Ninth Grade

     The ninth grade for me was a time of despair.  I was having a hard time with school.  I was and did flunk English and algebra.  School was going nowhere with me.  There was nothing, I liked about school except baseball.  I was the pitcher on the Jr. High team, and was having a very good year.  In my starting game, I struck out the first eleven batters who faced me.  My major problem was typing class.  Which I might add, unlike English and Algebra, I did pass.  In point of fact I made a B in typing. The teacher was my problem.  She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  She truly needed to be in a padded cell.  The slight thing would send her into a rage.  When I say rage, I mean volcanic rage, yelling, screaming, and cussing everyone.  It was Chain Saw Massacre every day.  If you saw the movie, you know what I mean.  If you have not seen it you need to see at least one edition of the movie.  This type of action can get on a person last nerve at some point.  That is kind of, what transpire with me.  I always tried to be especially nice to Mrs. Ross (made up name) because she had what I thought was the most beautiful daughter and I was terribly in lust of her daughter. Remember I was in the ninth grade, 14 years old.  This is a very hard time for a young man.  Your juices get damn up, and they just build up until you believe you will blow up.  With all this going on, I was making an effort to be nice.  However, as I indicated the whole thing was finally going to erupt.  It was not totally my fault.  It was just one of those things that had to transpire. After school one Thursday, I went to the local fishing supply store.  I bought a roll of the 50-pound test line.  I went home and practiced with my mother’s typewriter.  If you do not remember, typewriters in those days were very heavy.  On Friday morning, I was in class at 7:30.  I tied one end of my braided fishing line to a typewriter at a position next to a window.  I forgot to mention that this classroom was on the second floor.  The other end I tied to the radiator.  We had steam radiators in the old Rogers High school.  I was busy doing my lessons when Mrs. Ross came into the classroom.  The other students piled in just before the bell rang at 8:00.  This was not a really popular class.  The whole thing happened like this.  It had to happen there was no way it would not happen.  One of the girls in the class forgot her eraser.  This was the type of thing that would start the yelling and screaming and cussing.  I covered my ears, jumped up, and screamed that I could not take it any longer.  I picked that typewriter up and I commenced to throw it out that two-story window.  Mrs. Ross did not appreciate the humor in the situation.  She screamed and ran out of the class yelling.  She was calling for the principal; one of her students had gone crazy.  In the time beings, I pulled the typewriter back up, set it down on my desk, and started typing.  You have to understand that typewriter at this time were built like Sherman tanks. Tanks.  There had to have been 50 pound or more of steel plating in those machines. Mrs. Ross came up to the classroom with the principal in tow.  Everyone was working and keeping a professional face.  Mrs. Ross points at me and yells,   “He is the one, he threw his typewriter out the window, and it is probable destroyed.  I look at the Principal and shrug my shoulders, and indicated that my typewriter is in perfect order.  He indicates that I needed to follow him to the office.  In his office he asked me to explain what had happened.  I told him the whole truth.  We then talked about baseball. I asked him about Monday.  “What should I do?” He said I needed to come to his office Monday morning and we would figure out what to do. 

Monday morning at 7:30 I was in the principal’s office, Mrs. Ross was already there talking to the principal.  I knew they were going to kick me out of school.  That would mean military school or Subiaco.  The Principal’s secretary told me the Principal would see me now.  I went in, and to my surprise, Mrs. Ross apologized.  She was having problems and could not believe that she thought I had thrown that typewriter out the window.  She had looked the typewriter over and there was nothing wrong with it.  I have felt sorry about that incidence for years, and it is good to get it out, after all these years. I was not nice to Mrs. Ross, and I should have been more understanding.  At the time; however, I was a 14-year-old kid with many bad juices built up.  I really was not a bad kid; it was the ninth grade and being 14 years old.  I would grow up to become a usable citizen.