Chapter 4: Calm Before the Storm

June 1977

When I got home, I grabbed a Coke and some chips and went right to my room. I didn’t think I could deal with my parents or Jeff or Stephanie. I just needed to be by myself. That wouldn’t seem odd to anyone, because I often went to my room to read. In addition, I now had the TV I’d received for my birthday. I flipped it on to WXIX Channel 19 and reruns of Gilligan’s Island and Green Acres played in the background while I read. I had to get my mind clear for the final exams that would start on Monday.

On Sunday, we went to church. I saw Jennie briefly before church and said “Hi, Mrs. McGrath.”

She smiled, said, “Hi, Steve!” and then walked to her pew.

My mom said “Mrs. McGrath called yesterday to say you had done a great job and she was grateful for everything you did. I told her you could help her over the Summer but she didn’t think she would need the help.”

“OK, Mom.”

I was determined to not let anything show at all. I took my seat and looked ahead 2 rows. Jennie was sitting next to a guy her own age. I wondered about that during the entire Mass. I don’t remember what the sermon topic was because my mind was generating all kinds of unholy thoughts. The words just sort of flowed around me without entering my consciousness.

After Mass, I saw Jennie clearly flirting with the guy she had been sitting next to. Gritting my teeth, knowing it had to happen, I simply went to the car for the ride home. It was going to be another day of trying to get my head clear and my thoughts straight.

I went to my room, put on the radio, and pulled out my history book to review for Monday’s test. It was tough at first, but history was my favorite subject. I started with that for a reason. I got lost in the post-civil war period, reviewing Presidential elections, Indian policy, and the run-up to the Spanish-American War.

By Monday I had calmed down and had my emotions in check enough that I knew the exams would go well. At lunch, Birgit and Larry joined me, along with Susan (my 7th-grade girlfriend) and Danny Baer, her new boyfriend. We all chatted comfortably as we were all pretty good students and didn’t have much to worry about with exams.

Susan had it the toughest, being in the concert band and having to play a solo piece as part of her final exam. We talked about the class party that was happening on Friday night at Chris Jones’ house. Chris’ family lived in an old, rehabilitated farmhouse and they had a barn where they could host the entire 8th-grade class, even if everyone showed up.

When our lunch period ended, we split up to head to our exams. I’d taken my English exam in the morning (nothing to study there - I was an ace thanks to Mrs. Oligee). Mr. Dixon handed out the exam papers. As I figured, 10 multiple choice, 10 true/false, 10 fill in the blank, and 2 essay questions - a piece of cake.

I finished in about half the time allotted and had plenty of time to review. I changed my answer on one T/F question because on re-reading it I realized it was a subtle trick. Typical Mr. Dixon. I re-read all the questions even more carefully to make sure I hadn’t made the same mistake. Nope. I knew that so long as he liked my essay answers, I had an A for sure, and might even have aced it.

I didn’t think the essays were a problem - my term paper in November had been on Jimmy Carter. I’d titled it High Hopes, and wrote that despite lofty promises, he would ultimately fail as a President. I had an A+ on that paper and the highest praise from Mr. Dixon in his comments. [I still have a copy of that paper to this day, too bad the country didn’t figure out what I had.] I was in a good mood. But I knew it wouldn’t last long. Tomorrow was Spanish with my arch-nemesis in this world, Mrs. Thompson.

Mrs. Thompson, whom the students knew as “Miss Piggy” for her resemblance to the famous Muppet, seemed to hate everyone, but she really seemed to have it in for the guys in the class. This was a teacher who had a sign that said ‘Rule #1: The Teacher is always right; Rule #2: If you think the teacher is in error, refer to rule #1.’ And she actually meant it.

In 7th grade, I’d had the most awesome language teacher for Spanish. In 8th, I had the worst. I dreaded having her for another year, but I wasn’t ready to bail on Spanish just yet. After all, I had started before-school Spanish classes in 2nd grade when we lived in Southern California. That was in the 60s before the massive immigration wave, but there were still a decent number of Mexicans living in the LA area.

