Never the Same IC#5 The Teen, a New Start

Continuing this true saga of Kirk, we study how influences can shape a person. With this cluster, Kirk is a young teen in Junior High School.

Influence Cluster Five:  The Teen, a New Start

Cue: “My Generation” https://youtu.be/qN5zw04WxCc

So junior high school would prove a turning point for this young introvert. A chubby, brace-wearing teen was not going to make many friends and never, ever, God forbid, gain a girlfriend, but Kirk was taking in the influences he encountered and learning from them. Take for instance, despite his shortcomings, he did develop a crush later as a freshman, but those details are forthcoming in this account under a chapter entitled “Women Kirk Knew and Loved.”

During this transitional period of junior high, playing a musical instrument became rather popular and the “in thing” to be involved with. Much to his father’s disapproval, the boy decided to take up the drums versus the trumpet. Besides, jamming an instrument’s mouthpiece up against his brace-laden teeth would be a painful practice indeed. He knew what it felt like and didn’t enjoy it at all. He did get smashed in the mouth a few times accidentally and purposely by notorious enemies of geeky kids, so he detested bloody lips and the long healing process afterward. Anyway, Kirk envisioned himself in a rock band slamming out a heavy beat for a screaming adoring crowd. He took percussion instruction for only one year because again the lack of hand/eye coordination excluded him from becoming the flamboyant, competent rock drummer. Kirk could drum a steady beat but fancy flourishes were definitely out for our young teen.

During the following summer season Kirk joined the school’s marching band. Marching bands seemed to be in hot demand back in those days because all the towns during the holidays had to have a parade and parades had to have marching bands. Wearing gaudy, gauzy uniforms and a funky stovepipe hat, the boy bought the required white “buck” shoes and away he went. The band practiced altogether on hot school parking lots with lots of trying to stay in step, and proper starting, stopping, and turning. Personal instruction wasn’t readily available, and so he was relegated to the simpler drums and beat and painfully, his leg really got beat up from his drum.

Kirk never asked for help for some reason though he needed it because his drum’s leg brace pad would never stay in place despite using the tie lanyard to hold the drum tight against his leg. It must have been worn out, or so he figured. Every time, shortly into the march, the pad would fold up and the edge would bang into his leg with every step, and he sure couldn’t fix it as they marched along. He’d have a bruised leg after every march and there were many festivals, holidays, and the county fair though luckily they never went close to that vexatious health building. Marching band scarred him in a couple ways and so, like this story always goes�"he was never the same.  

Humanities fulfill the growing mind

Seeing they were budding teenagers going to junior high school, Kirk and his classmates were exposed to culture meaning that they would attend music and art classes besides the usual staples of junior high learning. Music classes taught a lot of music theory and listening to classic music was a big part of that which induced big yawns in everyone. Trying to keep the students interested the music teacher allowed part of the class period for listening to modern, pop/rock music. This meant the students could bring their albums into class to be played.

Cue: “Shut Down” https://youtu.be/thXjTd1AWNo

At the time, Kirk felt like a budding wannabe hot rodder, so he had a liking to the Beach Boys particularly their renowned car-related songs such as “Shut Down,” “Little Deuce Coupe,” “409,” and a few others.  The other kids rarely bought albums in for playing and seeing Kirk only had that one album and kept it in his locker, it got played a lot much to the disdain of the other kids. Apparently way too often for the other kids because after a couple months someone got into his locker and coated his beloved Beach Boys record with rubber cement. No more Beach Boys hot rod songs for the heartbroken Kirk.

Art class was the other class along those humanity lines. Because he felt it really didn’t count for a grade, Kirk enjoyed art class as a diversion to the rest of his schedule though he wasn’t all that artistic and coupled with his color blindness and not so accurate hand/eye coordination his art wasn’t all that great. He just pressed on regardless whether it was painting, sculpting, or whatever the teacher dreamed up for that particular day.

