Drive - A Memoir 114th Installment
was
the same.
Chapter
32
The
high school was ninth grade to twelfth grade, Linda, Russ and I rode
the bus to West Jefferson High in Terreton.
Unfortunately,
for the first time, I found something I didn’t like. The first year
in a four-year high school full of hazing and bad ass seniors playing
‘put the head of a freshman in the toilet’ games was way scary
for me. I was a big strong kid, but I wasn’t a fighter (I got beat
up a few times but I was always out-numbered.) There was a one armed
goon with a chip on his shoulder, I guess from being different. He
started and finished fist fights (one fist) at least once a week with
anyone who was smaller than he was. He could sneak up on someone and
hook that stub arm around his neck and pound the heck out of their
face with his good arm. He beat up poor Jay Ray five or six times
because he didn’t like his name.
Things
changed when I brought the radio transmitter that the Old Man and I
had jerry-rigged together out of an old radio as my science fair
project. The cool dudes in the school found out how it could
broadcast, and the other students brought their transistor radios and
tuned them to my frequency. They played DJ talk radio, joking and
telling stories to embarrass the girls, and every one was listening.
After that, the high school environment changed, and I fit in as the
radio magic man.
The
part of high school I really liked was the one hour bus ride each
morning and another hour ride home. I was invited to the poker game
in the back six seats of the bus. We would play penny-ante poker with
our lunch money. Because Russ and I had played poker with Phil for
match sticks and had learned the nuances of good play, we were
excellent at winning everybody’s lunch money. Bill, the bus driver,
knew we had a game going back there, and he was glad of it. As a
token of his tolerance, we would keep the peace on the bus. When
there was a ratty little kid making trouble and creating a racket,
one of us big guys would go get the kid and toss him in the seat
behind us. The frightened kid would be real calm the rest of the bus
ride. Bill had the most peaceful route of all the drivers, and he
rewarded us by constructing a device that fit in the aisle between
the seats and made the poker table for us to play on. Bill was my bus
driver for the entire twelve years I was in school.
Linda,
Russell and I took advantage of the jump start we got from Reese in
grade school and entered high school at about a late sophomore level.
Linda got the most credit hours in the school’s history; Russell
attained the highest grade
500 more words tomorrow
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