Page 79 - People & Places In Time

Growing Up In Exeter
I’ve known Betty nearly all of my life. There was one occasion when as three or four-year old children we rode on a float for the Fall Festival parade together. This was in an old truck owned by Mrs. Carroll (she
was the bookkeeper for The Mercantile and at the time my parent’s neighbor and landlady). We began kindergarten together and as I look at our grammar school class pictures, we seem always to stand near each other and nearby to our mutual friend Nancy Hodge.
This was a spring and summer filled with first love; from leading off a first dance at the behest of Mrs. Nickle, as the means to break up a problem with boys on one side of the gym and girls standing on the other to sitting at her home in the afternoon after school, on her family’s living room couch, listing to Ray Conniff records. So often the music in our lives is the catalyst to our memories. To this day I cannot hear Frankie Avalon sing “Venus” without picturing Betty and me laying on the grass under the large oak tree in her back yard.
As I walked out from the massage, my dream, this experience, remained in my head . . . . I felt as if Liz and me were there walking down the sidewalk, it was 1958 and nothing had changed.
The High School Years
As my summer in love pressed on there was looming an obstacle disguised within the specter of high school. But first things first. As fall approached, my first love was over and I find that I’m beginning my freshman year at Exeter Union High School with a broken heart
not at all the way I had thought it should be. This setback will affect the entirety of the next four years. My confidence toward girls fell to zero.
From the front seat of this rollercoaster one for which I’d been handed a ticket some fourteen years pri- or my ride has, up to now, been a slow easy climb and for the moment anyway I’m unaware of any major changes, naïve and unprepared, my ride has crested as the pace forward begins to pick up. Soon enough this will present a very difficult up and down ride.
Two weeks before classes begin, football prac- tice is underway. Coming from junior high to the high
school locker room is a daunting experience. I had to have a jockstrap for heaven’s sake, then change into and out of my uniform in the locker room with grown men, not to mention having to shower with them. A difficult adjustment toward this next segment to my life. I recall during my first few practices and since school had yet to start, I would change out of my pads, dress and
walk home without showering. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t looked forward to the moment. because for years I
had hung out at the practice field. I was the young boy who couldn’t wait to play football for real. The start of football practice was eagerly anticipated . . . Ultimately sports will prove to be my saving grace throughout my high school years.
As a freshman, you begin with the hope that this new world steadies long enough to gain your foot- ing. After all, your taking each new step with the same friends you began this journey . . . so, relax. Still the comfort of familiar people across the aisle, behind or
in front of you, isn’t part of this new scheme. Your life, day to day, hour to hour begins at your locker, the new cross road in your life. You have eight minutes, having left one classroom, to exchange books at your locker, perhaps chat for a moment, then off to the next class. It’s all new, exciting, daunting and fun. Soon enough the new routine becomes normal. Though from my point of view, I think girls have the upper hand toward fitting in more easily. I’ve always heard they mature more quick- ly; perhaps they do. I also think when the junior and senior boys extend their enticing offer, especially from the front seat of their own car, and the girls look across to their counterparts from the last eight years, it doesn’t seem a difficult choice. I suppose this is what they mean by maturity. My biased observation comes from a naïve freshman who had just lost his girlfriend to a senior . . . and so, now we’re underway . . . kind of.
High School Interrupted
I can’t speak to everyone’s experience; but I will say without doubt, my first two years in high school were a lost cause, the result of a difficulty that had been compounding for years. My friends were preparing for
the future while at the same time, thriving in the present,
I wasn’t.
Confidence was my nemesis; not just social but
also academic. I did excel at certain things and I didn’t withdraw into a dark corner; this was not a bleak situa- tion but non-the-less one that stymied my confidence and as such my future. Maturity doesn’t happen on cue, it’s somewhat like wisdom, there is a lot of trial and error. When you can pick yourself up and continue with con- fidence you will eventually succeed. Maturity is in your grasp.
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Exeter during my senior year in high school
I was always reading as a young boy, even be- longed to several young people book clubs. As I progressed through grammar and junior high school, my mother questioned why I wasn’t in the top reading groups in my classes. Nothing came of mom’s concern as I continued for- ward mired in mediocrity. I’ve now had sixty some years to ponder this dilemma. To be more to the point, I’ve only thought about why in recent years. The rest of the time