The Early Years Contd

Thinking back now it doesn't seem like such a big deal. Double doors into the gym with a single pane of glass in each door. I could see kids sitting against the wall through those windows and it seemed like, for just a moment, I was looking through the eyes of a popular kid. Jesse opened the door for me and I walked in looking around like I had never seen the gym before. Jesse led me over to a group that was sitting behind the back board and we joined them. I looked up to the bleachers to see my group all sitting down where they usually sat. I could be imagining that they were pointing and snickering but that is how I remember it. I remember being so mad at that group that I don't remember how things went on the basketball floor that morning before school. They must have gone pretty good though because I never did sit in the bleachers again.

Things really started to change for me because of this change in friends. Jesse and I would bring our skateboards to school and skate during lunch or after school when I didn't have practice. There always seemed to be a group around watching what we were doing and because of it I was becoming more confident. I had always been very outgoing but I wasn't very confident. Now I was exuding confidence and things started to click for me.

I made friends with a couple of girls that I thought had to be the most popular girls in town, Tina and Jolie. The best thing was that they seemed to like hanging out with Jesse and I. It was during this time that I started to not care what people thought of me. The four of us would hang out during school and just have a blast. One day we all stood in an alcove by our shop class and acted like we were mannequins. Everyone thought that it was so funny and we really had a blast with it. Another time we were waiting for a basketball game to start and the opposing teams fans were just showing up. We decided to introduce ourselves to everyone who came in. It was funny but after awhile it got boring so I started introducing myself as a different person from different states to everyone. As one person would walk in I would say "Hi, I'm Clint from Texas!" and to the person with them I would say "Hi, I'm Mike from Florida!". Most of the people would laugh and go on there way but the girls found it funny and during the game I kept having girls come by and introducing themselves just so I could make up another funny name or place that I was from.

I really became someone that I wanted to be during that time. Qualities that I had but wasn't confident enough to use were now coming naturally to me. I began to play this person all of the time no matter where I was. Jesse and I would meet by the school in the morning and we would walk to seminary together. We would get there a few minutes before it started and decide that we should skip it. Well everyone had seen us so when they called roll someone would say that we were there but that we must be ditching. Our teacher would then come looking for us and we had such a blast hiding from him because he would get so mad.

Seminary was at the church in the early morning and we were always getting into trouble for wearing clothes that were not appropriate. Unlike girls who would get in trouble for wearing to little we would get in trouble for wearing our pants to big or some crazy shirt. I had a 26Red t-shirt that I loved, it had a burlesque girl on the back with the company logo. I wore it the first time and my seminary teacher told me I had to turn it inside out and that I shouldn't wear it again. After that I decided that I needed to wear it everyday that I could, to the point that he kicked me out of seminary until I could dress the part. This display of defiance became my new mantra and from that point on I stared into the face of the establishment and gave them the finger.

Jesse and I had an English class together and our teacher was really cool but he seemed to not like us very much. So we would goof off in his class more then we probably should have. One day he gave us some free time so Jesse and I put on our backpacks and sat on the heat register at the far end of the room. We were talking about how cool it would be to skydive when we got the idea to simulate it right there in class. We jumped up on the heat register and jumped off with our backpacks acting as though they were parachutes. We flew around the room doing different maneuvers all the while Mr. Fewkes was yelling at us to stop. We pretended to pull the zip cord and float to the ground while other kids in the class were laughing at us. Jesse and I were sent out into the hall where we had to spend the rest of the period for being disruptive. Another time we decided to drag race our desks while Mr. Fewkes was gone, so we got a couple of kids to race against. One of us sat in the desk and the other pushed. The one pushing would push the desk about five feet or so and stop and see how fast they could get the desk going and if it could reach the wall. It did a few times and when Mr. Fewkes came back to the classroom we had busted two desks and broken a bookshelf. For that we all got a call to our parents and I got in big trouble.

That wasn't the only time that I made a fool out of myself. One day it was raining really hard and there happened to be a puddle between the main building and the annex. I decided that I had to slide through it after lunch right before going to class. Jesse decided that if I was going to then he need to as well. We both ran and slid through this puddle as a group of kids cheered us on. We went to class soaking wet and with little pieces of grass all over. After class I told Jesse that I was going to do that between every class for the rest of the day, and I would have if it wasn't that we ended up getting into trouble about our third time through and being sent home for the day.