I R Sucked, ritornelle

I shared my H.S. transcript with my Freshman Seminar class on Tuesday. They seemed amused, and I hope I got through to them that high school was definitely over, and they are now writing a new chapter in their lives. Afterward, I had the transcript sitting on my desk and one of my colleagues asked to look at it. (Jeff was valedictorian of his graduating class.) It was funny because I was in the main office area and you could hear him laughing in my office. It sounded like his sides were going to split. A student in the office asked "what is he laughing at" and it was even funnier when I had to reply "my high school transcript." I think the student only half believed me... So, here's the 11th grade:


I liked my English teacher that year, she was new, and young, and tried to relate to us by not trying to relate to us. You might also note that I withdrew from a chemistry class to enter another chemistry class. This was about mid september, so literally 20 years ago. I was in a so-called "advanced" chemistry class, but not gifted (the school wisened up on that). I had trouble with the work, since I made no effort in homework, etc. I had began my first job (sales, at a variety department store called BEST) and began working more and more hours. The only thing I remember doing with this money was buying a Les Paul Custom...

Anyhow, my first chemistry test came up, and I was totally unprepared. For some reason, I had a blue crayon with me and I decided to write the test out in crayon - to throw the teacher off. I decided I would write deep and disturbing comments all over the front and back of the test, and began having fun by not caring. (This was the beginning of that attitude, I guess.) To make a long story short, this landed me in the counselor's office. The teacher was worried that I was suicidal or something, and the guidance counselor kept asking me if everything was okay at home. (It wasn't, but that is another book.) Since her colleague was my father's girlfriend, she probably knew more than I wanted her to know, and possibly not from the fairest perspective, either. In the end, she moved me out of the smart class, and into the class with some good friends of mine! One of them grew to be my closest high school friend. The other was a girlfriend for about 1 1/2 months. Good times. And as you can see, without studying any more, I was able to get a C.

I followed my brother in the language of Latin. I don't know if I should forgive him for this, but he seemed to enjoy it so much. I wanted to have something in common with him, because I spent the previous part of my life searching out activities that he had no interest in. (That is why I picked up the guitar.) He had moved out of the house, and I guess I wanted something to talk about with him. If I did any homework (at home) that year, it was for this class. I don't even remember Algebra 2, except that I was the only non-redneck kid in the class. The girls in the class were still wearing turquoise and silver with feathered hair.

The Architectural Drawing class was a highlight of that year. I got a B in the class because I had secret passages in my raised-ranch split-foyer home. And I put a urinal in the master bath. And, I had a spiral staircase from a door in the master suite down to the garage. Mr. Alkazin had no patience for wise guys like me. I did take the skills seriously, though. These skills allowed me to master pen-and-ink cartographic methods in college. Of course, with computer technology, it is a lost art form... I guess I still wanted to be an architect like George Costanza did.

This was my third straight year in high school with no absences. Not sure what was going on, because I hated school so much. But you could not get away from campus. (They had this guy that dropped out of the Washington Redskins that would chase after kids that walked away from the school. I never attempted it, except for once. But that was senior year, and we went to Chuck E. Cheese.)

I never wore shorts to school. My step-father's influence being that men don't wear shorts. I never wore a tee-shirt, either. I still only wear tee-shirts to work in. Most days, I wore jeans, or cordoroy, and wore one of those button-down oxford shirts from JC Penny.

I wish I had pictures to share with you, but I lost my yearbooks, and my family hasn't shared any pictures of me. I have about 8 pictures of me from age 0 through high school. It's like some kind of mind-control game with my parents. My mother showed me some photo albums about a year ago, for eleven minutes. That was the second time in 25 years that I had seen those. My father made a video of pictures of my sister nearly 12 years ago, and followed up that project with my brother's photos about 8 years ago. And, like the youngest-child curse, the enthusiasm for completing that work ran out.

Hey JSA, if you are reading this, and you happen to run across some high school pics, scan a few for me.

By the way, I should give credit to the title of this "chapter" of my blog ("I are sucked"). It comes from a videomentary that hooked up a half-dozen New York students with the same amount of Baghdad kids. One of the more outspoken Iraqis commented on his love of metal music only, and that the "Backstreet Boys are sucked." Oh, his other haunting comment was "There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." This was 2 weeks before the U.S.-led invasion. His name is Walid, and the show is called Bridge to Baghdad. To view the first episode, go here and click on the 2nd or 3rd "click here" or something.