Childhood daze

[Upthorn]

I've noticed recently that every so often I'll remember a thing that happened when I was a kid and go "Huh. Well it's fucking weird that that happened!" Often it's stuff I didn't even really pay attention to at the time.

So I'm making this thread so I can share them when they hit me.
Maybe other people will share theirs back?
Maybe this will be a single post thread?

Anyway, today I got to thinking about that one time in high school
I showed up to my PE class and the gym teacher/football coach decides to start our class period with a brief lesson about how intelligent design can't be correct because it's harder to strengthen our kicking muscles than our running muscles, so most people have a big imbalance between how much force they can exert pulling their shins forward as compared to pushing their calves backwards. So like, "design" could be correct but not "intelligent design."

Y'know. Just a public high school sports coach politicizing an anatomy lesson out of nowhere just to dunk on Republicans.

Huh. Fucking weird that that happened!

[Mongrel]

It fascinates me just how little I remember of my 8-9 years of elementary school outside of recess. I mean, there were some memorable things in Grade 7 and 8 I do recall, but it's mixed. Before that, almost nothing at all.

The main exception is that I do remember drawing an incredibly excessive number of Garfield cartoons in Grade 4.

[atog]

Most of my early education memories are a clumsy pastiche of getting in fights, getting sent to the principal's office, doing stupid shit, getting beat up, skipping class, and being bullied. Most of it I had coming. I had a big smart mouth and no street sense. No respect for teachers or rules, stole or broke or got into everything. So when it was my turn to get stomped and I ran for help, the teachers were like, you made your bed you lie in it.

The state was all up in our family's business because I kept getting in trouble at school, and they were gonna take me away. Finally it started to sink in. That part where you get suspended for 2 weeks for fighting...at first, you're like cool, I can sleep in tomorrow and I don't have to go to school. Then you realize you're stuck inside the trailer house for 2 weeks and school starts to look real appealing after a few days of this.

At some point I realized if I didn't finish school, I'd be "suspended" forever. Well and truly fucked, and we knew plenty of kids who washed out early and were trapped in a cycle of shit job, alcohol/drugs, jail/hospital/rehab, welfare, shit job.

The weird thig is I could have sworn I was held behind 1 year as a result of a suspension, but the math doesn't add up. Mentally perhaps I lost an entire year of school because of fights and changing schools and whatnot. That's kind of scary when you're my age, but it's really scary when you're 25 and asked about your school history for a job interview and can't really sort out what happened after grade 5 because some of it is stuff you don't want to share (being in alternative school for juvenile delinquents) and some oof it you just simply can't trace.