Back in the day.

Last night while I was lying in bed I kept drifting off but not really going to sleep. And while I drifted in and out of never land. I kept thinking about my younger years.
Now I went to catholic school for my entire adolescent life, seriously Catholic Kindergarten, Grade School, High school and I was this close to going to a Catholic College. I don't care how you look at it that is a long time. So I know all about uniforms and nuns and the only controversy we had over the pledge of allegiance was weather to say it before or after the morning prayer.
Let's just say it was a huge part of my life.
Here's what I remember:
7:30 a.m.
Everybody walked to school or could walk to school. In Westpark there is a new Catholic school every 3 miles so there was none of this bus shit. We all tried to get there early, no matter how cold it was outside, so we could talk outside on the Blacktop.We hung out in the back by the tree where we would debate the superiority of N'Sync or The Backstreet Boys and discuss the highlights from lats night's episode of Roswell.
Since my Mom worked at the school I never had to worry about walking or being late to Blacktop discussion times but i felt their pain.
Once on the blacktop we had to wait until exactly 7:55 before we could enter the building. Something I never understood but when you're 12 years old the last place you want to be is inside so I never questioned it.
Once inside you would either go to the first floor, where the 1st through 4th grade classrooms were, (and where the occasional 5th grader got sent back down to because they were acting up) or the second floor where the 5th through 8th grade classes were.

UpStairs was a really big deal at SMS. Once you were in 5th grade you got to change classrooms the boys wore ties and the girls wore skirts and vests instead of jumpers. The toilets were much higher off the ground too.

8:05 a.m.
Homeroom followed by Dr. K's morning announcements which usually consisted of Mass announcements and 10 minutes of silence while she listened in on every single classroom to make sure they were being quite. We'd then say a prayer take some requests and do the pledge of allegiance. It was all very exciting.

8:15-11:20 a.m.
Another thing about the second floor, besides being divided boys and girls were divided up into dumb and smart kids. You could either go to the dumb math class or the smart one and then the dumb science class and the smart one. I begged my mom to let me into dumb math class, I won. It was so much more fun. In Ms. Blaha's science class we would usually watch a Adam Sander movie or Jesus Christ Superstar. I also learned a lot about the nomads in that class.

In 7th grade Sr. Yvonne devoted an entire class period to teaching us how to cover a book properly using 2 pieces of tape and a book cover that reminded us that Dope is indeed for Dopes.

Sometime during the morning I would leave to go out to the trad van. It was a van located in the parking lot that the kids with learning disabilities got to go to everyday during math or English or science class. It was owned by the state school district so it couldn't actually be in the building because that would interfere with the whole church and state thing so Mrs. Morain came to take us out of class everyday and we'd walk to the van. I went out everyday with one other boy, we'd go over spelling words together for about 20 minutes and then we'd play Dradle and eat chocolate covered matzo with our teacher Mrs. Sweet. I loved the van.

11:25 a.m.- 12:35
Lunch! After returning to homeroom for a quick prayer we'd go off to lunch. Lunch at St. Mark was different. We didn't have a cafeteria so everybody brought their own lunch and if you forgot it you could go to Sr. Yvonne's house and she'd make you a PB and J and a cookie. As I am sure you remember it was all about the table; as we got older we got better tables in the lunch room, by the time we were in 8th grade we were the closest to the door so we were the first ones to run out and get a ball. (Unfortunately by the time you are 14 years old playing 4 square doesn't have the same allure but hey...)

Another weird thing about St. Mark: the boys and girls were separated, they liked to do this to make sure we stayed chaste through 8th grade. We had separate lunches, separate recesses, in 5th grade the girls went to Mrs. Ga lagers room to learn about our periods and they went into Ms. Krisko's room to learn about erections and premature ejaculation. So we were never together.

At lunch time our Principal would sit down with us and put some Nickelodeon produced movie on and we had to eat in silence. It was all very strange now that I look back.
After the girls lunch the boys came in and we went out to recess on the blacktop where we would race to the ball bag to get a ball for four square. Once we were too cool for game we would just sit around a the sewer and make fun of the preps and Celine Dion.

12:45-2:50

We'd have more classes and depending on the day we went to our special class (music, gym, computer and art on Fridays). While I welcomed the break from regular class I usually hated these more than any English class.

Gym: They outlawed dogeball in our school because it was too dangerous, after that I never really had any respect for the physical education program at St. Mark. So I skipped a lot of classes.
In 7th grade me and Jessie forgot our gym clothes so much we had to start writing essays on sportsmanship while everybody else would play basketball.
When we went outside to play softball I would find a spot in the back of the parking lot and sit my ass down in protest ( No wonder I was such a hefty kid), I got a lot of infractions from our gym teacher in those years I don't remember exactly what these did but once I did have to stay after school and stand staring at one spot for 45 minutes. Not fun.

Computer: We had computer class on Wednesdays, during this time we'd go to the lab and learn how to type on iMac's while listening to Sr. Joan Buddha. She was a woman of about 75 who wore the same sheer silk shirt everyday, if you walked behind her you could clearly see the moles and skin tags. Not pretty.

Music: We had music every Monday. In the eight years I went to that school we went through 6 different music teachers. Looking back I wouldn't be surprised to see any one of these guys getting their asses handed to them by Chris Hanson on To Catch A Predator. I mean who in their right mind hired Mr. Folsom?


3:00
Schools out! At this time I'd either go home and watch Rosie or go over to Rachel's where we'd listen to the jerky boys and will smith Cd's.


OHH
I also remember starting a rumor in 1st grade that a man was taking pictures of the girls at the girls recess time and then hiding behind the tard van. Everybody got in a big kick out of that one.


Wow I can't believe you are still here. Sorry that was so incredibly boring. They can't all be gold.