My Life in a Jar #10

Describe a typical day during your Junior High years
Junior High started in the 7th grade for me. I went to North Cache in Richmond. Besides the normal difference that jr. high brings, I had a few challenges that were new for me. It was the first time in my life that I didn't have Karen in my class. In 7th grade I didn't have one class with her, we didn't even have lunch together. Another first was having to ride a bus to school. Richmond is only about 10 miles north of Smithfield but the bus ride took over a half hr. I was lucky that I could meet the bus just down the street, less than a half of a block. The third and I know you kids are going to laugh, I would have homework, for the first time. We didn't have homework in grammar school except to learn spelling words. I actually looked forward to having homework. That excitement didn't last to long. Especially on night every teacher decided to assign more homework than I thought I would have time to finish. I don't remember much about Jr. high except I love going to different classes and having different teachers. If there was a teacher you didn't like you only had them for 45 min. a day. Some of my favorite classes were US History, Art, Math in 7th grade because I had a great teacher, I always liked PE, especially when we would do gymnastics. English was OK, I didn't like typing because I could never trust myself to type without looking at the keyboard. (some things never change) Science was OK, it depended on what we were studying and what we were doing. I hated to just read and answer work sheets. I also had Home Ec and that when I first started sewing with lots of help from Mom at home. In 9th grade we had released time, otherwise know as Seminary. I was really excited to start seminary.
One thing I also enjoyed in Jr. high was having football and basketball games that we would get to watch, when they were home games. One thing I wish we had back then that is available now for girls are competitive sports. There were no sports that girls could participate in except cheer leading. Which was voted on by the student body who would make the squad. Cheer leading was not for me! We did have intermurals during lunch time but really wasn't much fun. I did play volleyball and softball with the ward.
After school we'd hurry to catch the bus and be excited to tell Mom all about our day. One week she'd be home around noon and she'd be asleep in the chair until we came home. The next week she'd be home in the morning and not get home from work until 9:00pm. On those weeks we'd have to help Mary Ellen clean the kitchen (we always left dishes from the night before) cook dinner before we could start on homework.
It was in Jr. High that I was kicked out of class for the first and only time in my School years. It was the last period of the day and I was in English. My teacher was Mr. Daines who retired at the end of the year. I sat in the back and there was a girl named Karen, (not my sister) who sat right in front of me. Mr. Daines asked a question and called on Karen to answer it. She didn't say anything. He called on her again and again, still she never responded. Finally he said very rudely Miss Spring, I told him I thought he was talking to Karen. He made some comment about not being able to keep us straight (even though we were not in the same class). I then informed him that I thought he meant Karen the girl in front of me. He ended up looking like a fool and told me to pick up my books and go to the office. Lucky for me my class was just across the hall from the library, Mr. Thornley the Liberian, saw me leave and could tell I was not happy. He asked me what happened and told me I could just spend the rest of the class period in the library. He had been my 6th grad teacher and one of my all time favorite teachers. He thought it was foolish of Mr. Daines and didn't feel I needed to be sent to the office for his mistake.
One day at lunch time I was sitting in the cafeteria when we heard an explosion. No one seemed to know what had happened. By the time I got to my next class rumors were that Craig (my brother) and two friend had blown a toilet off the wall in the boys bathroom. I was so embarrassed that he would something like that. But as time went on it became a family joke. It was no laughing matter when Craig got home and had to face Mom and Dad. He was suspended from school for several days and had to pay for the toilet to be replaced.
I remember Jr. High as being a fun time, a time that I meet many new friends. Some of these friends I still keep in contact with today.