When my brother, Matt, was in 5th grade, another kid punched him in the face. I’m told that the assault took place after Matt tried to reclaim his crayons from this other thieving child who had just stolen them. Now, I can’t say I blame the kid for punching him in the face. Hell, I’ve wanted to do that since I can remember. But nevertheless, this presented a real problem in my parents’ eyes and made them question where they had their innocent young boys receiving their education.
My mom responded by totally not overreacting and declaring, “That’s it! We’re sending them to private school.”
At the time, I was just finishing up kindergarten at the same elementary school as my brother. Fortunately for me, I hadn’t encountered any of the rough treatment typical of a public institution such as this. Nobody shanked me with an over-sharpened crayon, nobody knocked over my building blocks, and nobody called me a “bitch” when I forgot to use capital first-letters on proper nouns. Clearly, this was a rough school, and I was lucky to have made it to the age of six.
When my parents sat me down and told me that I would be switching schools the following year, I was devastated. “But all my friends are there! And I really liked my teacher! And we got nap time!” I yelled in protest. I was very sad to have to leave my buddies behind. They were the only friends I’d really known up to that point. We played video games together, played sports together, played throw-rocks-at-passing-cars together. Who the heck was I supposed to do all these things with now? Some private school nerds? To put it lightly, I was not a happy camper.
After many bouts of complaining, my parents finally agreed on a compromise. If I went to this new school for a year and hated it, I could return to my old one. I accepted this deal (as if I had a choice) and figured I could put up with this new sh*thole for a year. And heck, there were always weekends and after school when I could hang out with my old buddies.
The summer passed by too quickly, as it always does, and it was finally time for my first day at my new school. As my mom pulled up to the building to drop me off, I took a long look at the place from the outside. It was painted pink and looked a lot like Taco Tico, a local Mexican fast-food chain known for its delicious, yet vomit-inducing ingredients. I said goodbye to my mom while fighting back tears of nervousness and marched into the school with my sack lunch and baseball glove.
Believe it or not, I was cripplingly shy back then. In fact, when I took the entrance exam to get into the school (yes, they had an entrance exam for a seven-year-old), they almost didn’t accept me. I received a low score on the test, and they just thought I was a dummy. Though that may be true, the reason for my unsatisfactory score was due to the fact that I didn’t understand the instructions. But I was so shy, I didn’t ask the administrator for clarification. Fortunately for me, they called my kindergarten teacher, and she boosted my street cred and confirmed that I was not a complete moron. Thanks Mrs. Lebbon!
This shyness also came into play when I met all these new kids. From what I remember, everyone was friendly enough, but I was so used to my other pals, that I was reluctant to interact with them. During recess for the first several days, I literally took my baseball glove and a baseball and played catch with myself. What a loser!
After these first few weeks, I was pretty unhappy. I missed my old school, I missed my naps, and, most of all, I missed my friends. My mom could certainly tell that I was not enjoying it, but she wasn’t about to give up on this new school or my happiness just yet. After a good mom-to-son talk and a lot of encouragement to play with the others kids, I felt a spark of confidence that things may just work out.
The next day, I went up to my teacher and said that I would like to play with the other kids at recess. Knowing I was shy, she helped get me involved at the never-ending soccer game a lot of the boys played during recess. To my surprise, the kids were happy for me to join. I had so damn much fun that first recess, that I never wanted it to stop. So at the next recess, I went on over and played again. And again. And for every recess after that. Not only did this lead to me playing a lot of soccer, but it gave me the confidence to do other things with my newfound pals. We played after school together, went to Toys R Us together, and even had sleep overs…which usually included one of us calling our parents to pick us up in the middle of the night since we were still young and scared to be away from home.
By the time that first year was just about over, my mom and dad asked me, “Well, do you want to go back to your old school next year?” And I happily replied, “No.”
That’s how my 12-year-long odyssey began as a Class of 2005 Wichita Independent Panther. And what a glorious journey it was…
Sarah Hampton [Bastian] and I discovering that we were distantly related…
Danny Szlauderbach and I going on family vacations to Colorado…
Chris Hurst and I watching Bikini Carwash on Skinemax…
Garrett Jones and I giggling like hyenas during sex ed…
Megan Hancock [Kaufman]’s little brother kicking me in the nads…
Luke Namee and I watching every zombie movie we could get our hands on…
Cameron Pestinger and I making prank calls from his sister’s phone…
Kyle Davis and co. making goofy home movies…
Sean Stewart and Matt Gilbert presenting Spoof Wars…
Carla Bingenheimer [Zimmerman] and Jane Pendry kicking ass on the dance team…
Ms. Pence encouraging me to strip to “I’m Too Sexy” at every dance…
Mike Day and I getting nominated for homecoming king…
Coach Fowler yelling at us…
Coach Swenson making a bunch of sh*t up…
Brett Schuermann hitting homeruns left and right…
Winning our first baseball conference championship…
And many, many, MANY other interesting events with so many more of my favorite people…
I wouldn’t trade my time with these life-long friends for anything in the world.
I was so grateful to see so many of these faces at our 10-ish year reunion a few weeks back. Thanks to our long tenure together and tight-knit (and tiny) graduating class, we will always be bound together in a special sort of way. As we continue to grow older and live our lives, it was so fun to look back fondly on our memories together and reconnect as if we had just graduated yesterday (even though it was really a lot of yesterdays ago). Through the 12 years’ worth of good times, bad times, and everything in between, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Thanks for forcing me to change schools, Mom and Dad!