2000-08-06 - 22:54 MDT

August 6, 2000

D minus

Junior High, what is now called Middle School where the little Ninth Graders are farmed out to the High Schools. Man I wasn't ready for being corraled with the giants who went there !

I wanted to be a Medical Doctor, consequently Latin was mandatory if that was where one wanted to go, it was a necessary tool. I had and the other boys in that class had a problem. The woman who taught Latin in our school was a cranky person I thought she had it in for me because no matter how hard I worked, she would criticize my work in front of the class and refused to have me in after school for help.

Then gradually it became obvious to me when I noticed her attitude toward all the boys in our class. The girls could make dunderheaded mistakes on recitation and the teacher after while would call on another girl.

The first six week report card came out and all us boys had Ds or D-s and any of the girls cards that I had the opportunity to see were graded B or higher. Some of those Bs had no hive in the girls skull piece, they just buzzed around and caromed off walls and window panes.

Our teacher would have been a winner in a girl's school. As boys we did not fit in her mind or heart, we were just there to get Ds I guess. I often wondered who did what to her and when - - - I could imagine why - academic questions often don't have answers and if I had known the answer it wouldn't have helped me a bit. If the answer had been there for me, my loud mouth and sense of injustice probably would have put me in the cannibal's boiling pot along with the missionaries.

This was my first experience with consistent, cruel discrimination and I didn't quite know how to handle it. I never had any problem or difficulty taking deserved punishment but the unfair stuff stuck in my throat and it made me gag as I swallowed it.

Time passed and the Latin class became just an unpleasant memory as other life puzzles cropped up.

But one thing happend from that, I became allergic to injustice to anyone at anytime. There is no Allegra, benadryl or other anti-allergic medication for that, I managed to keep a close rein on my mouth and abstained from doing the Shin Kick Polka but the temptation was sure there.

It is hard to forget those undeserved D Minuses that taught me the lesson of real life. Off with her head !

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