It was the Best of Times It was the Worst of Times...

1982 - 83 was my 6th grade year, this was a big year for me, there were a lot of firsts and some lasts. I attended a private school called Friendship Baptist Academy. I had gone to school there since the second grade. When I look back it was sort of a redneck version of a real school, for instance we had a teacher (many of them members of the church, hmmm) who made it her goal to call me by my real name and had dandruff in her eyebrows! I swear, it was in her eyebrows. We had more leniency because the state had no say over what we did but it was also a small school, maybe 150 or 200 people from Kindergarten to 12th grade. My 6th grade year was the last year that the school was open, this was a place I had been my whole life, I had never had more than 8 classmates that entire time which meant you hung out with kids your age and grade but recess and things of that nature covered several grades. I'm convinced that I became a much better athlete, and had a quicker mind because of this. It also meant that since I was in the sixth grade I was picked on a lot in a brotherly sort of way, nothing malicious. The school year started the same as any other year, connecting with people you haven't seen all summer, looking for new kids, the same thing that happens at every school. There were 5 other 6th graders, we were grouped with the 4th and 5th graders and I can still recall 4 of the 5 names of my classmates. Anyway this was the year I had my first girlfriend, her name was Kristi and she was a preacher's daughter, although I liked her (I guess, I don't recall having fireworks go off in my brain when I saw her) I was terrified of her too. Knowing that she wanted to do things like 'gulp' kiss me. This was the year I found out I excelled at the not so sport of ping pong, I beat everyone but the principle on my way to claiming the school championship, turns out this was the first in several ping pong titles I would hold, including a single and doubles championship at camp and numerous wins at various church functions. I had my first job, my grandfather and one of his friends had a quail farm, yes like the bird. People and restaurants would buy the birds live as well as "dressed" or dead. My job was to feed and water them, I helped keep the ones they killed in the bucket and for all my labor I earned a whopping dollar a day. I didn't care, I could have made nothing and loved it, I was with my grandad, I was outdoors and doing things that no other kid I knew got to do. I had the world in the palm of my sixth grade hand. The second half of the school year turned out to be not so great and kind of a sign of things ahead. My grandfather died that year, ending the quail farm. He had gone into the hospital for heart bypass surgery and died from a heart attack a few hours before the surgery took place. I forgot some books at home that day and when I called my other grandparents to ask them to bring them to me, that's when I was told. My granddad was a John Wayne outdoors tough guy type. He could do anything, ride horses, hunt, fish, he owned cattle, you name it he either did it or could do it. This was a huge blow to me. I remember crying right after I was told and then spending the rest of that day at my house, with my other grandparents. I went through all the things he had given me in his lifetime, a horse whip, a bird call, I had a metal lunch box full of empty 30/30 casings and firing caps, he used to repack his own shells (yes he was hardcore) and other various things that probably against my parents wishes he had given me, knives, BB gun, a bow he made from a limb, fishing poles. I didn't cry at his funeral, I guess I had already done all of my grieving. Years later I found out that no one knew he had a heart condition until the doctor told him he would need surgery, he had been going to the doctor and taking nitroglycerin tablets and never let anyone know he was sick, not even my grandmother. I find a lot of myself in him. For instance I love to trade for stuff, "horse trading" my mom and dad call it, Paw paw Chilton was big on that. I think I learned to be non aggressive from him, but if pushed I will fight back. Later that year, I found out the school was closing, it seems they grew too much too fast and the funds wouldn't keep up so the only school I had ever been to was closing and the chances were I would not see many of these people again. The problem was the school wasn't accredited which meant that if I went to public school I would probably be placed somewhere around third or fourth grade. That school year ended with me being in a series of short skits for the end of year school program. I was the bad guy in Daniel and Lions Den, I was Noah in a version of Noah's Ark and a boxer in a skit that I really don't remember other than my opponent was a junior in high school, he found it great fun to punch me harder than was really needed in the fight scene and that when I knocked him out with my punch I made sure it counted. I would have won an Oscar for one or all of my performances if you had asked anyone in the building that night. I cried most of that night, I think it was the uncertainty of my future, I had finally managed to establish myself as "somebody" even if it was in a small pond and I knew that things wouldn't be the same. Friends went to other schools, my best friend Eric moved to Woodville with his family and my River Raid game for the Atari 2600 (look it up). I don't remember that summer, at all I don't know why, I think I spent it playing in a summer soccer league. The one event I do remember was my friend Barry convincing me to come to the private school he attended. I was promised it would be great, the kids were nice and they played this great game called Dungeons and Dragons and if I was going to fit in, I had the summer to get it down. That is where we will pick up tomorrow.