Overly Serious Reminiscence

I was thinking about being back in the sixth grade yesterday. It struck me that the people who I wanted so very much to like me then- the people who I tried with all my heart to befriend, with no success- were really nobody special at all. I say that not because I failed, which would suggest that to salve my feelings I am to this day misrepresenting good, fun people. Rather I say it because years later, it's easier to see things then objective. The hindsight helps.

I couldn't for the life of me say what ever became of those people. I do know a little about the people I was friendly with then, and they seem to be doing well. They were more the misfits. They were the inveterate genre movie fans, the guys who lived on Taco Bell. It was in sixth grade, I think, that I realized they were who I was.To that point I fancied myself some kind of athlete, fit to hang out with the cool kids. By the time I had gone on the middle school, I had wised up.

What Stories We Wrought

A rather interesting movie is out. Entitled "This Is This End", it is a film in the apocalypse vein that has the novel distinction of having its actors play themselves. One of the directors is Seth Rogen, who acts in the film with a variety of fellow actors who have collaborated many times, but always in character. The conceit of the film is what intrigues, although perhaps it would be interesting anyway. It would be a simpler decision to see it then. I'm conflicted, but it has more potential as is, I think.

The film reminded me of something from grade school. There was a peculiarly dark genre of creative writing that thrived in perhaps third grade. The plot, such as it was, went as follows: it was established that the writer and all of the classmates they were friends with were in some scenario, and then they would all die in some fashion or another. It was just "Here we all are, and here we all are dying." It was a dark genre, as I said.

Swing, Swung

Something I was thinking about the other day, while casting about desperately for ideas, was the swings we used to have at grade school. I believe I came up with the idea while my leg was swinging around at my computer desk. In any event, I recalled the fantasies that reigned while we were on the swings. They often were not swings but some manner of fighter jets. Somehow we were enacting dogfights between ourselves (in the guise of Indiana Jones) and the Nazis, whose name a boyhood friend misspelled as "Not-Sees".

There was always the push to go higher on the swing. The mythical act of going beyond the top of the swingset and coming back around was ever on our minds, but I don't think anyone even dared to approach it. Something that you could do was to twist the seat of the swing so that it sat higher above the ground, and in that way you could get higher up and feel a certain illicit thrill. Really, I don't think anyone was ever hurt, but we were probably better off to have had the risk.

Vamanos Almuerzo!

As I set myself to the task of writing this, it is by any sensible measure time to eat lunch. I would like to have it now, but am missing a crucial ingredient to my traditional midday repast of hot dogs: the buns. It's impossible to overstate the value added simply by combining the frankfurter and ketchup with the buns. It takes a meager, unsatisfying thing and makes a filling meal of it. Perhaps when I'm through writing this I'll embark on a mission to reconnoiter the grocery store and return with buns in tow. Until then, only the promise of hot dogs to come keeps me going enough to write. It's a unique opportunity for you, the reader, to see real-world conditions influencing my work. My God, I'm hungry.

Of the three traditionally recognized meals (which definitely exclude the ones ginned up by fast food restaurants to maximize overhead), lunch is the one most inextricably intertwined with a day at school. It was really only grade school when a lunch at school was a "school lunch". They began to trust us with greater discretion over our own nutritional intake, and that was surely a mistake. Until then, though, there was the centrally-planned lunch. I remember certain ones fairly well. Naturally there were burgers. Some days it was a plain burger, and other days it was a cheese burger. At the time, I wasn't aware that the latter wasn't Kosher. I don't know that they took that kind of thing into account. Probably a lot of kids languished for lack of the school district giving their dietary needs consideration. I guess that changed over time.

On The Demographic Makeup of My Grade School

I often think about the time during which I lived in Phoenix proper and attended school there. Specifically, I attended Squaw Peak Elementary School from the fall semester of 1988 to the spring semester of 1994. We had actually moved out by Scottsdale, and starting in the fall of '94, I would be attending Scottsdale schools. They would be good schools, but I missed something from Squaw Peak. Looking back, Squaw Peak felt a bit more like a quintessentially American school. What it really was, though, was the diversity of Squaw Peak's student body.

When I was there, it seemed like a ordinary mix of ethnicities. There was a large amount of white kids, but also many of what it was proper at the time to call Hispanic kids. There was also a sprinkling of black kids and a number of Asian kids. Scottsdale's schools turned out to be more homogenous.

I feel glad to have had the experience of growing up like that. I wonder what it's like there now. Probably considerably more diverse than it was during my time. I don't recall ever encountering any kids from south Asia, or any from the Middle East. None from Europe that I can recall, although I think there was a Polish family who lived across the street from my family. It would be interesting to see Squaw Peak now. I've wanted to look at the old house for a long time too. They say though that you can't go home again. I don't see the harm in looking back, but maybe it's not productive to dwell there.