and Science, and History could be interesting, and were breezy classes if I put the least amount of effort into actually turning in my homework and paying just a little attention in class. I had loved all those subjects at C.E.S. Indeed, I had loved everything that involved words at C.E.S., but largely these subjects were now simply time periods to sit morosely in the back of the room and listen to the teacher complain. Math, the anti-word class and my Kryptonite, was by turns dull and torturous, and I dreaded it every day. P.E. was sometimes painful (my lungs would feel like they were on fire) and largely embarrassing. I found myself writing notes and signing my mother's name to them to get myself out of structured tennis or arduous runs. I felt justified in doing so. I played some sports and games outside of gym. (I loved to skate and I played basketball, baseball, volleyball, even tennis with people that did not take the game too seriously.) I walked all over town on a near daily basis. I did not feel that I needed to humiliate myself in public in order to get some exercise. What were they exercising? My inner wince? I cheered up some for Home Economics and Literature/English, but in most of my classes I sat in the back of the room, reading a book of my own choosing while the teacher droned on in a monotone voice. Often they left the subject we were supposed to be studying far behind and told anecdotes from their own life. Though I suppose some of them might have qualified as "History" if you forgive the fact that it happened only last year and to an obscure small town teacher.

As far as books of my own choosing went, I was inclined toward romance books as well as young adult books. I loved everything by Lavryle Spencer, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, Johanna Lindsey, Jude Deveraux, Karen Robards, and more. Once or twice, teachers shamed me for reading those and even sent me to the office. I told Mr, Mullins, the assistant principal, that it was a free country and I could read whatever I wanted to, and he gave me a lecture about paying attention in class and sent me on my way. I avoided any future lectures by hiding my romance books inside other books from that day on. Teachers did not seem to care if I read in class as long as I did not read romance books in class. I flew through "5 Minute Mysteries" by Michael Avallone and "My First Love and Other Disasters" by Francine Pascal. Though I picked up one briefly, I ever after avoided her Sweet Valley High collection. I was not impressed. I gladly bent over "Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones" by Ann Head, "Arriving at a Place You Never Left" by Lois Ruby, "Dear Bill, Remember Me? and Other Stories" by Norma Fox Mazer, and the Pigman books and most books by Paul Zindel. I loved Paula Danziger's "Can you Sue Your Parents for Malpractice?" and Marilyn Sachs' "Class Pictures". And these are only the ones that stuck in my brain. I read at least dozens of others that I did not like well enough to add to the running "must read more than once" list in my head.

I was also sent to the office for "violating dress code." I had worn a half shirt to school, which was technically against the rules, but I was so short waisted that it reached past the waist of my jeans, even when I raised my arms. I wore it thinking they could not complain of a half shirt if it pretty much made a full shirt on me. I was not sent to the office because it was a half shirt. I was sent because of what it said and because of the image on it. It had a pregnant cricket on it and the words said, "Katy did. Katy did, and look what happened to Katy!" Mr. Mullins informed me that my teacher found the shirt obscene. I argued that it was a public service announcement, no different than a shirt with Smokey the Bear on it saying, "Only you can prevent forest fires." I pointed out if my super religious parents did not mind it then it could hardly be obscene. He said he agreed with me, in theory, but requested that I not wear the shirt again since apparently not everyone would agree with either of us on that point. I sighed and began wearing the shirt only on weekends, school breaks, and after school. 

I was still close to many of the friends I'd had throughout my life. I hung out with Jutannia and Angie, who had been wonderful friends since third grade. Nancy was my near constant companion at school. We had a couple of classes together, shared a locker, and hung out before and after classes. I had lunch with Cindy and she and I would hang out on weekends and after school even more than Nancy and I did, though both of them lived very close to me. I even spent some time catching back up with Randal who had been my friend when I was six and he was four. We had been thick as thieves when my family was living in a trailer in the bottom next to his house and now we were chemistry partners and determined to stick together and survive a very strict but funny teacher named (no joke) Wise Deel. I still loved all these friends and they loved me, but the comradery my classmates from C.E.S. and I had shared was largely lost in the frantic hustle and bustle we now endured. I would sit by Stuart in one class, but we barely knew many of our classmates and they would monopolize the time and conversations to the point that I was never really able to ask him how things were going in his life. I would speak briefly to April in the hallway while all these disconcerting strangers jostled us up against our lockers. I was floundering. I was not loving the crowds and the chaos, and I felt like I was back at L.F.E. where life had been so hard, so uncivilized. Add to that the fact that every time I had a stomach bug or nearly passed out in gym class (which was almost every time they made me run anything longer than a "dash") rumors spread all over school that I was (GASP!) pregnant! I'd never even had sex, but I was apparently going to experience the world's next immaculate conception! And here I thought Christ was coming through the clouds when he returned!

