Junior High, the Color Blue, and Timpanis

I was pretty sure 68 wpm is fast...or so I thought. My resume wouldn't be that fallacious if I rounded it up to 70 wpm. If I can make janitorial work sound like I invented the cure for cancer, I don't think anyone would mind that I rounded up. Besides, it's a fundamental math law that has been precedent since junior high.

But either way 70 wpm isn't fast...it's quick like a mongoose mixed with a meer cat but it's not exceptional. It's still freakishly fast though and I blame it on my 7th grade teacher. I had signed up for journalism which was secretly not newspapering but the cover for yearbook and before I knew what happened, I had sold my soul to Satan...and the yearbook. The deal seemed dirty and under the table like a dirty deal under the table and very covert like a so-called fixed 0% APR that is tacked on in sized 5 point font in credit card deals.

My job as slave laborer of yearbook was to type up every single student's name and I quickly came to the understanding that someone picking up that Spartan '97 yearbook could easily deduce that we were a junior high based out of Tampico, Mexico. If memory serves me right, there was about 7 million people in my school and they got the best damn typed yearbook directory in the world--I say this without any reservation. This is because we spent the whole year on the book and released a 2 paged newsletter at the end of the year.

The only thing keeping me calm now is the fact that I've accepted that Mrs. Holtz, the "journalism" teacher, sold out to Jostens (aka Satan [see aforementioned Satan reference above]).

In California, 8th grade graduation happens to be a big deal but come to think of it, so was graduation from kindergarten. My point is that Josens starts the raping and pillaging of wallets early. Graduation is synonymous with Jostens which is a proper noun under the qualification of thing.

Fact: by the time I graduated from high school, I had worn three different commencement gowns in the tune of royal blue, olive green, and royal blue again. Truth be told, I only owned the last gown because I was poor and could only afford the Jostens' high school graduation packet which came with a yearbook (easily the bane of my life), a senior portrait sitting, class ring, class key chain, official diploma by Jostens, official water bottle by Jostens (with each refill costing me money paid in royalties to Jostens), and finally, a Jostens tattoo on my lower back.

Junior high wasn't all that bad though because I met my first Jewish person and also the only person I've met to this day named Nehemiah (the "h" is silent). My math teacher was Jewish. I am still vague on Jewish stereotypes concerning numbers, taxes, banks, yamikahs, and Adam Sandler. However, perceptions about Bic pens, hot urine, and music teachers did become a lot clearer.

One day during home period which is essentially the school's base of operations, I found myself involved in reading for the mandatory 30 minutes. And by "reading", I mean I was playing with my blue Bic pen. I am in support that the color is worth noting because not only is it relevant, but also because I am sure of the color's affect on the flavor.

Yes.

Flavor.

Being bored with reading as I am naturally, I started to suck on my pen cap. The pen cap was still attached to the pen--this is important to this retelling. All of a sudden, it was like soda zipping through a straw and my mouth was filled with blue ink that tasted like burning Ralph Wiggum purple berry style.

Rain. After waiting for my parents for my ride home for quite some time, I figured they had forgotten they had another son. The conditions were bleak and survival was not to be expected because of the light rain that was falling but in California, light rain equates to sub zero temperatures with wind chills that can freeze your eyelids shut...also I think snow drifts were involved because when I finally got home, frostbite must have set in because when I went to pee, it burned like it was boiling on the way out into the toilet. This toilet was also scene to my crime of flushing down a piece of bologna which incidentally wielded the power to clog drains in the ENTIRE house. It probably wasn't a knock off brand...it must have been name brand Oscar Meyer bologna. This particular bathroom was also home to my attempt to take out a roach with Edge shaving gel--the kind that turns into foam when you lather it up (the roach escaped unscathed at a time when I had yet to learn about the roach's mutant power to withstand nuclear holocaust).

This period of two junior high years gave me the impression that I could learn to play the guitar. I am adamant that junior high has some sort of power to make any kind of future naively attainable. It is directly connected to the banishment of the milk carton.

In an effort to reduce paper waste, the school district had now approved the use of these plastic pouches. It was the size of that little pillow thing that you stick pins into when not in use. I look back now and do admit that I didn't have a much fun with the plastic pin cushion as I should have...but it wasn't about fun remember?

It was about innovation, inspiration, and the guitar.

Mr. Miercov, the music teacher, was in charge of band and choir. He was definitely the cool teacher. I often ate lunches with my friends in the music room. Afterwards, I would play with the xylophone. Over a period of time, I graduated to the timpani. Soon, I decided to play instruments I actually owned. I finally worked up the courage to talk to the coolest teacher at Sparks Junior High. I told him about a guitar I owned (vicariously and coincidentally also owned by my dad) that I wanted to learn how to play but I didn't even know where to go to buy guitar picks. I gave him some change and asked if he could buy them for me because he frequented the music stores. He said that he would and gave me an encouraging smile. If he were to say right then and there that I could be an astronaut on top of a guitarist, I would have immediately called NASA.

When I returned the next day, he had two bonafide Fender picks waiting for me. One was a soft powder blue and the other one was gray like the color of the Nintendo that I had at home.

The passing of the picks into my hand was marked by imaginary trumpeting John Williams music to commemorate the sacred ceremony that bore nothing but stark similarities to Greek god Promethesus giving fire to mankind. Maybe a lot like Prometheus who Zeus (king of the Greek gods who's name is not pronounced Zee-us like Jesus like some people might have thought for a long, long, long time...) had chained to a rock where eagles would come every day to eat out his liver with flava beans and a bottle of Chantel. Zeus was a glutton for punishment for other people because Promethesus' liver would grow back overnight on account of his god status which meant more pain and eagles for the next day.

But that's kind of beyond the point.

Kind of.

These picks represented an adult who believed in me who also happened to not be Mr. Rogers. Herein was the magic of junior high: the idea and the devotion to the idea that you could do whatever you dreamed and here were the people like Mr. Miercov who stood by and supported such fanciful aspirations of grandeur.

Five years later, eagles came for his liver--I found out that he had a nervous breakdown that cost him his job, marriage, and kids.