My only non-academic objective when I entered seventh grade was to overcome my shyness. I had emerged from elementary school bursting with a need to socialize, mix with fellow students, and to actually enjoy myself at school.
Unfortunately, the newness of my surroundings, the larger population, the weird mix of older and younger students, and the bigger school surroundings threw me for a loss, and my first weeks in junior high school were more about learning how to exist, where things were, and how to make it from one class to another. Eventually, I stopped hyperventilating, began to breathe easier, and let my powers of observation take hold.
My first realization of importance was that the in-crowd of elementary school didn't look anything like the in-crowd of junior high school. The oddity of my elementary school situation was that those who ruled classroom society were what would be called preppy. They were upright boys and girls, attired in classic wardrobe, who could always be counted on to do the right thing. They never got in trouble and were popular with teachers and administrators.
In junior high, my first cogent observation was that the in-crowd was definitely a scruffy bunch of latter-day James Deans, with dark, slick hair, coiffed high on the head, combed back at the sides but pulled forward at the front so that the front curve of the pompadour dipped low over the brow. They were tight slacks, ankle high, so that their black socks could be seen over the low, "Cuban"-heeled, pointed shoes. Short-sleeved shirts were rolled up at the muscle, or lack thereof, and when the weather turned cool, those in clubs, or suburban gangs, wore shiny, satin jackets with their logo on the back, a derivative style thought to have originated with a Brooklyn gang called the Amboy Dukes, which I learned many years later was a fictional group.
Even more impressive to me were the styles of the girls. The mid-calf dresses and poodle skirts had completely disappeared, and tight, short skirts were suddenly the norm. When I started seventh grade, the junior high school boasted a dress code that proclaimed skirts had to touch the knee and the test was, if a girl kneeled down, her skirt had to reach the ground. I'm not sure this dress code had much of an effect because skirts and dresses just continued to climb higher and higher on the thigh through my Island Tree years.
The greatest, most liberating thing about my seventh grade class was that almost all the kids were new to me. I had no history with them. I didn’t know who they were; they didn’t attend Farmedge and Geneva N. Gallow elementary schools with me. It was like starting school all over again. And I finally got lucky. I was by this time acutely aware of the opposite sex and my seventh grade class was rife with a group of beautiful, striking, forward, funny, tough girls – and they treated me like anyone else. I was accepted; it was like joining a club that had always prohibited me from belonging. Although I still had amazing insecurities, the young ladies were so friendly and kind to me from the start of class they forcefully opened up my social world to new possibilities. I was in an almost childish way infatuated with them all, like a puppy begging for affection. I so enjoyed being in their presence that for the first time in my life I couldn’t wait to get to school. Once in a bolt of "Clash of the Titans"-like intervention, they came to my rescue when I committed my first serious school-time transgression.
It happened like this. I decided to attend the first record hop of the year, a Friday night at the end of September soon after the start of school year 1961. I met some friends there, any maybe even my cousin Maury, who would end up to be a smoker, and as I was standing around waiting for the dance to start, was given a cigarette. Had I smoked before? No, but I could see the guys who looked so cool with their satin jackets had a cigarette dangling from their lips. I lit up just about the time the front doors opened for the dance and the crowd started moving forward. Not even realizing what was going on, I still had the lit cigarette in my hand when I entered the threshold of the school. One of the teachers, Mr. Ott, a tall, intractable man who would end up being my ninth grade history teacher, was on duty that night and immediately grabbed me by the scruff of my collar and tossed me out the door.
I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been. Well, even then I could read an omen when it manhandled me and that was the end of my cigarette smoking -- forever. However, for me, at that juncture, with everybody now at the dance and me standing in the cool air by myself outside the front door, was to figure out what to do. I was dreadfully embarrassed, but to go home with my tail stuck between my legs was even more mortifying, so when no one was looking I snuck back into the dance.
The young ladies of my class knew what happened to me and when I got back into the dance, they protectively gathered around me. More importantly to keep me invisible to the watchful eye of Mr. Ott, they kept me on the dance floor, tightly holding onto me during the slow numbers. As noted, I spent six years in elementary school barely talking to the females in my class and I had never danced with a girl before, certainly not a slow dance. It wasn’t even the formal, waltz style with one arm outstretched and breathing room between us. We wrapped arms tightly around each other, their heads tucked in on my shoulder, swirling about so I always had my back to the teachers on duty that night.
I stayed friends with most of those girls through my junior high school and high school years, but we never so very close, ever again. I dated one of them once, just once.
I only went to one of my high school reunions at 20 years after graduation and one of those terrific females from my seventh-grade class ran up to me and gave me a big hug, telling everyone that it was because of me she was able to get through many of her classes -- a nod to the fact that I allowed my answers on some test to be in her line of sight. Maybe it was my way of giving back for what they did for me in seventh grade. They didn't know it and I certainly didn't realize it at the time because it was all so natural and naive, but they changed my perspective and that eventually gave me the courage to change. So, here's to Jo Anne B., Linda B., Ellen M., Toni P., Sophie F., and any of the others who I might have forgotten.