Senior Year (part two)

Texas was such a huge culture shock. The high school kids dressed how people today dress for church. Teachers would stand in the halls by their doorways during class changes saying hi to all the kids and the kids all said hi back. I had never seen anything like it. I was studying everybody to see if anyone looked like a pot smoker, and NO ONE did! It was like I had gone back in time to the 1950's. That cool teacher that I had 2 classes with had a student teacher. I'll call him Luke. Luke was short, pudgy and had Gene Wilder hair and a moustache. I don't remember how it started, but we ended up getting together after school. He no longer smoked pot, but would bring me a joint and we'd ride around in his car discussing psychology, philosophy and all that other goofy stuff that college kids are so into. He lived in the subdivision next to mine and eventually became my boyfriend. I think my parents were very ambivalent about the whole thing. Half impressed/half mortified. Also you may remember I did have that HS boyfriend back home. Out of sight out of mind. One beautiful Saturday in the middle of February - it must have been 70 degrees or so out, because we were both wearing shorts - we were laughing about something as we walked out of a convenience store. There, standing mute and stunned on the sidewalk, were three of the popular football players from our class! Talk about an awkward moment. No kidding it was like a frozen moment in time. Finally everyone started saying "Oh hello!," and all that sort of generic greeting stuff. We hopped in Luke's car and took off, laughing and freaking out at the same time. He was afraid he might be in trouble. Apparently they never told anyone or at least not anyone important. I certainly got some looks on Monday. One of them did say to me "No wonder you get such good grades in here." I'm sure they also got a kick out of the times Luke would ask a question and I would raise my hand.

That didn't last long, though. This school operated on trimesters instead of semesters. A girl I had met in Government class took me under her wing for "registration." Unlike my N.C. high school, where you basically just filled out a form and then they gave you something telling you what you were taking, this crazy school allowed you to pick your teachers and classes. It was first-come-first-served. So you had to RUN to the most popular teachers. This girl told me the most popular English teacher. They had us all in the auditorium, then yelled "GO!" or something then everyone dashes into the halls to sign up for their classes. I signed up for English, Spanish II, Chemistry II, and World History. By Texas law I had to have this World History class to graduate. Unfortunately, everyone in the Texas school system takes this class in 10th grade. Seriously, it was like being in a class with children. I did make friends with one chubby red-headed boy and that worked out well because for 2 summers I was able to get free chicken and drinks from his booth at Six-Flags. Oh I must mention the teacher. He was right out of central casting as the "dorky, thinks he's hot 70's guy." He had straight blonde hair in a parted on the side pageboy, big old mutton style sideburns and wore printed nylon giant-collared shirts and bell-bottomed slacks. Ouch.

The English class was a joke. I had always been in AT English classes. This was just a generic English class because, well, you know, you just go sign up for it. I had written a college level research paper in 10th grade! So, and this really kills me, she explains what prepositions are and asks people to name them. One at a time people are raising their hands. After raising my hand like 3 times already to try to speed things up, I raised my hand again and said, "Can I just name the rest of them?" I mean really. It was 9th grade stuff. And every literature assignment became a on-on-one conversation between the teacher and me. The one great thing to come out of this class was the teacher introduced us to Rudyard Kipling's "If," which is my favorite poem in the whole world. It's here http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/Kipling/Kipling_ind.html if you want to read it. I actually wrote the teacher when I was in my twenties to thank her for hooking me up with Kipling.

My Chemistry II class lasted about 3 days before I was summoned to the office and told I was one trimester short of my required P.E. credits. In N.C. I don't even think we had P.E. in high school. After about an hour we finally came up with dropping Chemistry II for Tennis. That's Texas for you. English was my first class of the day. I had found out that a friendly popular guy, another Scott, whom I'd met the previous trimester lived in my neighborhood, so I asked him for a ride to school. Well he was also in my English class. I don't know if I was just paranoid but I felt like he thought I was trying to hop into the popular group or something, so every morning when I got out of the car, I'd say, "See you in class, I've got to go to my locker." I always imagined he was relieved to not have to walk in with me. Little did I know, but that comes later. Also around the beginning of this last trimester, Luke started getting WAY too serious and asked me to marry him and said he'd pay for my college if I stayed in Texas with him (he knew I was going back after graduation and had been accepted at UNC-G), so I had to break up with him. I told him I needed to start hanging out with kids my own age, or maybe I told him I was in love with my NC high school boyfriend. Whatever.

Spanish class was the most promising. The teacher taught Spanish I and II in the same room. There was a little divider board in the room and the 12 or so SII students were divided into little groups of 3 or 4 for self-study. That's how I met Joy. I'm sure my mom was relieved when I finally made a girlfriend. But the best part was there was a guy in the SI group that I JUST KNEW smoked pot. He was a year younger than me. I finally approached him, explained my situation and he said we'd meet at lunch. We had open lunch at this school. So we went out to my, well, my Mom's car which she was letting me drive to school occasionally and smoked a joint. A few lunchtimes later, he shows up with a friend, another junior. I found out this guy lived right around the corner from me. Here I should explain my neighborhood. It consisted of a golf course and country club, surrounded by really large nice homes and then there were about 4 or 5 nice apartment and condo complexes and a tiny strip shopping area with convenience store, dry cleaners and bar and there may have been a small liquor store. We were in an apartment. Everyone I met was in the nice houses. Okay so the new guy who lives around the corner invites me to go roller-skating with his church group. I had not done that sort of thing since 9th grade but thought, "Hey why not?" We get to the church and then all get on a bus. He introduces me to some really hot guys. We get there and skate and one of the hot guy asks "my date" if he can skate with me. So we're holding hands, (I'm skating backwards) and he says "You seem older than K." I said, "Yeah, I'll be 18 in 2 weeks." He said, "2 weeks?!?" I said "Yes, 2 weeks from today." So he freaks out and says "I'll be 18 2 weeks from today!"

Well that was Paul. Paul's the one in the prom picture down there. But it's not like you think. Part 3 will be about my time with Paul and how I was a terrible influence on Joy.