When you look back over your life, is there a block of years that you would like to forget but you just can’t? Mine were my preteen years beginning about age ten through age twelve. I think many of you would agree that those were horrible years. If you had a worse block of years it had to have been the teen years themselves, otherwise there had to be death, long sickness, jail time, or a bad marriage/divorce involved.
There are reasons for these being the dark years. The major reason is hormones begin to drown out the brain cells that regulate reasonable and acceptable behavior. The primary villains appear to be testosterone in the young male would be human and estrogen in the females of the young beasts. These hormones are just beginning to change the lovable children into problems on two feet. The changes are subtle and slow and usually do not reach the raging beast stage until teen years. I will address the teen years in a later article but for now lets just concentrate on the home and school life of the preteen.
Since this is about my own experiences the setting for this narrative is my hometown of Oxford, Alabama in the years from 1953 until 1956. As I am sure you are aware, there were a few differences in the children of today and us in those days. The kids of today are much more communications and data literate and are tied into being in touch with each other on the internet. It is disconcerting to me, however, that with all the information on any subject in the world instantly available kids of today most do not appear to be as educated as we were at that age . One of my older grandsons, a full blown teenager, was at the house a couple of weeks ago discussing some homework over the phone with his girlfriend. He looked at me and asked if Columbus sailed to America across the Pacific Ocean. I asked him in turn did he think Columbus was Chinese or Japanese. Of course, I doubt seriously if either of them had any idea where China or Japan might be located.
I do think preteen children of today are far ahead of what we were in social interactions. They are so closely connected and participate in more social activities than at least me and my friends ever did. The closest thing to real social activities before and just after reaching age ten was Friday night wrestling. One of my friends, actually my best friend since the first grade, lived with his mother who was divorced as was mine. She loved wrestling and was a regular enough attendee at the Anniston Alabama (bordering city limits with Oxford) civic center that she had gotten to know some of the wrestlers. She always took her son and me with her, and we enjoyed the matches almost as much as getting autographs.
Sometimes one of the male wrestlers that had gotten to know my friend’s mother would come over to the bleachers and talk to us. Occasionally, his mother would have a date that would go with us to the matches and often we would stop at one of the local hamburger drive-ins of the day and get a burger to eat in the car. I remember on one of these occasions my buddy and I were out roaming around of the parking lot, (bare footed of course) when he stepped on a piece of glass and cut his foot. That trip ended up at the emergency room where he got a number of stitches and a shot. Lovely evening. The only good part was that it was him and not me.
Since those days I have seen some of these wrestlers on a couple of T.V. documentaries. The last one I saw the lady wrestlers were in their eighties, but I still recognized them from the pictures in my old autograph book. I especially remember Gorgeous George who was always booed because he acted gay. With his yellow blond curly hair he would prance around the ring and throw gold colored bobby pins to the audience. I still have one of those securely taped in my autograph book.
I guess the next phase of socializing came in the fifth grade when my best buddy decided to join the band. I was always following his lead so, of course, I decided that I also wanted to join the band. After a couple of meetings along with all the other “want to be’ s” with the band director in the band room it was somehow decided that I should play a trombone. So I went home and started the begging and pleading ritual for a trombone. In those days even a used instrument was expensive to our family. Finally my mom gave in and after threatening my life if I quit, bought me a trombone. Turns out after a while I realized I had no ear for playing music, no talent and actually hated the thing and the practice that came with it. I suffered through the fifth and well into the sixth grade before my mother found out I was not attending band practice. Unpleasantness rained hard on my head for a couple of weeks. I think my buddy stayed with it until the seventh grade.
My other jump into social activities also came about age ten, when my best buddy again had a vision from the heavens and decided that we should take dancing lessons. He and a few of our buddies were beginning to see the possibility that girls might be worth something after all. They figured out that lots of girls could be found in a dance studio and that this was a setting in which you could get close enough to touch them. I was a bit slow to pick up on wanting to date, go steady, fall in love or whatever boys and girls were supposed to do at that age. But if my buddy wanted to dance, by damn so did I. Surprisingly my mother thought this was a good idea, go figure. So once a week for a period of about three years we danced our little legs off at Zynaobia King Hill’s School of Dance. It was ballroom dancing and for the most part I had a good time. I took to dancing well and the girls became less frightening to be around though I always felt a little awkward talking with them. We even made a couple of stage appearances in the yearly dance recital.
Well come seventh grade and age twelve my buddy again pulled his head out of it’s dark crevasse and decided we should go out for football. Of course it seemed like a good idea to me - at the time. Many curses did I place on him over the next few years, as I was crawling across the football field wondering which appendage was most likely broken. The way my body usually felt during football season, they all could have been broken.
First day on the practice field, while standing there with a practice uniform made of scraps and leftover equipment (none of which fit) one of the veteran linemen decided to use me as a blocking dummy. It felt like a car had blindsided me. That was my introduction to Oxford football. I still relate that hit to the Beetle Bailey cartoon strips that show Beetle after Serge has beaten him to a pulp. Over the next six years there would be lots more bruising , sprains, scrapes, blood letting and scarring. All in all, though I didn’t know it at the time, football was one of the best decisions I ever made. It was one of those five or six decisions in one’s life that defines what direction your life will go. The development of skills in self confidence, motivation, teamwork, perseverance, positive attitude, group social skills, and endurance of physical and mental stress, have served me well in life.
Other than my lack of self confidence, especially around girls, and motivation/direction shortcomings. there was my dismal school performance. I think the closest I have ever come to seeing a miracle, actually three years in a row, was seeing my end of the year report cards with the word “Passed” stamped on them. There was hardly a subject in which I did not make some D’s and F’s. Thank goodness that back then academics did not determine if you played ball or not. If your grades were bad enough the teacher might talk to the coach who in turn would ride you about the bad grades and strongly suggest you bring them up. The bad grades caused a lot of friction on the home front and of course, like every kid in the world, I hated and detested homework. Like with every kid I have ever known it was a real fight to make me do school work at home. There was just something not right or downright evil about that.
Looking back through the murky vastness of time with only a fragile memory network it is as difficult now as it was then to get a grasp on the me of then. Some of the memories are good while others not so good. There was always this feeling of inadequacy, not belonging, fear of rejection or criticism, trying to fit in and attract attention.
Damn hormones will drive you crazy. There they were sneaking around in my blood stream making me aware of things I had never really thought about before. Take for instance, it became really important to compete with other boys and win. The rougher the competition the better. And then there was the way girls became attractive to look at and be around. For some reason the gals that I had know and played with most of my life looked and smelt a lot better. It became awkward to talk to them and I no longer felt the urge to argue with or punch them on the arm. I wanted to hold their hands or touch their hair. Little did I know that this was just the beginning of the future tortures that females would inflict on me and the other males of my species.
In retrospect, I guess that I had a normal passage through my preteens. Things could have been worse and if I had been a bit smarter they could have been a great deal better. All I know is that I would not want to go through them again. In fact, I cannot think of any phase of my life I would like to do over. What I did or didn’t do through each phase contributed in making me what I am today. Though I am old and things are on the downhill slide, I think, all things considered, I am happy with the way me and the life I have led turned out.
I may not have retained my girlish figure or be as hansom as I once was but who does into their mid sixties. Who wants to die with a pristine body that has been pampered, taken care of and never allowed to live life to its fullest. I want to come sliding into death with a body used up and holding an open bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand a lit cigar in the other and screaming “God what a ride, lets go again”.
