7th Grade

So Ethan's headed there, in just a couple of weeks. He got his schedule yesterday. Band (beginning brass), honors English, pre-algebra, Utah Studies (remember Utah Studies? It seemed so important to me at the time, like my patriotic Utahn duty, and my spell checker just underlined Utahn which, as one, I KNOW is spelled correctly), gym, science, the whole shebang. He's excited. Called all his friends to see if they had any classes together (and some of them do, sigh of relief) and already has his locker combination memorized.

Here's what I remember about junior high. First, my dad took me to my junior high orientation for some reason. I wasn't alone with my dad very often, so roaming around the echoing halls of West Lake Junior High with my DAD made me feel incredibly grown-up and poised on the precipice of something monumental and scary and exciting. I also remember my friend Karen, one year older than me, telling me how important it was to 1. never, under ANY circumstances, pick up anything you drop on the ground, lest someone call you a scrounge and, 2. ALWAYS give upperclassmen the right of way in the halls. Not a good idea to mess with eighth graders.

In seventh grade I had a really cool English teacher named Ms. Shea who had long black hair past her butt and was a belly dancer on the weekends. We read Ishi, the Last of His Tribe and played word games like Boggle on Fridays. I had another really cool choir teacher, Miss Straussberg, who asked a terrified me to accompany the 7th Grade choir when we sang "Saturday's Warrior" for our concert. (Only in Utah. In the mid-80s. Never in a million years could a public school get away with singing that song now.) I remember practicing and practicing that song, pounding away--those opening chords are etched into my reptilian brain.

I ran for (and won, somehow--I wasn't particularly popular that year) the position of 7th Grade Class Secretary. Don't remember what that office entailed, just that I got my picture in the front of the yearbook. I was just on the cusp of puberty and hadn't quite figured out yet how to do my hair right, or wear mascara, and in my individual yearbook picture I have a smudge of Covergirl Greatlash under my right eye and my eighties bangs are curled but not sufficiently ratted or sprayed. I wore a purple sweater vest, I think.

I was afraid I smelled after gym. I was afraid I would forget my homework. I was afraid I'd make my elementary school friends mad if I didn't hang out with them, even if I was SO intrigued by the seemingly-coooler, more mature and worldy-wise friends from the more easterly region of West Valley City that I met in my classes. I still remember one girl named Jennifer who was so cool and smart and I wanted to be JUST LIKE HER. I even went so far as to buy a pair of Jordache jeans almost exactly like hers (but not quite exactly--didn't want her to think I was creepy or anything.) My first girl-emulation crush.

I tried out for the Junior High production of Annie and was crushed--CRUSHED, I tell you--to be relegated to the chorus. No speaking lines to, well, speak of. In the sixth grade, I'd played Nellie, Annie's little sister in Annie Get Your Gun at Cyprus HIGH SCHOOL, no less, and I figured with my wealth of experience, and obvious facility with the plaintive tune "Maybe" (" . . . their one mistake, was giving up meeeeeee . . ." oh, the pathos) that I'd be assured at least one of the sidekick orphan roles. But nope. No dice. Heartbreaking. I sighed and calumphed my way through the Annie experience as a member of the chorus, though, and in the end it was fun.

Seventh grade is a big dang deal. I think Ethan is ready, and I think he'll do great, but it's such a transition in a person's life. I'm looking forward to it for him (and keeping my fingers crossed!). What do YOU remember about 7th grade??