I’d go home tonight and crack the books. I’d be memorizing verb conjugations, reviewing vocabulary, taking some practice tests in a Spanish book I had purchased on my own, and reviewing all the homework exercises. I doubted it would be enough. I just hoped to score well enough to keep a B in Spanish. I had done so the first three quarters, but only barely, by between 10 and 20 points each quarter. It was touch and go on this one, too.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know the material or didn’t do the homework, or didn’t do well on tests. No. Mrs. Thompson made 25% of our grades based on classroom participation and oral language skills. And I had no qualms or doubts about saying that she favored girls and graded the boys harshly. My ‘participation’ scores were low enough to give me a ‘C’ if I didn’t get at least a 93 on the final. I figured I could do that, but it would be tough. She made the tests difficult and always managed to find that one thing I hadn’t reviewed enough. Not this time, I’d vowed.

I ended up finally closing the books at 12:30am. I didn’t have to get up until 6:30am so I could still get enough sleep. Fortunately, the Spanish test was the only one I would have that day. Well, I also had the gym ‘test’ but I could pass that one asleep and with a bad case of influenza. The sit-up, push-up, and running requirements were easy to make, and because it was Pass/Fail, all I had to do was make the minimum to pass. Easy enough. On the plus side, I got to see my cute classmates in shorts and t-shirts. Bonus!

Tuesday dawned rainy and cool, and I trudged to the bus stop with my umbrella up. Not an auspicious way to start the day. I sat next to Kim Smith on the bus. She lived next door and was a tomboy of tomboys. We talked about the Reds, hoping that they could be back in the same form. When your team wins back-to-back World Series, a nail-biter with Boston, and a delicious sweep of the Yankees, you have high hopes. Trading Tony Perez in the off-season didn’t help, but I thought they still had a good chance.

We got to school and the rain had let up enough I didn’t put my umbrella up to walk from the bus to the building. Dumping my stuff in my locker, I walked to homeroom. After the usual drill, the bell rang and I walked halfway around the building to Mrs. Thompson’s class. First seat next to the window (she was an alphabetical seat order type, and Tim wasn’t in this class). I sat down, put my two #2 pencils and my eraser on my desk as she always wanted, made sure I had no extra papers, or anything else, on or under the desk, and waited.

In typical fashion, she came in with a smug look, and without a word handed out the exam papers. I took one and passed the stack back to Danny Baer who sat behind me. Papers face down, of course. Sigh. When everyone had the papers, she said “Begin” and then sat down at her desk to watch us like a hawk watches mice. I turned my paper over, lowered my head, and started reading.

I had picked up a habit that served me well throughout school (at least when I followed it). I read through the entire exam (all 3 pages) before I even put my name on the paper. As I read each question, I became happier and happier. Nothing I didn’t know. I got to the last half of the last page, the place where her usual surprise showed up. I smirked. I had guessed right.

I had made sure I memorized ALL the verbs with special focus on a couple of irregular ones we had barely touched on in class or used in homework. I turned back to page 1 and started working my way through the test. I finished in time to do a quick review, found a couple of spelling errors and a missing accent. I fixed those and when she collected the papers, I knew I had an A on the exam and a B for the quarter. Nothing she could do now could change that because she had handed out our participation grades last Friday.

The gang met for lunch, Danny and I talked about the Spanish test. He was bummed because he knew he missed several questions, but he was done with Spanish anyway. He decided he was going to take German in High School and get out of Spanish. I told him that was probably a good plan, but I was resigned to another year of Mrs. Thompson because I wanted to eventually take the Spanish literature course offered to Juniors or Seniors with at least 3 years of Spanish. Everyone else seemed to have thought their exam went well, and Susan was relieved that she had finished her band exam and played her solo well enough she thought she had an A. I was sure she did, because I had heard her play quite a bit and she was good.

My Gym ‘final’ went as expected. I was feeling energized from out-guessing Mrs. Thompson and put a full effort into the test despite not getting enough sleep the night before. I completed seven circuits of the track in twelve minutes. 1 3/4 miles. I beat everyone except the 2 kids who ran long-distance in track - they did 8 circuits in less than twelve minutes. I could always run long distances. Don’t ask me to run a sprint, I’d still be trying to get out of the blocks when the first guy broke the tape, but long distances were easy for me. And as I figured, the major bonus of budding breasts bouncing around the track didn’t hurt, nor did cute butts in gym shorts.

