Harrow: growing up
Sep. 6th, 2003 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramosAs previously recorded, my parents and I moved to the country when I was eight. In September I started grade 3 in Harrow, a town of 2,300 people.
I had trouble making friends at school. I used to look for excuses to stay indoors at recess. I would complain of a sick stomach, and Miss Skuce started calling me a hypochondriac. I was perfectly healthy, except for a serious case of shyness and bad nerves.
I was exceedingly bright, however, so much that my grade 4 teacher, Mrs. Buttery, wanted me to accelerate. The school had stopped skipping students, but she persuaded the principal to make an exception. So I took grade 5 and 6 together in a single year.
It was the worst thing that could have happened. I was still having trouble making friends, and skipping made things worse. My grade 5 friends, the ones I left behind, shunned me. The grade 6 kids were even meaner. My home room teacher happened to be the girl's gym teacher. She was as butch as they come. She didn't like sissies and browners, and picked on me mercilessly. The kids followed her example. It was never physical, just taunts and fun at my expense.
Once during a game of Truth Dare Double Dare, someone dared the most precocious girl in our class, Connie, to try and kiss me. I was horrified. The ensuing antics amused everyone so much (except me) that it became a game lasting several years. Three of the most popular, sexually developed girls in my class would chase me around the school yard, pretending to fawn over me. I knew how square I was. I thought they were laughing at me, amusing themselves and the other boys.
In hindsight, I realize their game was not malicious. Connie probably had a real crush on me and was trying to get me to come out of my shell. After all, I was a good-looking boy. In hindsight, I think several of my classmates did try to open me up. But I was already too lonely and uptight to know how to respond.
At Poplar Bluff, the beach road where I lived, things were a little better. My best friend was N. He had three little brothers. Another neighbour, Tracey, was my age, too. In good weather, we played in the woods between our houses every day after school. We called it the Jungle. We had great adventures there, often following adventure stories that I had made up.
In grade 7 I had one of my favourite teachers of all time, Miss Reed. She was about 5 feet tall with round glasses and long, wavy, dark hair. It was her first year teaching and she had great ideas. She taught Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe. I soaked it up.
For our assembly that year, we did Music Through The Ages. We learned songs and dances from every decade of the 20th century: the waltz, the Charleston, the twist. Three girls stepped racily around the stage and lip-synched Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. We all sang Lily Marlene. One of the boys sang Ben. The whole class ended up on stage in jeans and black t-shirts dancing to Saturday Night.
The show also included poetry. I was Miss Reed's pet, but she tried to pull me out of my shell, too. So, for the assembly, I was forced to participate in one of the most humiliating events of my public school career. I had to stand on a balcony, with Connie reciting from the floor below, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. In front of the whole school.
In fact the assembly was so successful, I had to do it in front of a packed gymnasium on two successive nights, in front of everyone's parents. In front of my parents, who seemed oblivious to my misery. Our class raised enough money to go on a field trip to Stratford to see a Shakespeare play. And I learned how to keep a stiff upper lip, hiding my humiliation.
My love of literature had already begun, but Miss Reed fueled it. Reading and writing became my haven, a secret world. About that time I started creating imaginary characters who I would write about throughout my teens and into adulthood.
I was still a loner when I started high school. But by that time I was also sexually active. So my secret became deeper and more intense.
I had trouble making friends at school. I used to look for excuses to stay indoors at recess. I would complain of a sick stomach, and Miss Skuce started calling me a hypochondriac. I was perfectly healthy, except for a serious case of shyness and bad nerves.
I was exceedingly bright, however, so much that my grade 4 teacher, Mrs. Buttery, wanted me to accelerate. The school had stopped skipping students, but she persuaded the principal to make an exception. So I took grade 5 and 6 together in a single year.
It was the worst thing that could have happened. I was still having trouble making friends, and skipping made things worse. My grade 5 friends, the ones I left behind, shunned me. The grade 6 kids were even meaner. My home room teacher happened to be the girl's gym teacher. She was as butch as they come. She didn't like sissies and browners, and picked on me mercilessly. The kids followed her example. It was never physical, just taunts and fun at my expense.
Once during a game of Truth Dare Double Dare, someone dared the most precocious girl in our class, Connie, to try and kiss me. I was horrified. The ensuing antics amused everyone so much (except me) that it became a game lasting several years. Three of the most popular, sexually developed girls in my class would chase me around the school yard, pretending to fawn over me. I knew how square I was. I thought they were laughing at me, amusing themselves and the other boys.
In hindsight, I realize their game was not malicious. Connie probably had a real crush on me and was trying to get me to come out of my shell. After all, I was a good-looking boy. In hindsight, I think several of my classmates did try to open me up. But I was already too lonely and uptight to know how to respond.
At Poplar Bluff, the beach road where I lived, things were a little better. My best friend was N. He had three little brothers. Another neighbour, Tracey, was my age, too. In good weather, we played in the woods between our houses every day after school. We called it the Jungle. We had great adventures there, often following adventure stories that I had made up.
In grade 7 I had one of my favourite teachers of all time, Miss Reed. She was about 5 feet tall with round glasses and long, wavy, dark hair. It was her first year teaching and she had great ideas. She taught Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe. I soaked it up.
For our assembly that year, we did Music Through The Ages. We learned songs and dances from every decade of the 20th century: the waltz, the Charleston, the twist. Three girls stepped racily around the stage and lip-synched Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. We all sang Lily Marlene. One of the boys sang Ben. The whole class ended up on stage in jeans and black t-shirts dancing to Saturday Night.
The show also included poetry. I was Miss Reed's pet, but she tried to pull me out of my shell, too. So, for the assembly, I was forced to participate in one of the most humiliating events of my public school career. I had to stand on a balcony, with Connie reciting from the floor below, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. In front of the whole school.
In fact the assembly was so successful, I had to do it in front of a packed gymnasium on two successive nights, in front of everyone's parents. In front of my parents, who seemed oblivious to my misery. Our class raised enough money to go on a field trip to Stratford to see a Shakespeare play. And I learned how to keep a stiff upper lip, hiding my humiliation.
My love of literature had already begun, but Miss Reed fueled it. Reading and writing became my haven, a secret world. About that time I started creating imaginary characters who I would write about throughout my teens and into adulthood.
I was still a loner when I started high school. But by that time I was also sexually active. So my secret became deeper and more intense.
