One item of “stuff” I’ve kept from middle school is a Tootsie Roll bank, about 20 inches tall, with a coin slot in the plastic lid. I can’t bring myself to throw it out because it’s useful for keeping coins I never actually keep and because it’s tied to a Kodak Moment. I was in the eighth grade, and my P.E. class was scheduled to be in the auditorium for some kind of presentation. So my friends and I, instead…
Meredith lived four houses up the street from me, and out of all my seventh grade girl friends, she was the only one with a pool in the backyard. This meant a lot of parties at her house, and with her place being only a hop-skip-and-a-jump away, it also meant that my kid sister could tag along every now and then. One day, my friend Mary brought over her new boyfriend Shannon, who had the dreamiest Irish blue eyes and…
I was lucky as a ninth grader. My school decided to offer a drama class that year for the first time ever, and I got to be in it. We did various acting exercises, improvisational skits, and even plays. We would break up into groups and take turns performing for the class. It was the most fun I ever had that year. One day, our teacher had us prepare some mimed skits that we could perform for the entire school…
The Amber Alert was on full tilt tonight during my drive home. The emergency bulletin signs above the freeway described in lights the kidnapping suspect’s car make, model, and license plate number. I hope someone spotted the guy and reported him, and I hope they eventually get the kid back to the parents. If not, I’ll have a faint feeling of survivor’s guilt. That seems like a strange notion, but I can’t count how many times I could have been…
At 13 years old, Rochelle was the best built out of my group of friends in the 8th grade. Unlike Maila, Mary, Meredith, and myself, she’d ripened enough to have gazongas that more than impressed the boys. A couple of said boys were Rob and Rod, ninth graders with a bad reputation; and thanks to middle-of-the-hood geography and the lure of teen pheromones, those bad boys somehow ended up at my house. I’ll admit that I never liked Rod—not before…