Our football games were now infinitely more exciting since we knew all the guys on the team, and the entire school was pumped up to a vivid green and white frenzy, especially every Friday before a game. Nancy and I wore matching green jerseys (complete with our names on the back) to school every Friday and screamed ourselves hoarse in the pep rallies and at the games. We actually attempted to make the football team early in the school year, but the coach would not even let us tryout. Nancy and I begged for an opportunity to show him what we could do. We told him we had played touch football five days a week for the last three years and we were good! We admitted it had been touch, not tackle, football. We admitted we were small, and if anyone caught us they would throw us to the ground, but our point was that we were extremely hard to catch! We were not only fast we were squirmy, people did not often catch us. We also pointed out that he had some quick little guys on last years team that would fit the same description. He was unimpressed and pointed us and our vaginas in the direction of cheer leading tryouts. Though we were full of verbal support at the games, neither of us gave a fig about organized cheer leading, so we resigned ourselves to being spectators. 

As a plan B, I attempted to be an assistant for our marching band. The position was laughingly called "band aids". Mom went along with it for a while and then nixed that plan when I started going to away games. She was barely comfortable enough to allow me to go to the home games, she told me. I tried the chess club, but even though I could now walk home after school, she asked me to drop that club because it made her nervous when I did not come straight home after school, even though it was only one set day a week. Wasn't it enough that I was gone over 8 hours a day? Did I really have to make this harder on her? So, I quit chess club almost as quickly as I started it. I looked longingly at the debate club and the school newspaper, but both of those required an after school commitment now and then, so I did not even bring them up to my mother. I think if I had been allowed to try out and had made the football team I would have fought with my parents in order to participate. Even if I lost that battle, it would have paved the way for other girls to play.

I did get into some activities I should have avoided, though I was never caught and therefore never "in trouble". (When my kids were teens I took a much more approving approach, hoping that constructive events might keep them out of trouble. As far as I can tell, it worked beautifully.) My grades reflected all the resentment I felt about the classes that disinterested me, the teachers that did not seem to care, the humiliation and downright pain of P.E., the crowds full of hurried and harried strangers, not being allowed to even try out for the football team, and being yanked out of band and chess club. I channeled all my frustration into, once again, not giving a rat's butt about my grades. I was completely oblivious to the fact that the only people I was hurting were me and any future progeny that might have to live off of food stamps when I was between minimum wage jobs. 

Jutannia and I would hide in the bathrooms and smoke while we complained about school, parents, life in general. I spent several math periods sitting on an overturned bucket in the pitch black darkness of the warm boiler room, surrounded by the scent of coal and staring at the soothing, red tips of other classmate's cigarettes. I sat and envied those bright tips. They were burning away at their own slow rate, uncaring about the jaded math teacher I was avoiding and the numbers that honestly gave me headaches. Luckily, I didn't actually LIKE smoking, though I liked watching others smoke, so I did not inhale. Still, the motion of the cigarette to the mouth, the bright, red tip glowing intensely when I dragged the smoke carefully into my mouth, the feeling of rebellion, the comradery of people that were as lost as I was, the quite voices in the dark, and the fact that time seemed as far away as math class -- all this seemed to console me and all those at the other ends of those red tips peppered around the room. "Misery," I thought, "Surely does love company." 

