Ode to the Sixth Grade...1988
Red Red Wine
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My sixth grade year was a pretty great year. It was my last year of elementary bliss before entering the scary world of junior high. My best friend was Tammy...absolutely inseparable. My obsessions: Chad Allen and the UB40 song Red Red Wine. I wanted to perform that song in our yearly lip sync contest, but my mom wouldn't let me. Instead we settled for Kokomo by the Beach Boys. What a disaster! We performed it not only at the school's lip sync contest, but also at the farmer's fair at the local COOP where I also participated in a Big Mac eating contest. The performance was hideous. I had come up with the choreography myself...*shutter*. The video of the lip sync contest is still available for check out at my old middle school.
Sixth grade was the year I joined girl scouts upon the pleading of my best friend Tammy. I don't know why we wanted to join, but I'm glad we did. We managed to get into lots of sweet, sweet trouble there. The downside was that we actually had to do stuff like building a fucking raft and actually get on it in the water...*shutter* again.
It was also the year I started to swear. In fact, I had never uttered a single swear word until the sixth grade. This is true. The first time I said a swear word was when my neighbors and I were looking in the windows of an empty house that we thought was haunted and we thought we heard something inside. We ran up the hill spouting out swear words like troopers. After that, the seal had been broken. Tammy and I thought we were super cool going around the school singing "We're Too Damn Hype" by Will Smith.
I was pretty good at looking innocent with my parents. I always reminded myself of a female Ferris Bueller. One day, however, I got caught. Although my dad always took us to school, we had to ride the bus home in the afternoons...*shutter* again. One day, a little boy kept flipping me off but always with the wrong finger. He was totally trying to annoy me and doing a fabulous job. Finally, when I got off the bus, I turned around and shined the big middle finger so brilliantly that it made me swell up with pride. I walked up our driveway with great confidence. My confidence fell, however, when I saw that my mom was sitting on the porch swing waiting for us to come home. Bummer.
My sixth grade teacher, Mr. Gowan, was always telling us that he knew Clark Gable. I never knew if that was true or not. He did very much resemble him. I loved Mr. Gowan even though when he caught me reading a German to English book he made me get up and read it in front of the class. (My first year of teaching was in that school and I actually found that book laying on a shelf in my room.) He liked me despite the trouble I gave him. On the last day of sixth grade, we were on the playground waiting for our parents to come pick us up. When they called for me, he walked me in and said to me, "If I had a class full of kids like you, I'd have a perfect class."
Props to my main man, Mr. G.
Sixth grade was the year I joined girl scouts upon the pleading of my best friend Tammy. I don't know why we wanted to join, but I'm glad we did. We managed to get into lots of sweet, sweet trouble there. The downside was that we actually had to do stuff like building a fucking raft and actually get on it in the water...*shutter* again.
It was also the year I started to swear. In fact, I had never uttered a single swear word until the sixth grade. This is true. The first time I said a swear word was when my neighbors and I were looking in the windows of an empty house that we thought was haunted and we thought we heard something inside. We ran up the hill spouting out swear words like troopers. After that, the seal had been broken. Tammy and I thought we were super cool going around the school singing "We're Too Damn Hype" by Will Smith.
I was pretty good at looking innocent with my parents. I always reminded myself of a female Ferris Bueller. One day, however, I got caught. Although my dad always took us to school, we had to ride the bus home in the afternoons...*shutter* again. One day, a little boy kept flipping me off but always with the wrong finger. He was totally trying to annoy me and doing a fabulous job. Finally, when I got off the bus, I turned around and shined the big middle finger so brilliantly that it made me swell up with pride. I walked up our driveway with great confidence. My confidence fell, however, when I saw that my mom was sitting on the porch swing waiting for us to come home. Bummer.
My sixth grade teacher, Mr. Gowan, was always telling us that he knew Clark Gable. I never knew if that was true or not. He did very much resemble him. I loved Mr. Gowan even though when he caught me reading a German to English book he made me get up and read it in front of the class. (My first year of teaching was in that school and I actually found that book laying on a shelf in my room.) He liked me despite the trouble I gave him. On the last day of sixth grade, we were on the playground waiting for our parents to come pick us up. When they called for me, he walked me in and said to me, "If I had a class full of kids like you, I'd have a perfect class."
