Phase 10
High school was something new. I’d already been practicing football for a couple of weeks before classes started, and I can assure anyone that there are few things worse than two-a-day football sessions. Getting up early was the worst part for me. I’ve always enjoyed the night life. No, that doesn’t mean I was out tomcatting all hours (I was only 14 then), it’s just that I’m not a big fan of the daylight hours. Nothing but official stuff happens during the day, and if there’s anything I hate it’s everything official. I still don’t understand why school has to begin as early as it does (hell, it starts earlier now than when I went). Having been in the education business off and on for quite a number of years, very little of education makes sense to me. I’m living proof that one can learn next to nothing in high school, make horrible grades throughout, and still succeed in college. Intellectually, high school was (still is) a waste of time. Had it not been for the girls it would have been a total waste. Still, I was looking for gridiron glory and was willing to play at least some of the game to get it.
One of the things used to scare freshmen was the so-called freshman punch, a palm delivered blow to the forehead to show who was boss. I’m no tushhog, but I drew the line. Asshole that does that to me, I allowed, would have to fight. I decided that I’d probably get my ass kicked, but there’s some shit that people cannot be allowed to do. Look, I had to go out there and play against guys bigger than me (5’11” and 110 lbs) everyday, so what’s a little more? Turns out that the freshman punch was never administered to me or anyone else. I don’t know why the practice ended, but it did.
I somehow managed to have the single worst schedule in the history of Madisonville High School. For the mandatory four classes and study hall, I had a total of two teachers, both of whom hated my guts (I didn’t like them, either), and that was it. As shameful as my grades were in junior high, they started out even worse in high school. To say that I was an unmotivated student is an understatement. I didn’t give a shit about any of it at all. Other than being a total babe fest (sorry girls, ladies, whatever, I don’t mean any disrespect, but I couldn’t help but love you all), high school was total bullshit. I wasn’t interested in what it offered.
Football, too, was a bit of a drag. The politics that surrounded players and playing took my innocent ass off guard. I had seen it in action before, in the classroom in lower grades, but the practice seemed, in some ways, to be even more prominent at the higher levels. How so? Well, then as now, the rich kids get breaks and the benefits of the doubts that others just do not. Of course those of wealth always looked well groomed and nicely dressed. Few of these students flirted with hippie ideals and fashion, or even music (at least until some aspect from that culture became mainstream). And I can’t say that the kids themselves were all assholes, some of them were then and are now friends of mine, so my complaint isn’t against them so much as the system that treats them differently. The part that pissed me off was that the rest of us were supposed to acknowledge and agree that we were of a diminished quality from the wealthy. This was supposed to prepare us for subservient roles to better serve those who could buy the rest of us.
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