Scott, one of the guys I sat in the boiler room with, was the very same fellow I'd assaulted on the school bus a few years earlier when he had repeatedly pulled my niece Tanya's hair. He tugged me onto his lap one afternoon when there were no overturned buckets left for me to use as a makeshift chair. He had forgiven the fact that I had pulled him nearly bald just as soon as he realized I would sit in the pitch black and smoke cigarettes with him. I perched tensely on his leg and waited for a reason to slug him! When he did not give me one, I forgave him for needing to be pulled bald. He'd grown up some, I hoped. Even though his eyes, by the light of a cigarette lighter, showed an interest and his words were sometimes coy, he never tried to take an advantage with me. I appreciated that more than words could have expressed, and thus the boiler room and Scott's quiet voice became a balm in the hectic days of school life. But that was as far as it went. Had he asked me out I would have said yes, but I had no intentions of falling in love or lust in the boiler room!

I made a new friend, several grades above me, named Dreama. She had a love of fine things that was so extreme that she felt compelled to have those things even is she had to snitch them. I laid out of classes with her one day and for the first time I stole something other than food. Store security was not very good in that day and age and in our small town, so I easily walked out of a store with three pair of pants and four shirts on under my coat. My fountain drink had more jewelry in it than Coke, and I had make up and miscellaneous brick-a-brack crammed in all my pockets. Dreama had about the same amount of loot on her person. While we removed all the packaging and tags in the bathroom back at school, Dreama said, "If your parents notice anything new just tell them you're borrowing that from me and then if they ask again later just tell them that I said you could keep it because I have two, and I'll tell my parents I borrowed my stuff from you." Dreama and I wore the same size pants and we had often switched clothes at school for no good reason, so the story would not raise many eyebrows. I did not shoplift many times though, before my cousins, Barb and Ramona, put me in my place and ended those days for ever. 

As the year grew colder I spent more time skipping school and less time attending classes. I abhorred 8th grade! I would slip over to the motel that was next door to CHS and go into one of their unlocked rooms and hang out in blissful solitude. If you timed it just right, you could enter a room the maid had already cleaned but had not locked back up yet. Then you could sit there for the re-runs of Love Boat and Fantasy Island and even watch most of The Price is Right before she started rattling back down the rows of rooms and locking all the doors. When I heard her coming, I would switch off the T.V., hide behind the shower curtain in the bathroom until she locked my room up, then I would turn the T.V. back on, volume low, and spend the rest of the day spread out on the top of the bed instead of listening to my math teacher drone on and the P.E. coach tell everyone what a loser I was. When I left the room in the afternoon to head home, I would be sure to straighten the bed and lock the door behind me, so that no one would grow suspicious and start locking the rooms constantly. By that method, I got by with the same trick again and again. 

Late in the year, my cousin Wesley said he could get me a job if I quit school and I hated it so much I went to my dad and told him I wanted to quit. He went to the school board and told the superintendent, right in front of me, that I needed to be allowed to quit as I was mentally slow and school had never been my thing anyway. The superintendent signed the papers for me to quit and suddenly I was free from that rat race, but the job did not pan out. And my Pop calling me slow haunted me for years. I wondered: Do slow people know they are slow? Is there something wrong with me and I don't even know it? 

While not attending school, I met Greg, my future husband, and dated him for over a year before decided to enroll in classes again. I did this for two very selfish reasons: I wanted to learn more about cooking (so he and I would not starve when we moved out on our own) and I wanted to be with him more. He had told me once that he had more doubts about our relationship when he was at school all alone and missing me. So, it was mostly a very un-cool and un-healthy insecurity that drove me back to CHS. Still, I did learn to cook well, and I made some good friends that year. And I got my Cozy and my Liam out of the association that I continued with Greg, so it's one of those mistakes I'd make all over again on purpose. I can't imagine life (and don't want to!) without my sons!

I went to see Mr. Mullins again, only this time on my own terms. I told him I'd like to come back to school, and I assured him I would make decent grades this time, but that I was not coming back unless they would bend a rule for me and allow me to attend vocational school. Vo-Tech was officially only offered to kids in the 10th grade or higher. I watched as he pulled the strings necessary to get me into food service, and Bob's your uncle - I was an 8th grader again. Mr. Mullins rocked! 

The only kids I really got to know from CHS, the second time I took 8th grade, were twins called Tammy and Pam. Their sister, Teresa had been in my original 8th grade class (two years prior) and had been part of my close knit group from C.E.S., so I was already slightly fond of them before taking History class with them. 