Props to my main man, Mr. G.
posted by GrandPooOfAwesome @ 2:37 PM
12 Comments
12 Comments:
Let's see...sixth grade...I think it was 1988 for me, too.
We all wore sweat pants, with the cuffs rolled up halfway to our knees.
There was this weird obsession we all had with Coca-Cola squeeze bottles...and there was much confusion at lunchtime over which bottle was which, because EVERYBODY had a squeeze bottle, and few had the forethought to write their names on it.
If something sucked, or was otherwise disagreeable, it was "buddy," or maybe "butty." I never thought to write it out. I asked for a new pair of shoes for Christmas, because the ones I had were butty. My parents were terribly confused at my terminage.
Nice post, Poo!
My memoriees from sixth grade are faded, but there's few things there. mostly it was time between two worlds: lower classes where the children were and the upper classes where the teens were. During the summer between sixth and seventh grade was growing up. It was time when I wasn't a kid anymore, I became a teen.
I clicked play, I don't know why.. Now my life will never be the same. I was able to avoid that.. ..that.. something for all these years and now I did it.
I'm sorry, but that song really made me feel sick.. :o
I think 6th grade (1987) was when I used my first swear word. It was "bitch." It was directed at this girl named Natocha and yes, she was a bitch. The thing is though, that I got ratted out for it. But when I was sent to the pricipals office, I didn't get into any trouble because (see above) she WAS a bitch. She's also a thrice divorced alchoholic. And fat. Don't forget fat. God I love karma! And Tommy, we didn't wear sweat pants rolled up. We were too cool for school at E.K. Baker. We rolled up our jeans pants leg. You know, when you tucked it over an then rolled you you had that pleat? Then you had to have your white buddy shoes on that you could write all over.
great fuckin post. I loved Red Red wine.
Red Red Wine - some sing it, some drink it. Let's do it both @ the same time :)
i guess we all like to reminisce.
veg- i'll take a 20 sac.
tommy- i don't remember those squeeze bottles and no way we were wearing sweat pants to school. i'm with diane and the jeans rolled up. it was another year though until we'd start wearing Sebagos without socks and the leather strings rolled into balls on the sides. anybody remember Skids?
dob- sorry about that. at least my taste in music, i think, has evolved somewhat. it is, however, an undeniable classic.
calzone- you said "fuck"
frog- now that sounds like a plan ;)
Don't worry, what doesn't kill you hurts like hell.. ..or what ever it really was. ;)
That song is annoying, but so was my music taste at that time.. Well, I was listening to The Stones, Hendrix and stuff like that since it was available in my dad's LP collection (later I found Clapton, Cream and all these other pearls!) and KISS! It was my own favorite. Around 7th grade I got sucked in Grind Core, Death Metal scene and then it was Napalm Death, Death, Carcass, Obituary, Massacre, Impaled Nazarene etc.
I still like lot of that stuff, but my taste has grown. I've said that I like all music that has been done sincerely and with feeling. Then, no matter the genre, if you're talented musician, you will make great music!
Oh, and Pooey, you have started something with your post, since I'm on the memory lane all the time. I that shows in my comments everywhere. I've tried to keep it away from my blog at the moment, but when it floods, I just might have to post it in my own blog.. ;)
damit! i came to comment and ruined my groovin to red red wine! great post..i have a post about grade school saved..haven't had the courage to actually publish it yet though lol
Hmmm sixth grade, 1983/84 I think. Def Leppard's Pyromania was on major rotation on my record player and I was the only girl in my class to have her period already.
I didn't like sixth grade one bit.
i wanted jordache tennis shoes. i don't think i could afford them
you're very funny, i really enjoyed reading your blog...apparently sixth grade is a turning point in everyone's lifes because, when i was in sixth grade major things happen to me, which of course, i'll keep that to myself for now...as you said in a blog yes, you're genuine, so feel proud about it... hope you can call any of your teachers a bigot, i guess that day will feel like heaven for you... take care...
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