Just the end of the world

Back in the day, it seemed like there were predictions for the end of the world on a regular basis. Maybe it just reflected the state of world at the time; you know, the Cold War, Civil Rights, Vietnam War, and so on. One apocalyptic forecast in particular just happened to be scheduled during art class, fancy that. No one actually said how the earth would meet its demise just that it would happen at a certain time and date. Kirk worried on this. And worried some more.

And worried yet some more. Would the end be fire and brimstone? Or similarly, a nuclear holocaust? Would God decide he’s had enough of the human race and drop kick the planet out of the solar system? Or would Jesus come around a second time and strike down all the bad asses? Was he a badass? Would the seas rise up an engulf everything and drown the human race? Or perhaps earthquakes would just swallow the whole of the human race up in ever-widening chasms? Perhaps Kirk’s all-time favorite was the possibility of the earth tilting just enough to scorch or freeze the planet to oblivion. All these possibilities and more rolled around in anxious Kirk’s head. 

Kirk sat and fidgeted, staring at the clock instead of his current art project, a construction paper montage/mobile. Even though Kirk discussed the apocalyptic prediction with his buddies no one else in the class seemed too worried about the end. At the pre-designated time, Kirk held his breath and 2:46 came and went without an ear-deafening clamor, a knock you off your feet quake, or eye-blindingly flash. Not a peep. Maybe the clock was wrong. But at top of the hour the bell rang like always and everyone finished up their day at school and headed for home or their after school activities. Kirk wasn’t sure if he was relieved, frustrated, or disappointed that he and the entire human race were still alive and still-doing-the-same-old- damn-thing. He decided to become a skeptic and began to not believe in conspiracies, end of the world predictions, or UFOs for that matter�"at least for a while…

By the end of his junior high years, Kirk was a new guy-more or less. His braces were off and as a result he could look at himself in the mirror without being completely appalled with his reflection. He had slimmed down like a bean pole. Perhaps he had become handsome like Doctor Straker had predicted, but Kirk didn’t feel THAT good about himself. In an effort to become more muscular and fill out in the right places instead of the wrong places like before, he decided to take up school sports despite having no prior experience with sports because of his introversion, his fatness, his lack of self-esteem, and lack of hand/eye coordination. There’s a blow by blow account of his partaking in sports in an upcoming section of Kirk’s story. 

Sometime around then, Kirk unbelievably and remarkably found he could get along with almost everyone. The teachers loved him because he didn’t cause too much trouble and despite the fact that Kirk really didn’t fully apply himself�"anymore. Just like Ferris Bueller everyone loved Kirk because he was an okay righteous dude. From the wimps, the hard guys, motorheads, dweebs, and dorks, to the nerds, geeks, and acid heads everyone liked him and he liked them all. Kirk even got along rather famously with the local indigenous peoples, Native Americans, or as they were called back then, the Indians.

 As a rule the Indians were a quiet sort, but quite fun once you got to know them and hung out a while. They were proficient runners that Kirk would run with (well behind) in cross country and track, but we’ll cover that later on. His cohorts from the reservation would take part in low key harassment of each other such as tacks on chairs, booby traps of all kinds, and a heavy, regular bombardment of spitballs. The George Washington portrait took a massive spitball attack that must have taken several pages of paper making it the size of a baseball!  Fun! But best of all were the darts.

These Kirk figured out how to make after sitting quietly in class one day when suddenly he had an excruciating stabbing pain in his back. After pulling it out he saw the culprit who threw it sitting smugly a couple rows back. Well, these darts were basically sewing needles with tape carefully attached on the back to make fins. You didn’t need a blow gun, just throw them, and they proved rather accurate. Except that if you threw them you had to expect to get impaled back. Give and take was the name of the game. Such fun!      

However, Kirk didn’t get along with everyone of course; he didn’t even TRY to get along with the Brainiacs. They would not be caught dead associating with someone below their lofty level especially one who tried to elevate himself to their level and failed; he who had encountered so many interactions with the “Burro” in sixth grade. Remember that horror?

