First day of school
Last Saturday, I was lucky to meet up with some of my high school friends from many years ago (many MANY years ago), as well as their significant others and kids. The shindig was in the afternoon, so in the morning, my boys were asking me about some of my experiences in school. Since back-to-school night had been a few days before, I talked about when I was going into 3rd grade, or 6th grade (their current grades). Much like when I meet some people now, I don’t necessarily remember any specific instances of my time with some teachers, but I remember if I liked them or not. 3rd grade - didn’t like the teacher. 6th grade - she was ok.
That’s me. The end of 6th grade….and yes, a stripey Union Bay shirt was cool then.
The boys liked the more embarrassing stories over the clever anecdotes. Weird, I know.
There were little stories, like when I was in first grade. Mrs. Fritz (coincidentally, both of my boys had a first grade teacher named Mrs. Fritz, but I assured them that “my” Mrs. Fritz was quite a bit older than their’s) was writing something on the chalkboard…..not a wipe board, they used real chalk and those big, humungous erasers back then. She was teaching about english or something, and Dale K. and I were in the back of the row of desks and we were chatting….as one does when you’re 6 and have very important things to say. Mrs. Fritz had already told everyone to quiet down and listen, but good old Dale and I just had to finish our conversation. So she yelled (gasp!) at us and I pretended like I didn’t hear her and kept talking to Dale, because, clearly, if you ignore something or someone, it just didn’t happen. He looked at me like I had gone mad and then ……….Mrs. Fritz. Wrote. Our. Names. On. The. Board. That was that. My perfect school career had come to an end and I no longer would be successful or happy. I had a good run.
There are 3 Sara(h)s in that picture.
9th grade maybe? …..Either way, we’re cool.
The really good, embarrassing stories always happen when hormones come into play……weird I know.. I’ve always liked boys. My kindergarten heart had a crush on Michael all year and I always wanted to play dress-up with him in the play-corner of our classroom (wondering if they set things up a bit differently now?………anyway). In 6th grade, after what felt like months, but was probably only a week or two, of liking Tim, the tall, thick haired jock of my class, I got the courage to ask him out. By “courage,” I mean my peers pressured me and pushed me into it after they found out that I liked him. So during recess, in the field of Washington school, my friends physically pushed me towards him, while he was surrounded by his cronies, and I asked him if he wanted to go out with me? He said no. *Heart shattered* Tim later told me that if he hadn’t been surrounded by his buddies, that he would have said yes. But what does that even mean in 6th grade……and in 1990’s 6th grade. Like…..hold hands? Maybe call each other on their families landline until someone else needed the phone at home? Who knows?
I never had a “boyfriend” until 7th grade. And I put “boyfriend” in quotes because, again….what the hell does that even mean?
This guy ^….with the glasses…..he was my first “boyfriend.”
Nice guy….he’s an architect now. Married with 2 kids I think?
And look at all of those other kiddos! Thats the last day of 7th grade…..for some reason we felt the need to put stickers on every part of our bodies.
Nate (1st bf) knew I liked him. Pretty much anyone who I knew, knew I liked him. I had my 13th birthday party and the good ole Holiday Inn, Holidome, where you could play shuffle board while your kids swim in the pool. Where all of that indoor/outdoor carpeting felt scratchy on your feet, and where one happy little 13 year old got her first kiss in the sauna all while her friends cheered her on in a game of truth or dare. Oh the innocence of the 90s. Little did I know in that sauna, was my future husband and he was PISSED that Nate got to kiss me, because he had a crush on me. Luckily Jon got the last word….or kiss…either way, I had my first boyfriend and the party continued.
I don’t know who thought of it…most likely my mom, but we had an activity where you had to ‘shave’ balloons. That quickly turned into a shaving cream fight.
That poor hotel staff HATED us. lol…..still my favorite birthday party.
The boys’ favorite story of mine from school is my all-time most embarrassing story of junior high.
