High School

My daughter has been sending me writing prompts from Storyworth as her Christmas gift to me. This week, I am supposed to write about my least favorite subject in school. That’s a toughie.

My recollections of high school are a little fuzzy. Some of that has to do with the time that has passed (measured in geologic eras), and some may be a psychological defense mechanism. I recall doing extremely well in all my classes without much effort, the menial jobs I had, my silver Silverado with the bench seat, the girls I dated, and wanting to get the hell out of town as fast as possible.

No particular subjects stand out as favorites, nor were there any that I dreaded. I did get kicked out of typing in the ninth grade for calling my teacher a bitch. I do not remember the circumstances, but she clearly deserved it. Why would I ever need to know how to type? After all, I didn’t want to grow up to be a stenographer. Maybe typing was my least favorite subject. I switched to an independent study of the works of William Faulkner, which ultimately required me to type a research paper.

I had Mr. Curry for chemistry and physics in my sophomore and junior years. He also taught these subjects to both of my parents. It was pretty clear that he had not changed his exams in several decades. His word problems introduced us to the towns of Dime Box and Cut and Shoot, Texas (ifykyk). I could have memorized all the answers if I had my mom or dad’s old papers. Not that Mr. Curry’s tests were that hard. Oh, he was also my grandmother’s bus driver, if you can believe that.

After I got into a bit of trouble for skipping too many classes, the principal agreed to let me graduate at the end of my junior year. I had to take trigonometry via correspondence course and a night class in Pasadena to get all the credits I needed. No one at the school was sad to see me go. They didn’t want a known juvenile delinquent as the valedictorian of the high school class.

So off to college I went at the ripe old age of seventeen and have been confused about which high school class reunions I should attend ever since. I never loved school at any level, but I got through.