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Nobody remembers their second day of school

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Nobody remembers their second day of school. But I remember three firsts.
Grade One.
Song: Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head by B.J. Thomas.
It was literally my first day of school, ever. I never went to kindergarten. My mother didn’t agree with kindergarten. Maybe she couldn’t stand seeing her youngest child starting school, and tried to forestall it as long as possible. I didn’t want school to ruin my childhood either, so skipping kindergarten seemed a step in the right direction.
But eventually, I got registered for Grade One. It was easy. They allowed everybody in. On the first day, my mom held my hand and walked me to school. By the time we got there, school had already started. We were late. It was a disaster.
When the door to the Grade One classroom opened, every kid turned and looked at me. Mouths agape, eyes bugged out, fascinated. What the hell. Hadn’t they ever seen another kid before?
But somewhere in the pit of my humiliation was a spark of pity. To me, those kids in their desk-pens looked like domesticated animals. They had already started to comply. But there was hope for me. I was still free and untamed! And then I sat down.
Fashion: Clothes so new they still smelled like the store, all textile-y. Pants so starchy you could hardly bend your legs. You could not go play after school until you changed out of your school clothes. If you forgot and got grass stains on your knees, it was your funeral. Nothing got grass stains out. Nothing.
Words: Registration. Mucilage. Plasticine. Foolscap. Use one in a sentence: “You’re wasting foolscap!”

Grade Nine.Life would be perfect if you could stay in Grade Eight forever. You worked hard to get there. You rose to the top. You were extremely comfortable. You knew what was what. But no. Two months of summer fly by and you’re back to the bottom. So incredibly unfair.
You can’t even walk to high school. You have to take the bus all the way downtown and then transfer. Takes, like, five hours.
Getting on the bus the first day, you just want to melt into the scenery. God, please, no one look at me. And then you drop the sandwich you had to hide under your arm because there were no lunchbags at home. It sits in the middle of the aisle until you’re forced to claim it. No lunch bags on a day when lunch bags were absolutely crucial. Unbelievable.
Song: Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. Over and over and over on the cafeteria jukebox. “What you had and what you lost. What you ha-had, and what you lost,” the girl with the husky voice sings. “Thunder only happens when it’s raining,” she goes on. (Strictly speaking, that’s not true.)
Uncertainty is everywhere. Algebra lurks like an assassin on your schedule.
In the gym, you have to line up for shorts and a T-shirt. Every prison movie has the same scene.
Fashion: Mountain boots that would never see a mountain. Blue jeans — but too blue, not faded enough. Everyone could tell they were new. Kill me now.
Words: Duotang. IA. Phys-ed. Burger plate. Freshie.
IA (industrial arts) smells like melted plastic. Some guys, guys who mark up their own jean jackets with Bic pens, have a car project on the go ¬— like, a real car. They look like they’ve been in high school for 10 years. Maybe they have.
Calamity strikes in Social. The teacher sees your first name and thinks you’re pulling his leg, that it’s short for something. He sends you to the office — TO DOUBLE CHECK YOUR OWN NAME! You give the class a look like “Is he nuts?” — and get a few sympathetic snickers, which actually make your day. No question about it, the whole high school experience is going to be horrible. But maybe not that horrible.

University.I liked it from the start. Nobody cared if you showed up. Nobody cared if you didn’t show up. You could try as hard as you wanted without being called a nerd.
And you could pick your own classes. After 12 years of sit-down meals, it was an academic buffet. French? No, sick of it. But I need a language. Hmm. Greek might be interesting.
But wait. Five days to read Great Expectations? Are you crazy?
Song: Promises in the Dark by Pat Benatar.
Words: Syllabus. Pre-requisite. Prof. Midterm.
Fashion: Backpack, worn with only one strap because two would be totally nerdy.
I walked to campus. It took about 40 minutes. I had to cross the train bridge. The path was well worn. It seemed to meander a bit, much like my academic career would, but it got where it was supposed to, even if that meant wearing a hard-packed diagonal line across an otherwise lush sports field.
I was about halfway there when a girl started walking with me. It was the first day of her first year, too. She was going into Commerce, which sounded to me like an awful lot of work.
Her hair was dark and short — like, Pat-Benatar short. She had a disarming way about her. She was confident, outgoing, curious, not a hint of self-consciousness.
I was a bit stunned. What was she up to? Why did she want to talk to me? I couldn’t get a read on her. Did she like me? Did she just feel safer walking with a guy? But it was nice. Collegial, you might say.
I continued to answer her questions until we reached the buildings and wished each other good luck. I never saw her again. Maybe she hadn’t been there at all. Maybe she was a spirit saving me from the guys who drew on their own jackets. Maybe she was transporting me from childhood into the realm of scholarship and great expectations. My rock ‘n’ roll Pat Benatar guardian angel.



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