FIFTY YEAR HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

Back in Elementary School I thought all those kids I played with would forever be in my life! We'd all grow up and old together. I even pictured us as senior citizens; playing shuffle board, checkers, or sitting in rocking chairs laughing and reminiscing about times past; all those corny things we watched the old folks do and we'd be enjoying them to the hilt! But life unfolded differently, or maybe it just unraveled. In retrospect, it mutated!

According to my mother, I was going to love High School. "No more cliques and the kids are much nicer," she said. Well I found the exact opposite to be true!

In Elementary, the cliques were loosely woven and most of the kids were friendly. Also bullying and harassment was almost nonexistent. If someone acted that way, at least 3 kids ran to get a teacher who quickly put a stop to it.

However in High School all of that changed! Each year the cliques became tighter. And worse, now there was a caste system that would rival Victorian Brittan. One was never allowed to forget their place. Bullying and harassment were not only tolerated, it became entertainment in a schadenfreude sort of way. Often it happened right under the noses of teachers who chose to look the other way.

Fortunately, my first year of Junior High, 7th grade was spent in West Palm Beach at a private ungraded school. In my heart, I graduated with THOSE kids! But that's a story for another post.

I returned to my hometown school in the 8th grade. My 6th grade year there had been abomidable! All of those ugly things first began to rear up, but covertly. In High School they were now out in the open and had free reign.

My return also coinsided with my father losing his job. The corporation he worked for had gone belly-up. Our entire lifestyle ended abruptly, taking us by surprise! I discovered that when you fall down your peer group is the first to start kicking and pummeling you! I was never one of the popular kids to start and now I was a pariah.

Earlier this spring my High School graduating class held its 50 year reunion. Those HELL YEARS remain fresh in my mind! I was hoping most of my former classmates were dead. They don't know how lucky they are that I was never into guns or explosives!

I wouldn't have remained 3 days at a job under the same conditions I endured there! Had they existed today, I would sue for harassment and a hostile environment.

No longer am I friends with anyone from High School nor have I been for decades. Sometimes I have to stop and ask myself, why.  But it's always followed by that "Ah Ha!" finger-snapping moment when I remember why.

My reunion was only an hour's drive down the coast. However I had zero interest in going. The only ones attending would be X-friends, frenemies, and the vast majority who never wanted to be my friend, period. Why would I want to subject myself to that! 

Rose, my friend since 2009, thought I should go just to flaunt how well I've aged in front of all those bitches & bastards. She offered to attend with me. But I saw no point in each of us paying $55 for an evening with a crowd I never wanted to see again.

Now that I'm a senior citizen, I know of no one who plays shuffleboard or checkers or even wants to. I live in Florida where old people from other states come to die. I never see senior citizens sitting on a porch anymore. They're probably all inside staring at screens.

Friends drift or fall away; sometimes they cut you loose hacking off a small piece of you in the process. And then, there's the frenemies, years later I found myself trying to extract their knives from my back. However I managed, and always healed. But healing doesn't mean you develop amnesia! High School is a place I still visit in nightmares.

I did not attend my 50 year reunion. Instead, I chose happiness.

THE TEACHER, THE CAB, & THE PIRATE

And of course GAYLEE, too! We were introduced by an older family friend when I was 8 and she was 9. Gaylee was one school grade up from mine. But we clicked immediately! We both had other friends; however it was always just us when we were together.

Gaylee was a regular visitor to my house and was treated to numerous family outings such as shows, festivals, & dinners out. She even accompanied us on one of our frequent weekend trips to Miami and even a family vacation thru the Florida Keys down to Key West.

Our scenic coastal town as well as the rest of the state had been discovered and was growing by leaps and bounds. The sprawling campus that once taught grades 1 thru 12 no longer was large enough. Separate elementary and high schools were under construction. The old school would soon be a junior high only.

I was 10 and Gaylee 11 when we were transferred to the new elementary. The school sported a futuristic design and layout. From the air it looked like an aqua blue spider. The cafeteria with a large raised stage was the main building. From there, long covered walkways branched out in many different directions. At the end of each was a cluster of 6 classrooms centered around an open courtyard.

Strangely, this futuristic-looking building lacked air conditioning and this is Florida! However, the wide sliding glass doors on the sides were nearly always kept open. I was in the 5th Grade and Gaylee the 6th. Our classrooms were opposite and we often waved to each another.

This school was too far for me to walk, yet too close for bus pick-up. My father drove me in the morning on his way to work. Since my mother didn't drive she had a taxi bring me home every afternoon. Back then cabs were a lot cheaper. (We even used one for grocery shopping.) This was 1961. Still, I thought I was going to be the only kid riding a taxi home, but to my surprise there were 2 others, an older girl and a younger boy.

