Freshman year at Chantilly High School.

As you can see, I had a respectable year in terms of grades. My lowest grade was a class that I enjoyed (C+ in Algebra). The teacher's name was Mr. Rayburn, and he told us this wonderful story of falling out of a huge oak tree while harvesting Mistle-Toe. He had a mustache, and a knack for teaching algebra to fools like me. But, somehow my lack of homework production led to this lowest grade. It is odd that in a few short years, a C+ would be a grade I was proud of.



I seem to remember every single class with Mrs. Haynes in World Cultures 1. (I don't remember a 2, or 3...) Some of the stuff that she taught us was just plain wrong, and much was politically incorrect. She taught me to hate Yassir Arafat, and to distrust anything from North Africa. A friend of mine in this class was born in Africa, and was half Chilean. She would let me know after the class what was correct or not in that day's lesson. To her credit, I do not remember her correcting the teacher in front of the class. She did correct me, though, when I repeated a derogatory term for latinos. She told me that "spic" was not a nice term and that I should not use it. She handled it in such a gentle fashion that I never used that term again. She could have raked me over the coals for that, but chose diplomacy instead.

I learned a lot from my Earth Science class. In fact, in 1990 I was a graduate student teaching nearly the exact same stuff (called Physical Geography) and was frustrated when people found the material confusing. In the weather section, we covered cyclogenesis, cold/warm air fronts, adiabatic temperature gradients, and cloud formation.

This was my last year of spanish, until college that is. Quitting this language (and taking Latin later) was a huge mistake. I liked the course, but never considered taking more. If I had taken two more years of this pleasant language, I could have avoided a lot of problems in college. It should be mentioned that all of the Chantilly guidance counselors, including one who later became my step-mother, incorrectly advised students to take three years of language to avoid the requirement in college. I went to a state school 50 miles south of Chantilly, and their requirement was FOUR years of language in high school. (I didn't have four years because I did not pass the second year of Latin. Yes, the four years could have been 2+2.) I wonder how many other students were burned by this mis-information. Incidentally, one of my college roommates had four years of spanish in high school. He got good grades, which means that secondary education (for languages, that is) in Lexington, Massachusettes must really be lame. He could not conjugate, and had no understanding of tenses. ("Me gusta las vacas verde" was the type of gibberish he spoke.) Lame.

I wasn't bullied in the 9th grade, except by one kid in Earth Science who decided to step on my toes. It was one day after I had my toenails sliced up by a podiatrist to treat ingrown toenails. He didn't believe me. That was the only day that anyone ever stepped on my toes to "hurt" me deliberately. Ever. Why was this one day after my toenails were worked on? I tried to make a new friend in that class, his name was Scott and he was about 5-times the geek that I was. He eventually introduced me to a good friend, John. This later became the friend that I would identify my high school experience by, so I guess Scott served his purpose.

I also decided to take guitar playing more seriously my freshman year. I had a nearly busted nylon-string (I won't even dignify it with the term classical) and an epiphone electric. I started through the classical guitar book by Frederick Noad for about the ninth time that year. (My wife is using it right now, working through page 100 or so.) The last time I took music seriously, I was in a guitar class in the 7th grade. Actually, that was a funny story. In a class of about 30 students, I was one of four with previous experience. The teacher's way of handling this was to put me with these three other kids in a small sound-proof room. Two of the kids were 8th graders, and they taught me how to play barre chords and to play the music of Boston, REO Speedwagon, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin. My chances for formal guitar lessons were gone, though, my parents wouldn't pay for it. For the next four years, I would be purely "self-taught." In other words, I sucked.

This was probably the last year of my childhood. I stayed at home on Halloween night to hand out candy. One of the people I gave candy to was my brother, one-year-older and wearing a toga. It was also the last year I spent in the house with my brother. He moved out at the end of that year, to live with my father. Instantly, he had access to a vehicle, and those cool John Lennon sunglasses. That happens when you grow up.

--gh