The Worst of High School

 

            I am going to tell you three of my worst stories about high school and in the next blog, I will tell you some good stories about these years.

            Occasionally I wish I was more like my brother.

            Following his year at Western Carolina Center, Dale was bullied. He was about 14 years old and on crutches. One day this boy tripped Dale and was laughing. Dale picked up a crutch and said, “If you ever do that again, I will beat you with this!” The bullying stopped for Dale that day.

            If only I had some of that fire inside me.

            I started yet another school as a sophomore. This school combined two smaller high schools together. Now before you think I had trouble with my own grade, I didn’t. Everyone from the other school was great. But we had two other grades that wasn’t always nice.

            The first story is about chairs. We had big comfortable beanbag-like chairs in the hallway upstairs. Of course, there wasn’t enough for everyone, but they were extremely comfortable the one time I sat in one.

            Again, I ate by myself upstairs. I suppose I could have gone to the lunchroom, but by this time I was sort of afraid of crowds and couldn’t carry a tray. The simplest thing was to eat by myself. I did this throughout high school.

            One day having finished my sandwich early, I thought I am going out to sit in a chair. I deserve it! So, I walked out and settled into a soft leather chair. A few minutes later, a few of the football team came and sat in the other chairs. As other football players came and didn’t have a place to sit, they started making fun of me. I knew what they wanted - that chair. Instead of getting up and giving it to them, which maybe I should have, I sat there and listened to them. No way was anyone getting that chair! And man, they tried! At 11:55, I got up and heard them dive for the chair but didn’t look back. I had ignored them and won!

            But as I walked to my locker, I relived what they said and tears started to flow. When I reached my locker, I was crying uncontrollably. My friends asked what was wrong. I don’t know what I told them.

            In my junior year, the chairs were removed.

            The second story involves a teacher. I really didn’t know what classes to take my senior year. So I decided to ask a home economics teacher if I could take her class. She said no. I couldn’t do this or that, so no.

            I remember walking up the steps to a landing and just crying. I was so angry at this woman and feeling like a failure.

The funny thing is that when we had to sign up for classes, my guidance counselor suggested I take home economics. I told her that I had talked to a teacher who said no. She said another teacher would take me, no question about it. In my senior year, I had home economics and did just fine! I am not saying I am a cook or a dress maker, but that experience taught me I could do anything I really wanted.

Third story is about bullying. Senior year was particularly difficult. You see in order to get to the home economics class, I had to ride the elevator down, pass a busy and noisy lunchroom, and go by some sophomores sitting in the hall. Normally this doesn’t sound like a big deal until you find out these guys from shop class bullied me relentlessly. They called me names, made fun of me, and in general made me pray to be invisible from the time I turned the corner until I got to my class.

I should have told someone or stood up to them. Now, I know what I would have liked to do to the leader of this group. But then, I was so afraid to rock the boat! I never told anyone. I thought if I told, it would get worse. I even tried walking around the other way to avoid them. They saw me and man, it was on then!

One day, their teacher was standing in the doorway and heard them. He immediately told them to get in the classroom, now! I have no idea what was said, but I do know that they stopped insulting me.  

One last story about the prom. As a junior, you had to sell candy bars or something in order to go. Well, I wanted to go to prom. I sold my candy, got all dressed up, and sat with some girlfriends until they left and then sat by myself, and sat there. When I came home, Mom said asked why so early? I started crying. I told her I never wanted to go to another prom!

In high school I prayed daily, hourly sometimes, “God, please let me be normal.” But God had other plans for me. And what is “normal” to God?

Okay, now that I have gotten the bad stuff out there, on to the good!