The middle school years...

In preparing to write about my years in junior high school (middle school) I decided to crack open my old yearbooks to see if their were any interesting pictures to use.  I did find one of me in the choir and several pictures of my old friends that will make their way onto Facebook in the very near future.  (Man, I know a few of them are going to hunt me down and put me in a hurt locker for posting their pictures)


Seventh grade at Cherry Avenue Junior High School was the beginning of a very fun period of time of my life away from home.  Now of course going from one small school to a larger school is always a rather unique experience.  To the best of my memory there were 3 schools that fed into Cherry Avenue.  Garden (where I came from), Wilson and Kohn elementary schools.  Now the interesting thing about those 3 schools is that several of the people I went to school with at Lincoln (1st-3rd) were split up and sent to all 3 schools.  But now we would all come back together at Cherry Avenue so it was a little bit of a homecoming to see people I have not seen for 3 years.


During the summer I had to realize that coming from the 6th grade we were the big kids on campus, but now going to the 7th we would be the younger group yet again.  You know what that means, the upper class would play jokes and pranks on us for the first few days since we are new.  The first day of school arrived and I stepped off the school bus and immediately started to look for my friends from Garden, because I knew I would feel a little bit more comfortable around them.  No sooner than I took about 15 steps on the campus, I get hit in the middle of my back really hard.  I swing around with anger in my eyes only to see a friend I have not seen since Lincoln.  For a moment I had to refrain from hitting him back, but after a few angry seconds, I realized that it was one of my old friends and I was happy to see him.  We walked further onto the campus and he was joined by his friends from Kohn and I was joined by a few friends from Garden.  We both did the introductions of our friends and started to compare class schedules.  Several of us had the same classes especially Physical Education.  This is going to be a good year, because I have my new and old friends all around me.


As the weeks went by, each month I looked forward to one major event...the school dances on Friday nights!!!  Once a month we would have a dance for something (holidays or just special events).  I loved to go to the dances because I knew how to dance and was not afraid to get out on the floor.  I had always loved to listen to music all my life.  Back then I would listen to anything that had a good beat or you could "shake what ya momma gave ya".  It was always interesting to see who would show up to the dances, because the ones that wanted to dance woulld be there and those that just wanted to be seen.  There were always several "wall flowers" that would make excuses for not dancing.  That was never me, I couldn't stay still when there is music playing.  There is just something about a good drum beat that moves threw my body.  It starts at the ears and my head just starts moving to the beat...then the shoulders start to move and the beat travels down my spine.  When the beat gets to my hips...they begin to sway, dip, rock etc.  By the time the beat gets so my feet, I am in full motion with movement that just can't be stopped.  Back then I didn't care if people were dancing or not, I would get on the floor and dance, and shortly thereafter a few girl friends would join me and we would have a blast.

Other than the dances, I was just starting to get into sports because I realized that I was a pretty fast runner and good at jumping.  During my 7th grade year I did not join any teams, but really enjoyed all of the sports we played during Physical Education.  That all changed during the 8th grade year, because during the winter time of 1981 I decided to play soccer for the first time.  Of course in the neighborhood that I grew up in, soccer was never played because it just wasn't a sport that kids were interested in at the time.  Even though it was played during the winter months, it was very fun to play.  As you can see in the picture to the left, I really enjoyed the sport since I was doing my "Superman" pose when we took our team picture.  The great thing about playing soccer was the fact that I would already be in shape for the track season that would begin during the spring season.


Let's just say that I became a crazy maniac for Track & Field because it was an absolute pleasure to run and jump all over the city in track meets.  I was able to meet and compete against so many people and started to develop into a real track fan.  I knew then that I was hooked and looked forward to joining the high school track teams.  Although my dreams of running track nearly did not happen because I did not know when track started.


During the first week of track practice, I did not know that it had started.  But thankfully the track coach was also my PE teacher and that week we were doing various events from track & field.  On Thursday that week, we were doing the 100 yard dash and long jump events during class.  I took my turn at doing both and my teacher after each event was rather surprised with my times and distances.  At the end of class he pulled me aside and asked me if I wanted to join the track team because my times and distances were just as good as the people already on the team.  I told him that I could not join because I did not have permission from my aunt and I did not have any track spikes.  He took me into his office and called my aunt and asked permission. After speaking with the teacher, my aunt asked to speak to me and we talked about my interest in the sport and the fact that we did not have the money at the time to buy spikes.  I was disappointed that I could not join because of the spikes, but the coach gave me a major surprise.  He and I walked to the principal's office and he asked for an off campus pass for me because he was going to take me to the sports store and buy me a pair of spikes.  We got the spikes and returned to the school and he gave me a uniform to wear.  I was so happy that I was bouncing off the ceiling.  I thanked the coach and joined the rest of the team after school for the meet at the high school track.


I competed and won each of the events that I competed in and received 1st place ribbons.  That was when I was hooked!!!  You mean I can run and jump and receive ribbons...YES!!!  That was the beginning of what became a major obsession for my school years.  I was not happy unless I was able to place in the top 3 to receive ribbons or medals.


The remainder of the 8th grade school year was a blast because I was getting to the point in my life where everything was finally looking up.  However, that did not last long because things were about to seriously change at home...but that is another story for another day.