Kirk, who was still basically quiet and introverted after the above fun, did try to make a difference with those around him. He didn’t really have any tight friends, except a couple guys who’d share a joke in class or just talk about cars which he knew quite a bit about and girls which he knew nothing about but was always eager to listen. Anyway, in an effort to help out his fellow man/boys, he kept an eye out for an opportunity to do good.

 One such fellow student seemed like a quiet, clean-cut fellow like Kirk strived to be. Well, during science class when they had some free time, another rather dumpy loud mouth sort of guy started harassing and picking on the quiet fellow. Kirk felt himself get a bit warm under the collar as they say with an anger rising he hadn’t felt before. The dumpy guy wouldn’t let the fellow be. Without warning, Kirk just walked over and sucker punched the guy in the jaw. Damn, it hurt his knuckles, but the guy went down and of course, mission accomplished, he stopped bothering the fellow. The harasser just sat there on the floor looking rather surprised and dumbfounded. The teacher rushed over to help the guy off the floor and took him, apparently, to the nurse’s office.

When the science teacher came back, he stood there a few moments looking at Kirk, kind of assessing the situation to reach an internal determination of what to do with the trouble making Kirk, but glancing about at the other students who sat there silently waiting with apt anticipation of a whole gambit of holy hell of repercussions on Kirk; but instead, without a word about the incident, the teacher went back to teaching the class at hand. Kirk himself had expected eternal detention, a visit to the big man principle himself, a glaring red mark on his permanent record, but nothing more was said, by the teacher, Kirk, or the fellow he had stood up for. It was business as usual. Kirk didn’t know what had gotten into him on that fateful day but that little incident made a minor impact on the growing Kirk, and he was never the same. Actually, he became good friends with both the guy he “rescued” and the guy he “tweaked.”

Kirk found that he could, on a part-time basis, be a class clown. He’d insert smart alack type terms at a low voice that would get those around him snickering, and then he’d sit back acting like he had no clue what had happened or who said it. One favorite thing he did took place during attendance taking. One of his friends had a difficult to pronounce Polish name and when the teacher, especially a new teacher on the first day, tried to pronounce his friend’s name Kirk would pipe up with an oddball pronunciation that his friend desperately tried to clarify. Sometimes it would take weeks for the teacher to get it right. Big laughs all around!

English class, which wasn’t Kirk’s favorite, would provide a few laughs as well when students had to recite poems or passages. Kirk would assume various accents or sing-song his way through his reciting duty. Snickers would abound. Where all that sort of malarkey came from Kirk had no idea.

Back to Earth

Earth Day would make an impact on Kirk though the activities at the school actually did little for the environment though he guesses that knowledge of the troubles was a first step in solving said environment problems. All kinds of displays decorated the school made by the talented few or brought in by the experts. Kirk attended the school-wide assemblies to listen to the boring experts or watch apocalyptic movies on how people were rapidly destroying the planet.

Cue: Spirit in the Sky” https://youtu.be/AZQxH_8raCI

Particularly one of these movies with a decent soundtrack playing strains of “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum left a lasting impression on young Kirk. Scenes of steam billowing from nuclear cooling towers, heavy black smoke from coal-fired plants, smoky car exhausts, bulldozing trees down for suburbia, and the list went on�"and on.  No one ever touched the real reason for environmental problems such as global warming was that there are too many people�"overpopulation. After all, every child born can be considered an environmental disaster.  Anyway, there were no field trips to plant trees or clean streams, so the captive audience was just “enlightened” to the causes adversely affecting the environment. 

So ending this episode, Kirk learned a lot and finding his way, sort of, he began to adapt to the ins and outs of school life and life in general, and he would take advantage of what he learned and what had influenced him so far. Kirk would be never the same after Junior High School. And we’re talking about a good thing!

Cue:  “School Days” https://youtu.be/DHG5-GxI_Es