7th Grade Flashback

Now that my office is cleaned up enough to consider actually “decorating” a little (thank you Michael Bell for the help with the cleanup), I’m spending some time this afternoon putting stuff into frames that I’ve had laying around for years. Thought you might enjoy seeing this one (you’ll have to click on it to see a version you can actually read):



This was written in April of ‘61; I turned 13 in May. I would have been in 7th grade. I didn’t know until much later (like in my 20’s) that this principal wanted me to skip 8th grade and go directly to 9th, but my dad wouldn’t let him. (Torrance schools were K-8 in one school – although 7th & 8th were slightly separated from the rest – then 9-12 in high school. I’m glad my dad didn’t let him – high school was traumatic enough as it was.) As it turned out, I spent a good part of this year “in the hall.” Miss Strough never could quite get a grip on me. 8th grade didn’t go much better. That teacher was about 6’4” and his theory of education was that the tallest person in the room was always the one responsible for the rest of the class. I was 6’2” when I entered 9th grade. You can imagine how that went. . .