I did not become the victim of so much drama this time around. I think that was probably because I was a respectable "taken" girlfriend now, thus I was less of a threat to the females. Also, I mostly hung out with Greg, even on the bus to vocational school, so it's possible I just missed hearing the rumors. Often on the bus to Vo-Tech, just like on the regular bus rides to and from school, a few rowdy boys would get out of hand and start threatening to "hair" someone. Sometimes they would follow through with those threats and really would hair someone. This was a barbaric and gruesome bullying method in which they pulled out other kids pubic hair. Although, I was threatened with this several times, I was never haired. The athlete type of guys thought the practice was funny. I was so firmly against the idea that I gave death threats in response to threats of being haired, but it was probably not the death threats that stopped them. Probably what saved me was my assurance that I would tell not only the bus driver, but the teachers, Mr. Smith (the principal) Mr. Mullins (the assistant principal) the school superintendent, my over protective daddy, my church pastor, any of my attacker's parents, and the local newspaper about the attack. Usually I was not a "nark" or a "tattle tale" but I made it clear that everyone would pay, and pay as much as possible, no matter how much I had to sing, if they ever laid one finger on my crotch! My threats kept them at bay for myself and a few fortunate others that I took under my wing including (once) Greg. I am amazed and gratified when I talk to kids about that practice these days and they react in shock and disgust. Bullying still exists, for sure, but they might have been even better at it in my day.

At the vocational technical school, I made a new and very good friend named Sherry Neece and also hung out sometimes with a sweet girl named Sonya Wolford. Years later, Sonya married a guy I'd had a miserable year-long crush on in my third year of the 5th grade, Mike S. My teacher in Food Service was a wonderful lady named Mrs. Moore. She taught and she cared. I learned a lot about cooking and some about life from her. She gave me the best marital advice: "Don't marry him to change him because if he changes at all it's more likely to be for the worse than for the better." 

We had a regional food service contest and I made a dessert cart that featured my favorite flavor, chocolate. I walked away with a blue ribbon, a rosette for Best in Class, and even the trophy for Best in Show! I suppose the only one more surprised than me was the judge we brought with us. (Each area contributed a judge.) She said something like, "Honey, I watched that cake fall apart on you this morning and I'd never felt sorrier for anyone in my life! But you didn't let it slow you down, let alone stop you. And look where you ended up! Good for you!" While I am rather tenacious, I have to admit that the kudos belonged to my teacher that time. The chocolate cake had gotten slippery. The layers were sliding off, and the first piece I cut ended up in the floor. I looked at Mrs. Moore for a cue. "Is it time to panic?" my eyes clearly asked her. "Clean it up, cut another small slice to display, and grab some long toothpicks to stabilize those shifting layers!" Not time to panic, time to act! So, I fixed it as best I could and walked away with Best in Show. As a winner, I was supposed to represent my area in the state contest, but I told Greg, "Mother will never let me go. She has only allowed me to stay away from home one night, and she threw a fit about that. Besides, that weekend is your Senior prom!" 

He shook his head. "I didn't enjoy my Junior prom all that much, and besides, you won this! If you don't go then no one will represent our region in that category! No.You gotta go!"

He had a conversation with my mom about how he was willing to miss his Senior prom in order to allow me to have this opportunity and, to my great surprise, she caved and let me to go to Richmond VA for the state contest. The trip was exciting and fun. I only received second place at state, but Mrs. Moore said the winner for my category had broken several rules that should have disqualified her entry. She said, "In my opinion, you're the blue ribbon winner at state too." I smiled because, by that point, that lovely lady's opinion was way more important to me than some lousy ribbon!

In my second year of 8th grade, I took home honor roll grades several times, and proudly showed them to my sister (who greatly cared) before getting my parents (who largely did not see the importance of grades) to sign the report cards. I had an over all good time with school that year too, though I truly missed the friends that had gone on to higher grades without me. But that spring I turned 18, and a month later I married the man that would give me Cozy and Liam, my sons. When school started back that fall I heard through the grapevine that rumor had it I was pregnant and HAD to get married. When no baby showed up, the rumors turned from a quiet, "I hear she's pregnant," to a whispered, "I think she had an abortion," though I most certainly did not. When Cozy (Cory) was born, almost three years later, I was thrilled! I did go on to get many college credits and I never stopped learning, but that was the end of the good and the bad of my pseudo high school years.