Tunesday : Grade Nine

Grade Nine

(Page, Steven / Robertson, Ed / Creeggan, Jim / Creeggan, Andy / Stewart, Tyler)

Performed by Barenaked Ladies

I found my locker and I found my classes
Lost my lunch and I broke my glasses,
That guy is huge! That girl is wailin'!
First day of school and I'm already failing.

[Chorus]

This is me in grade nine, baby, this is me in grade nine
This is me in grade nine, baby, this is me in grade nine

I've got a blue-and-red Adidas bag and a humongous binder,
I'm trying my best not to look like a minor niner.
I went out for the football team to prove that I'm a man;
I guess I shouldn't tell them that I like Duran Duran.

[Chorus]

Well, half my friends are crazy and the others are depressed
And none of them can help me study for my math test.
I got into the classroom and my knowledge was gone;
I guess I should've studied instead of watching Wrath Of Khan.

[Chorus]

They called me chicken legs, they called me four-eyes
They called me fatso, they called me buckwheat,
They called me Eddie

[Chorus]

I've got a red leather tie and pair of rugger pants,
I put them on and I went to the high school dance.
Dad said I had to be home by eleven,
Aw, man, I'm gonna miss Stairway to Heaven.

[Chorus]

I do realise that I have totally stalled at grade nine in these Tunesday reminiscences, so here's a final assortment of the tidbits I can remember. But as an aside to begin with, I'm stepping away from Beatles songs because: 1) I believe I've made the point that they were all we listened to at the time, and 2) This song is just too perfect. I remember when Dave and I first heard it we freaked out because it was exactly us at the same age, and just like I loved Bowling for Soup's 1985 because it just happened to memorialise my graduation year, Barenaked Ladies include here plenty of pop culture touchstones from my first year of high school (and yes, every dance, ever, ended with Stairway to Heaven).

I've said before that my older brother was a total juvenile delinquent, and after he flunked everything at the local high school during his first time through grade nine, it was decided that he and I would take the bus to the Catholic High School together (giving him a fresh start and keeping me away from the bad influences at the local school -- as if bad influences stopped at our town's borders). Going to Catholic school meant wearing uniforms, and I remember that when we drove into Toronto to get ours before the school year started, my Mum was shocked at the prices. Already annoyed that we had to drive so far to buy the clothes, Mum was in no mood to have input from us about what she should buy; not that there were many options. It was explained that it was mandatory to wear either the short-sleeved or long-sleeved white dress shirt (of which I was bought one of each) under either the maroon vest or cardigan every day (of which I was bought one of each; and I mean even in the hottest months, we were forced to wear knit sweaters at all times at school), and while Ken had only the grey trousers option, I got one pair of pants and one kilt. As a girl, I needed to wear uniform knee socks with my kilt, and we also needed gym uniforms. This all totalled way more than my Mum had ever spent on back-to-school shopping before, so there was no point complaining about having to rewear the same clothes over and over throughout the week (remember -- I was bought a total of two shirts and two sweaters and they wouldn't be washed for me until the weekend. And not that it really got dirty, but I don't think my kilt was ever washed.)

My Mum had started working outside the house (as the recreation director at the old folks home next door to us) the summer before grade nine, so she would be gone as we were getting ready for school, and making our way to the bus stop was our own responsibility. I don't know why the stop was so far from our house when the country kids we picked up along the way were all able to wait at the end of their own driveways, but we were the first stop on the driver's route and it was a 3 or 4 block walk for us. None of the other kids from our neighbourhood went to the Catholic school, so it was just me and Ken there at the bus stop, and since we were the first stop, we'd be on the bus the longest -- in the winter, it would be dark when we were picked up and dark again when we were dropped off, and it made for a long and exhausting school day. Everyone loved our bus driver, Ron -- who was a long-haired hippie-dude; think Otto from the Simpsons with a bushy beard and Lennon glasses -- and even though it was against the rules, he let kids smoke at the back of the bus so long as no one else complained (and even though it wasn't pleasant for us non-smokers to sit in a smoke-filled bus, those were tough guys back there, including Ken, and who was going to complain?) The good part of the ride was that Cora was on my route, and having this time with my best friend every day wasn't a bad thing. Only once did we miss the bus, and for whatever reason, Ken decided that it would be smart to hitch-hike us to Newmarket. It was a Dad-type who picked us up and ended up driving us right to the school doors, and he explained that he only stopped for us because he thought I looked really vulnerable in my kilt and kneesocks and he begged Ken to never put me in that position again. That was, unsurprisingly, my only hitch-hiking experience.

The school itself, Sacred Heart, was essentially a giant portable, but it looked like a normal school with hallways and lockers and classrooms. The permanent school was being built all during this year, but we would be gone to Alberta before its grand opening the next fall. I remember the fact that it was a temporary building more than the details of what it looked like; like I know there was a proper gymnasium because I remember having phys-ed in one, but can't recall if that was a finished part of the new building that we had access to, or whether the gym was also part of the portable structure. I do remember that this was the first year that we had to change into uniforms at gym time, and there was a special humiliation to changing in front of a group of girls (and especially because I only owned two dingy-looking bras and faded, saggy underwear that I hoped no one was noticing; I know I wasn't noticing what anyone else had on as I concentrated on changing as quickly and discreetly as possible). I remember that at one point, the gym teacher said that we would be doing a swimming unit and that we needed a signed permission form in order to participate. She told us that attendance was mandatory and that there would be no excuses for not getting the slips signed: there would be lessons provided at all skill levels and she specifically said that having your period was no excuse for not attending; that could be "dealt with". I had many reasons for not wanting to participate: I couldn't swim well; I had a deep dread of actually getting naked in front of the other girls; and most practically, I didn't even own a bathing suit. As I wrote before, I suffered many humiliations from not having the proper athletic equipment, and as I also said then, I couldn't bear the stress of asking my mother to buy me what I needed; it was better to just sit out. So when I showed the permission slip to my Mum and told her I'd rather not participate, she winked at me and said "us girls" understand why I can't go swimming "at that time of the month", and that misunderstanding was fine with me -- I handed in the notice of non-participation to my annoyed gym teacher and was the only girl to sit out the unit which I was told was "a total blast". No regrets.

While on the topic of forms, I'll add here that there was a requirement for high school students to do 40 hours of community volunteering, and everyone was supposed to have 10 hours/year logged on a special form. (When my girls went through high school, it was still 40 hours total but they didn't require the yearly log; you could do it all in one year if you liked; you could do it all in your final year.) As the end of grade nine approached and I hadn't done any volunteering, I showed the log to my Mum and asked if maybe I could come do some work with her at the old folks home like I had the summer before. I don't know if she misunderstood me or if she had been waiting for an opportunity to stick it to the man (for the overpriced uniforms?), but she said that since I had done that volunteering on my own time already, she would treat it as though it had happened during the school year, and she filled out the form with dozens of phony volunteer hours. My Mum isn't anti-community involvement, so that  probably was a misunderstanding, but since I found the old folks home hot and smelly and uncomfortable, I had no regrets there either.

I had more grade nine tidbits left over than I realised, so this is going to be a two-parter and I'll leave the rest for next week. Thinking ahead to the rest of high school, no other year has so many stories, so that just reinforces why I have always suffered from magical thinking: Naturally, the first year of high school is going to be seminal for everyone, but to have Barenaked Ladies sing about that year and set it in the exact same time period that I lived it (and then to have Bowling for Soup specifically make my grad year an important one) has always made me feel special. And I've always taken that where I can get it.

This is me in grade nine, baby, this is me in grade nine!