One of our regular drivers was a tall lanky man in his 20's. He was a rough-looking character who wore an eye-patch. (In retrospect I'm surprised he landed a driving job with only one good eye!) He also had a scraggly goatee as well as tattoos covering both arms. And when he smiled you could see a missing tooth on his left side. I called him "The Pirate". But he was always friendly toward us kids, more so than the other drivers.

My teacher however, was a real pill! She loved saying with pride how the first thing she did after moving into her new home was to unhook the TV and throw it in the garbage. It showed trash not fit for her family! -- And this was back when television was tame!

She also forbade girls from wearing trousers to her class. I knew they were forbidden in high school but we were still in elementary! And worse, when we failed a test we were forced to write the entire chapter!

And horror of horrors, I failed one right before my parents had an important weekend scheduled! Two couples they knew from up north back-in-the-day were coming to visit. These were our prime feast years so my parents wanted to show boat. And Gaylee was coming that busy weekend, too. My mother was a puncher, pincher, and a slapper as well as a screamer! She never dared do it around others, but they wouldn't be there forever. So she must never know!

I swore Gaylee to secrecy. Unlike other so-called friends, she could be trusted. This punishment cut into our fun time so Gaylee (bless her heart) offered to write the second half of the chapter while I wrote the first. We had an extra text because my mother happened upon a teacher's catalog and bought copies of all my textbooks so I could be tutored over the summer since I was a struggling student.

I have Dyscalculia among other disorders but back then I was just considered dumb!

The following Monday as the teacher collected our chapters a student named Sharon confessed: "My mother finished this because it was getting late and past my bedtime."

I wanted to smack her! Never volunteer that kind of information! The teacher's reaction was predictable. And now, I was likely to get caught because our teacher would be going thru everyone's work with a fine-toothed comb. She'd notice the writing didn't match. Damn that Sharon! How could anyone be that stupid!

However, by some miracle, I got away with it. Sharon would have too had she kept her yap shut!

Eventually summer vacation arrived; unfortunately I was sentenced to summer school with that same teacher. I was now the only kid riding the cab home. A handful of students were kept after class and naturally I was among them. My taxi driver got tired of waiting and came searching for me.

I had been instructed to go to the blackboard to solve a series of math problems. Suddenly I looked over and saw the pirate leaning against the doorway. "I'm here to pick-up Dianne," he said in a commanding voice, "We must go now."

The teacher seemed startled and shaken. His presence was an imposing one. Nervously, she told me to go. Geez, he could have been a kidnapper!

Away from the classroom I thanked the pirate for rescuing me. He replied that no teacher should have the right to keep a student after class. I agreed! And I'm sure he had other fares waiting.

The following autumn Gaylee entered Junior High leaving that blue arachnid building behind and me as well. She started hanging out with a whole different crowd and lost all interest in our friendship. Sadly, our close comradery that I thought would last a lifetime was now over forever.

I entered 6th Grade and to my dire disbelief wound up with a teacher actually worse than the previous one, something else I never imagined possible! 

TRASH TALK

Now let's turn that into trash action!!! The problem is plastic; it's popular because it's durable. Everyone alive today will be bones picked clean by bugs in their rotting wood caskets long before our plastics decompose. Plastic is taking over the planet and harming our environment. It's killing our sea and forest life slowly in ways that cause their suffering to linger. And burning the stuff creates toxic fumes! Worse, more of it is being produced all the time.

All forms of plastic need sunlight to degrade and the plastic in landfills does not receive the required amount, if any. Yes, plastic can be recycled. However each time this is done the purity is compromised. And so many different types of plastic make recycling difficult. People are not going to cease using it.

I'll admit that I'm as guilty as anyone! I bring home plastic containers from the supermarket all the time because I like the food inside. But I try to recycle and repurpose as much as possible. I reuse these plastic containers for storage. They are perfect for my costume jewelry and other miscellaneous items because they're clear and I can immediately see what's inside. I also use them for storing leftovers in my fridge or pantry.

The plastic grocery bags I use for my garbage. If not for these, I would need to buy plastic bags for this purpose. Recently I read that even those so-called biodegradable bags degrade slowly.

Last night I had difficulty getting to sleep, so I started thinking about the issue. Well, I solved the problem for us! Send it to the moon!!!

From the photos I've seen it's the perfect spot for this! Of course we could just shoot it out into space, but that's just nasty like throwing garbage out your car window. And we're fortunate enough to have an enormous trash receptacle orbiting us. Picture humungous piles of trash heaps that could only be seen thru telescopes. We're going to be sending more and more robots there all the time, so let them take out the trash in addition to their other jobs.

However this would only be a temporary set-up until we come up with a more economical way of sending missiles to Venus. The planet is even better for this purpose, unfortunately much father. Caustic clouds of sulfuric acid drift over it and its atmospheric pressures are crushing. Also Venus has hellish and dynamical high-altitude winds plus temperatures that soar above 880 degrees Fahrenheit. This makes it the perfect planet for plastic disposal.

By the way, Earth you're welcome.  Next problem!