It wasn’t the biggest or most popular school to others, but to me it was a school that I could be proud of. It wasn’t a new school that stood out because of its appeal but because of the people that attended. Lisa Peters was a girl that I won’t ever forget. She studied every single night trying to graduate at the top of our class. She was friendly to everyone around her and she was always available to help anyone out who had a problem with their assignment. She gained thirty pounds during the four years she spent studying without any exercise and I felt sorry for her because she did nothing else but study and eat.
Our high school had a very good basketball team but I do remember the poor guy who made a basket for the other team. I must have been the first person he talked to about what happened the night before, because he seemed to still be in shock from the laughs that he had to endure. He asked very quietly, “Did you hear about the two big points that I made in the basketball game, last night? ” Then he told me how he was the talk of the school that day. I told him it was funny and sounded like something that I would do. I don’t know what happened with the cheerleading team!
I did hear that every cheerleader walked out and refused to ever cheer, again, which opened up a huge door for Tina Jarrell to finally make Head Cheerleader. She looked really silly out on the gym floor, cheering by herself. It didn’t stop her. She finally had bragging rights! I’ll never forget my history teacher, Mr. Moles. He was always strange, but I always thought he was super nice! He seemed to have the patience of Job, until one day when two other people were talking to me in class, he just snapped. I didn’t know what was going on.
I only knew that he was angry! There were three people that he had chosen as his targets, and one of them was me! The first boy, he grabbed him and threw him into a wall, while scolding his bad behavior. I couldn’t figure out what the bad behavior was, or what any of this was all about. The second boy, he grabbed him and I could see the fear on the boys face as he waited patiently for his punishment. It seemed to never end and I knew I was next in line for this teacher’s break down punishment. When he got to me, he stopped and turned away and went back to his desk.
I didn’t learn until after class that someone had drawn an ugly picture and laid it on his desk with his name on it. He really had the wrong people! I assume that because we were laughing in class about something one of the boys had said, he thought we were the ones who handed in the nasty piece of artwork! Who ever drew the picture, didn’t say a word. The next day, the parents of the two boys were at school and Mr. Moles died a few years later. I did like the teacher. He had problems but he was still a teacher that I will remember. My High School was fairly small compared to others.
I think it was built in the early 1900’s. The students there were mostly boring! We didn’t have any superstars or very interesting people, only normal people like myself. We did have a teacher who held a black belt in Karate. His name was Mr. Goode and occasionally he would demonstrate his talent before the whole school in the gymnasium. He was proud of his kicks and punches and I had a hard time sitting through his performance. I couldn’t imagine him doing anything else but sitting behind the desk in his blue suit, looking serious.
We had a few people who died before graduating high school. Tommy Barker died in a motorcycle accident, he was only 16. Michael Kuhn went over a steep ravine in his sports car and died on impact. Mark Daniels was someone who I went to school with since elementary school and when I heard about his accident, it nearly floored me. He was on his way to football practice with three other people on the football and cheerleading teams. Another boy that we went to school with stopped in the middle of a curve to allow a dog to pass in front of him.
The car where Mark Daniels was a passenger swerved to miss the stopped vehicle, where they lost control and ended up going over a steep embankment and into the river. The river was high that day; above flood stage. Mark was the only one who didn’t climb out of the river. It’s so hard to believe, still today! I’m glad that I’m out of high school. I learned so much, about people and life and death. If I could go back, I would make more friends and try to remember that some of the people would never make it to their graduation.