In Junior High we were put into tracks. Even at twelve years old, we knew that Tracks #1 through
#3 were the most likely to be accepted at a college. These were the smart kids. We were Mr. Sampson’s Home Room, Track #8. We were the dumb kids, at least in school.
In the fading class photo, bald-headed Mr. Sampson is wearing his signature clip-on bow tie. He
looks rather like a man counting the days until his retirement. Thirty-one budding adolescents squint into the bright sunlight, staring at the camera lens. We were the ones who showed up for school on the day of the class photo in 1961. We stand in rows on the cement front steps of the Junior High School.
The eighteen boys in the snapshot are attempting to look streetwise or surly. Looking at the
photo now, I remember that one of these boys was whispered to have been in trouble with the law. He was older than the rest of us. The rumor was he had done time in a Juvenile Justice Center.
Standing on the lowest steps are thirteen girls, including me. Several of these female faces
can barely be seen, hidden by the faces in front. Some girls are purposely avoiding the camera. Those of us who are flat chested stand up straighter than those who have begun to develop breasts. We look embarrassed by our changing body shapes.
There are only three classmates I can still identify today: Michelle, Christina and Terry. Terry liked to brag about being sexually active. She wore the shortest skirts of any girl in our class and clinging sweaters, but there was little that could be considered feminine about her. Her short black hair appeared uncombed. Her gait looked like she had just swung off the back of a motorcycle. There was an unmistakable “I dare you,” look in her eyes.
Christina wore her blonde hair in a bouffant style that enlarged the natural roundness of her face. She started a Beatles Fan Club, passing out hand-made membership cards and collecting dues during Social Studies Class. Not many fell for her ‘get rich quick’ scam. Christina enjoyed telling shocking tales of wild parties she held when her parents were away. She bragged that at these parties plenty of drugs and alcohol were available and that by the end of the party there was only broken glass where once there had been a chandelier. I was skeptical that there was any truth in her stories. Now I realize that these stories had a striking resemblance to a Frat party. Perhaps Christina had an older sibling who was at college.
Michelle is the only member of that 7th grade class who is still a friend of mine today. She and I had been paired together by the School Principal because each of us had been absent from our elementary school more often than present. Michelle and I were accustomed to being set apart. Michelle had home teachers during her recovery from rheumatic fever; I had missed most of sixth grade while my body healed from surgery. Mr. Sampson assigned Michelle and me to the center back two seats and called it Row 6 ½. It was obvious enough to all, even without this special seating assignment, that Michelle and I were out of place in the classroom. We actually did our homework assignments, dared to raise our hands in class, and when we were called upon, we knew the answers.
After the first month, the Principal reassigned Michelle and me to classes in Track #2, but left us in the Track #8 Home Room. Each morning we sat in Row 6 ½, attempting to understand what “Truth, Beauty and Goodness” had to do with our lives.
My Turn 