Skipping out of school:  Many of us did this, especially in our senior year, when a small group of us walked into the parking lot and drove off to Church's Fried Chicken, ate, and returned without getting caught.  My brother's story about skipping out of Garner is much better.  He never cared much about Garner.  Both of our parents had to leave for work before 7:30, so we were unsupervised.  Wes had his own wheels, a Vespa motor scooter.  He would get up and move around as if he were getting ready for school as long as my mother was still home.  But after we all left, he went back to bed.  Around 10 or 11 he would get up, write a counterfeit note about a dentist's appointment, sign my mother's name and drive himself to school.  After presenting himself at the front office, they would send him on to class.  After about ten days of this, the front office FINALLY got suspicious and called my mother at work.  The game was up!  My father took care of him good that evening while I had to listen through the walls.  Little did my poor parents realize that this was only the first of a long series of escapades that Wes would undertake.

Gym class:  the horror of having to change into those dumpy little gym suits in front of everyone.  The girls' coach was pretty kind to us, nothing like Tankersley.  We did have great fun playing bombardment: dividing into two equal teams and hurling rubber balls at each other across the gym until everyone had been "tagged."  I still regret accidentally hitting one poor girl in the face with my ball and making her cry.

Iron crosses and white boots:  much "ado" when some students came to school wearing those big iron crosses like today's skinheads.  The iron crosses were quickly banned.  Oh, the unfairness!  Most of us were in a total fog about why.  Our language arts teacher, Mrs. Schultz (??? ... something Germanic ...) jerked her chair out from under her desk, planted it in front of us, sat down and proceeded to tell us all about the Nazis and the holocaust and what that iron cross really represented.  She went into complete graphic detail, and we were horrified.  But it was the first time a teacher had actually treated us like adults.  I always appreciated that.  And does anyone remember those little white boots we all started wearing?

Mrs. Brown, eccentric Social Studies teacher:  Now I had heard wild stories from my brother about this one, like she would jump out of the closet and scare students, or tell them there were wild Indians hiding behind those trees along the bus drive, right outside the classroom windows.  I waited all year for her to perform and was so disappointed when she did nothing but teach us!

Final exams:  I was completely horrified at the thought of taking an exam over the ENTIRE semester of work.  Mr. Cowey, science teacher, passed out yards and yards of study sheets for his final, which we eagerly studied and consumed.  On the Sunday before his science final, I went totally obsessive and made sure that not only did I know every single answer to every single question on that study sheet, but I even reread the first half of the science text.  It took about eight hours, but I was ready for anything.  When Mr. Cowey passed out his test on the morning of the final, it was a copy of all those study sheets.  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I do remember Mrs. Brown.  Ihad heard some of the stories about her, but one day when I was in class, she did say there were indians out there among the tree's.  I just thought this lady was a real "nut job" and how could the school keep her on as a teacher.

I remembered the shop class that I took there.  My last class of the day!  I used to watch the sun/shadows work there way across our table as the class came to an end.  My own personal sun dial. Ha!  But I always remembered the teacher, I can not remember his name, as he showed us the "power" of a good wood glue.  He broke a plank of 1x 10 wood along the length of the plank.  Then he showed us that after glueing it, using good clamps and letting it sit overnight to dry. He would break it again!  In every class I heard the board always broke in another location, thus showing us that the first "break" was much stronger than the rest of the wood.  I always thought that was pretty cool!!