Wednesday was the last day of school for me. Because I had one study hall, I only had 6 exams and they were Monday through Wednesday. I loved the fact that the school didn’t require anyone to be there who didn’t have an exam. My first exam on Wednesday was Algebra. I breezed through the test, double-checked my work, and pulled out a book to read for the rest of the period. Mr. Neimeyer was cool that way. Lunch was more of the same, but Danny wasn’t down in the dumps having decided to forget Mrs. Thompson once and for all. I should have done the same.

Larry seemed to be a bit withdrawn, and I asked him what was wrong.

“Nothing, really. Just got some stuff I’m trying to figure out.”

We hadn’t seen each other much during the last month - Saturday was our usual hangout day and I’d been busy for 3 in a row (two of which he couldn’t know the details about). I wasn’t sure what to say. So I changed the subject.

“Hey, cheer up! We have the school chess tournament next week.”

He smiled “Yeah, that’s gonna be fun.”

I figured he’d win the 8th-grade tournament and have a shot at winning the Jr. High tournament. If I finished in the top 5, I’d be happy. He was better than I was, but I could beat him from time to time.

Birgit on the other hand, was sad, almost to the point of tears. She knew her time in the US was ending and she’d be going home.

“Don’t be down in the dumps!” I told her. “You have lots of friends, we can write, and who knows what will happen in the future. You’ll be going home to all your friends and your old school. And you’ll get to see your dog.”

Oddly enough, it was that dog she missed the most. I was more of a cat person, but she had a Yorkie that she adored.

She smiled at that “I’m going to miss all of you. It’s so hard to leave.”

Just as she said that, the bell rang. Birgit looked at me, touched my hand and smiled, and said “Thanks for reminding me.”

I loved her smile. I loved her touch. I wistfully thought of what might have been, and remembered Jennie’s advice: just be her friend. I didn’t react other than smile back as I left the table.

Last exam of the year. Science Class. I had started with ‘Atoms and Molecules’ the introductory chemistry class, had gone on to ‘Meteorology’ and ‘Biology’, and this final quarter I had ‘Heat, Energy and Uses’ - the introductory physics class. I had this one in the bag. I hadn’t missed a point on homework or a quiz all year. I could write my name on the final, turn it in, and have a B+. When the papers were handed out, I quickly read through them and almost laughed out loud. I had 2 hours to finish this test. I would take 15 minutes. And I would ace it.

I went through it, double-checked my work, and turned it in 20 minutes after class started. Mr. Sanders just nodded when I handed it to him and I went back to my desk to read. I got dirty looks from a couple of students, but Beth Pater smiled at me and I knew why. Two minutes later she turned in her test, turned and stuck her tongue out at me, and sat down. She had missed only two points all year. She had the best grades in the school - everything straight A’s. But in science, I had her beat and she knew it.

When the exam ended, as we were leaving the room, Beth said “I wanted to finish before you but I got stuck on one question. I know I got it right, but I had to start over once. Next year!”

Feeling confident from my experience with Jennie, and more than a little frisky, I said “Next time you stick your tongue out at me, you better be prepared to use it!”

She blushed bright red and said “Steve!” and rolled her eyes. She was cute, but hadn’t really started to develop yet. She huffed and walked away. I smiled. I had her so flustered she didn’t know what to do. With just one comment! Maybe next year I’d see if she’d go out with me.

Done for the year! I headed for the bus, found Kim, and we talked more baseball. She was in 9th grade, so wouldn’t be at the 8th-grade class party, but we made plans to play some street baseball on Friday when all the kids were off. She and her brother Brian had been regulars at our street games since she moved in next door to us almost 2 years ago.

I had the entire day off on Thursday, but most of the gang had exams, so I figured I’d just hang around the house, watch TV, and chill. Mom had other ideas. As soon as I woke up on Thursday (I never slept late, always waking up with the Sun), she handed me a list of chores.

“Aw, Mom,” I whined, “it’s the first day of vacation!”

“That’s right, and you are not going to sit around this Summer.”

“What are you talking about? I have the chess tournament next week, then two weeks of Summer school then 2 weeks at Marydale. And that means two weeks of shoveling horse manure, just like last year!”

I was in the horsemanship program, and part of the program was mucking out stalls.