Diary Friday: “He also wore shiny black shoes with buckles, so we called him ‘Mr. Pilgrim’ and ‘Mr. Turkey’.”

Another excerpt from the autobiography I wrote when I was 13. I am now going to embarrass my friend Mere. Good times! Here I describe the beginning of junior high – which was uniformly terrible.

SHEILA’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

After sixth grade, we were all looking forward to going into the Junior High together. I don’t know why, because it was such a bad year. I wasn’t in classes with ANY of my friends, I hardly ever saw them, and somehow I became the class scapegoat. People laughed at me as I walked by, left mean notes in my locker, gave me crank calls, and snickered. Don’t ask me why. I didn’t even know half the people, I didn’t talk to them, I never did anything to them. See, in grade school, having clean nice hair, good clothes, and a boyfriend, wasn’t crucial, and suddenly these things were the most important things in life. So I kept wearing what I wanted and everyone made fun of me so much that I was scared to walk up and get an ice cream at lunch. I still plodded along, but my life became worse and worse. I started to get Cs and I was mean to my Mom. I hated everyone. I dreaded school. School, instead of being my usual slice of paradise, became a chore! I would fake sickness to stay home. I’d cough and retch so much that my mother would let me stay home. But things weren’t that better there. I would fight with my mother, and storm off to my room to write useless stories. I’m very vague, because I already have a depressing diary of those days. But since I had no friends I saw in school, I became friends with Laura, which was good at the time. She was more unpopular than I was! The thing is, though, that the popular kids in our school were the nice ones. I talked to them, and they didn’t laugh at me. It was the losers who made fun of me. Now I know that the only reason they made fun of me is that they know they’re losers and they have to find a scapegoat to make themselves feel better. Now I can laugh in their faces. But then – it stripped away my confidence. I hated myself with a passion. I looked at my face in the mirror and despised it. I really resent those kids. But you know what? SOMEDAY I will be a great actress or a rich archaeologist, or a famous journalist, and I will look at those gutter scums and smirk. I CAN’T WAIT. [Now that is a worthy goal. Many people have become famous for just such this reason.]

Anyway, Laura turned out to be a jerk. She clung to me. Maybe for support or something. But she was jealous of any other friendships I had. I was friends with another girl named Debby (another mistake) and Laura – whenever she saw me with Debby, she would come over and laugh about a secret of ours to make Debby jealous. It got worse and worse, until we were all in Science, and we sat at the same table and I was between them. It was TERRIBLE. It got so bad that I hated both of them. Each pulling me in different directions. So I changed my seat and gloated at their hurt faces. [hahahahaha I love that] I really started to hate them!

Most of this is recorded in my other Diary. But it wasn’t THAT bad. [Uhm … it wasn’t? You’re gonna say it wasn’t “that bad” NOW??] It was just that I had to start brand new making friends.

But I made acquaintances that year (Kate, Beth, Meredith) that now are my best friends. They were so chummy with each other – I envied them. I sort of know Beth and Kate because of church and Sunday School, but I had never met Mere before. And I thought she was the best thing to ever hit this earth. She was tall and thin and pretty and always wore jeans and they always looked good on her. [“Clothes look good on her.”] She was so – “breezy”. I don’t know. And I admired her. On ’50s day, at the end of school, she wore this puffy pink skirt with a big blue flower in the “poodle spot” and when we went out to play softball it was all sunny and warm and we were out in the outfield and (I better stop this run-on). So anyway, we started to Charleston and I still remember what she looked like with her skirt swirling around her.

And one little odd tidbit I remember, is on 50s day, we were all in Ecology and I glanced over at Mere beside Beth. She was sitting in her chair with her legs stretched out, ankles crossed, and her pink skirt was flounced out around her. I admired her so much then, with the bobby socks and penny loafers. And she and Beth were laughing about something. She looked so easy and free. They both did! I was always so tense, and I wanted to be like Meredith!

It is so strange because now she is my BEST friend and I don’t idolize her anymore! Sorry, Mere!

7th grade was a bummer. Eighth grade was better because I was in classes with J., and Betsy and Mere and Beth. Mere and I sat beside each other in math and we had the best time making fun of the teacher. He loved being macho. [hahahahahaha] When he wrote on the board, he clenched and unclenched his fist. He wore tight pants – polyester – and he had a bright orange shirt. On one of his shirt backs was a stain that looked like a semi-colon and it remained there the entire year. [I am howling!] He also wore shiny black shoes with buckles, so we called him “Mr. Pilgrim” and “Mr. Turkey”. We wrote notes back and forth the entire period (honestly, literally – I still have some of them and they are a scream.) Sometimes I would laugh so hard during class I felt trapped and suffocated and tears would course down my cheeks. Math suddenly became the highlight of my day.

I remember that on the last few days of school, our teacher would take us out to play softball (he was very into baseball). He would play, and loved “showing off” to us. Actually, Mere and I would be roaring about him the whole time. [God. We were so mean to him!! But man, how many hours of fun did he provide us, Mere … we just thought he was so hysterical] Mere looked so cute standing out in the field in her jeans with her baseball glove. [I swear, Mere, I wasn’t a creepy stalker – even though I appeared to keep notes on your outfits on a daily basis!!] She was so funny. I remember one fatal day when we started to laugh so hard during a “silent time” that my stomach ached from trying to hold it in. It was during a fire drill and we were all standing outside in the sunshine in silent lines. The sun was so bright. We were all standing there silently. And suddenly I noticed Mr. Mellor, a bald math teacher, standing on the pavement. The sun actually caused his head to glow. I turned to Mere and whispered to her, “Look at Mr. Mellor. His head …” and then I went completely out of control and Mere started to laugh, too, and it was so hard to stop! From trying to repress our laughter, we made much more noise than otherwise. We laughed hysterically, silently, and shaking, until our breath ran out, and we had to take huge deep breaths before collapsing again. I tried to hold back the laughter but then I would burst out with a loud guffaw.

Oh, another highlight of that year was when our math class was out playing softball and I was out bopping around in the outfield with my glove and our teacher was up to bat (oh, what a man) and he, in his tight blue pants that clung, went tearing around the bases and suddenly he froze and sort of sidled back to home, and picked up his glove to put it over his rear. All of us were staring at him like he was bonkers. Some of the kids back at home plate started roaring with laughter, but none of us outfielders could see what had happened. Then he started running towards the school, still holding the glove in place over his butt. As he went past me, he hissed, “I split my pants.”

Everyone heard, though. I stood stock still. I could hardly believe it! Then suddenly, Michele L., the pitcher, shrieked with laughter and fell down onto the ground – and then mass hysteria followed. None of us could believe that our macho teacher had split his pants!!!