Junior high is when boys start to grow up a little. They start to look a little less like boys…..and a little more like “older” boys. lol. Sweat starts to glisten in a different way. Shirts start to hang on them a bit better. Their annoying tendencies start to become less annoying and more …..funny or charming.
All of this is a complete lie, but hormones start to fly and my crushes got more intense.
It was in Mr. Behnke’s social studies (or possibly Civics) class. 1st floor of PJ Jacobs, all the way at the end of the hall. Was it 8th grade or 9th? I want to say 8th. I had a mad crush on Jon (not my current Jon…..a different one). He was funny, in a goofy, sarcastic way. Taller than me, played basketball (which I did too…….oh my goodness….teehee, so much in common)……..he was just…..Jon. I’m pretty sure he had a crush on my too, but after the “incident” I never got to find out. I had a crush on him pretty much the whole year. Silly flirtatious bickering ensued, pretending to be annoyed at random things he said or did, but clearly I just loved the attention…..that’s how it goes in 8th (or 9th grade). We didn’t have phones to keep chatting/texting after school, and mainly only saw eachother in school or at sporting events so we had to show our obvious “like” for each other just during school.
After months (once again….could have been weeks) of this fun back and forth flirtation, we were in Mr. Behnke’s class.
Good ole Mr. Behnke.
He was teaching us something about history or foreign policy….who the hell knows? Jon was in my class. I wasn’t listening. And not only was he in my class….he sat right behind me. I don’t know what kind of desks are at PJ’s now, but “back in MY day” we had the desks where you slid into the side of them and there was a little cage thing that was under the seat part, where you could put books or whatnot so they wouldn’t crowd your desk. The thing about that little cage part, was that the person behind you, could slip their feet underneath it, just a little bit. It was a snug fit, but you could slide the main parts of your toes under there and if you had tennis shoes on, you could easily lift the seat in front of you.
Well, Jon started to lift my seat. *giggle. *blush. “Oh Jon, stop!” (don’t really stop…I like the attention). Well, not only was he lifting my seat, he was lifting it and dropping it real hard to the ground, which made a big noise every time he did it. Mr. Behnke had his back to the class as he wrote some instruction or teachings on the black board (once again…..zero clue…I was flirting) and the big “drop” kept happening, over and over again. I think Mr. Behnke gave us a little glare once or twice but Jon didn’t stop lifting my seat and dropping it. Finally, good ole Mr. Behnke had had enough and whipped around from his writing and yelled “JON! WOULD YOU JUST ASK HER OUT ALREADY!?!?!?”
Shock. Terror. Humiliation, as the whole class looked at us and started laughing and teasing.
Jon and I immediately pulled our desks apart from each other in an act of “we would NEVER like eachother!” to save from embarrassment, but the deed was already done. After that moment…..there was no chance of Jon and I ever “going out.” No chance of giggling hand in hand as we walked to Belt’s after school. No chance of awkward school dances where you don’t know where to put your hands. No chance of random phone calls where neither one of us would know what to say, but we were “going out” so we needed to talk on the phone.
All was lost.
And good too……since he turned out to be an anti-vaxxer. But I digress.
These people ended up being “my people.” They took awhile to find, but there were around 8 of us that really stuck together in high school and we had a lot of fun.
I think about who, if any, of the friends that the boys make in the next decade….if any of them will still be there in 3 decades? Things happen whether it be with kids, careers, relationships, moves, etc. But these guys, we all live in different states, towns, streets than we did in high school and it’s nice to know I can give them a call when I need to. Even this last weekend, we reminisced about stupid shit we did in high school, crushes some of us had on the other ones, dances we went to, nemesis-es we had….lol. School is so crazy. I fear for our kids now, who have to have it all immortalized online. I’m happy I can pick and choose the photos that I post from my high school years………because most would not be wise to be made public.
What goes on in the 90s (and early 2000s) stays in the 90s.
