Garner is slated to be demolished.  It is a school I always remember with mixed feelings.  Those years spent there were definitely a growing experience and we were all different people when we emerged.  During my first month there, I don't think anyone talked to me.  My Wilshire Elementary peer group had been decimated when 80-90% of them went off to Krueger and Roosevelt.  Junior High is not a good time to be the strange newbie.  Of course it did not help that I arrived with unshaved legs, white anklet socks, and a bad Toni home permanent.  I had already passed 5 feet 7 inches and weighed less than 120 pounds.  It took a long time to figure out that I needed a makeover, and a major one!

Buses:  Oh, the occasional trauma!   We had to share the bus with the high school students and these really gross high school boys waited at the bus stop every morning with me.  They were experts at belching and spitting, and other activities which cannot be discussed.  Hint:  it concerned the digestive system.  Our driver was Coach Bobo (to go through life with a name like that ...) and he sat us three to a seat, boys on one side, girls on the other.  No hanky panky on that bus!  Three to a set was not that bad until you went around that curve in the back of Garner.  The drivers had to whip the bus 180 degrees around in a small space and if you were on the aisle seat, it took all your strength not to fall on the floor.  We were also horribly overcrowded with both junior high and high school on the same bus.  Some of us often had to stand in the aisle even when there were three students in each seat.  Standing and balancing with an armload of books, while bumping down Harry Wurzbach Hwy on a school bus with bad shocks was no small feat.  One of our drivers would get tired of opening and closing the bus door and would just leave it flapping open from stop to stop, even out on Loop 410.  He got pulled over by the San Antonio PD and chewed out.  We were so afraid of him we didn't even snicker when he got back on the bus and blithely took us on to school.  At least he closed the bus door.

Miss Miller, math teacher on steroids: Brisk little Miss Miller, former Edison Varsity cheerleader, clicking around in her high heels with her Texas big hair.  We never realized how tiny she was until one day she showed up in flat shoes and normal hair.  Amazing.  The woman gave me math phobia that endures until today, perhaps with the exception of Sidney King's algebra 2 class which I came close to flunking.  Miss Miller would pass out her graded tests in descending order.  Humiliating, especially when you were always on or near the bottom of the heap.  When I flunked one of her first tests, I hunched over my desk and cried silently, hoping that no one would notice.

Electives:  Now these I enjoyed.  So exciting to actually choose a subject to study after so much regimentation.  Art under Miss Flood, who was my neighbor, daughter of Virginia Flood, the late choir teacher at Mac.  Home Economics with Mrs. Deviney (sp?), wife of Mr. Deviney, one of the 6th grade teachers at Wilshire Elementary.  She taught us to make frito pie, orange gelatin salad, and biscuits, which had to be opened up and examined for tunnels.   I am not sure why that was important, but we did it.  Learned to sew and made our own dresses, sorry looking little things, but we wore them proudly.  Mrs. Deviney would look the other way when we occasionally arm-wrestled, but just had to comment on how unladylike we were being.  Choir:  little blue cotton skirts with suspenders over a white oxford shirt for performances.  The curtain opening on us in the Garner auditorium as we sang out the theme song to "Sound of Music."  We learned and performed a lot of lovely classical church music which would probably be illegal today.  And the Christmas concert on that spiral staircase in front of Frost Brothers at the North Star Mall.  Uptown!  That spiral staircase is still there, but they've moved it.

More to follow in part 2.  Too many memories to include in one reading.

I moved to the Northeast side of town from the South side the summer before my 8th grade year.  After spending the most boring summer ever, not knowing a single soul in my new neighborhood, I was ready to go to Garner when school started.  I had spent my entire life up to that point in Catholic Schools, and we always stayed in the same classroom, and had the same teachers all day.  So, at Garner with 6 or 7 different classes all day, it was GREAT!!!  I thought the days just flew by!  I was a new kid but seemed to make some friend pretty easily.  I made a few enemies also, I remember having to go up on "the hill" to fight Kim Moose over something dumb, not sure what it was now.  But,  my first big fight!  I think it ended in a draw, but at this point...who cares!  I remember getting suspended for about 3 days over something!  That was my first suspension also!!

I remember playing football that year.  John Snider, & Jeff Fulk were more mature physically than most of us, and I hated having to go up against those two! I remember the day Tom Cusick walked into class as a new student from Arizona I think!  He had his arm in a sling, and he sat right behind me with our last names being so close.  And thus started a friendship that has lasted all these years! We were best men at each other weddings!  And I'm glad that we have stayed in touch through the years.

I remember my first experience with alcohol.  About 4 or 5 of us, (I don't remember who was involved) but we decided to meet out behind the school right before class on our last day of finals.  We all had some kind of alcohol mostly hidden in mouthwash bottles!  Ha!  Let's just say I was feeling no pain during my math final!  I made a "B".  I thought that was fuuny!  I remember "Sock  Hops" in the gym, but I'm not sure I had enough will power to go ask any girls to dance!  It's easier these days, but the opportunities are few and far between!

I enjoyed Garner, and I'm sad to hear it will be torn down soon.  Good memories!!!

Where was the "hill?"

In seventh grade, there was a girls' fistfight right outside the girls' gym, in that long hall where they cooped us up after lunch, before the afternoon classes.  These girls were seriously using their fists.  Not just slapping and hair pulling.  It was disturbing to watch, but of course we were all mesmerized.

I don't remember exactly where "the hill " was but I do recall the fights there.

My only fight in school was at Garner too but I didn't have the sense to take it off campus. So I got my only suspension for that.  I don't recall the guys name but he was a bully and so disliked by the teachers that my shop teacher let me take an exam early that  I was going to miss while on suspension.

One of my worst memories of Garner was when serving on the student council one year......during "spirit week" I had to dress us as a town cryer and walk the halls announcing what the next day's activities were. I wore black shoes with big silver buckles on them. I'm not sure how I ended up with that task!

Ouch I forgot about choir at Garner, I do seem to remember the teacher I think her name was Ms Upshaw,(Mary Beth) maybe it was music appreciation not sure but do I remember Mike Saling (Porky) drove her nuts. Mr Cefcik (gerber baby) was he a math teacher. You are stirring up memories I had forgotten.

 Yes, thank you!  I believe the choir teacher's name was Mrs. Upshaw.  I don't remember the other teachers you mentioned though.  I had Miss Miller all the way through for math.  That was a long two years.

Other teachers:

Mr. Gerhardt for science (wind triangles and our first science fair ...)

Mrs. Holzhauser (sp?) for Texas history.  She pronounced Sieur de la Salle's name as LA SAYUL.

Mrs. Brown (the crazy one) for some type of history,  I point blank refused to do one of her projects and nearly caused her to come unglued, since I was one of the top students.  I just didn't want to do the freaking project.

Mr. Cowey for science too.  He wrote and wrote study questions for us on the blackboard and my eyes were starting to go bad and I could not read them.  Marilyn Bradley was kind enough to let me copy down the questions from her notebook.  This went on for a long time because my parents thought I was faking my bad vision!

Was the famous Mr. Berry still there teaching English?  He was seriously cool and a lot of the CO70 and CO69 idolized him.  He may have been gone by the time we arrived.