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From: Russ Hicks
Date: 02 Oct 2004
Time: 10:59:49 -0500
Remote Name: 24.1.53.111
Hi Ann, What a wonderful question! I hope I can come up with a wonderful answer, but I have my doubts. <smile> I grew up in a "medium size" town in Indiana (about 20,000 population) and high school. We had 373 students in our graduating class and maybe over 1500 in my entire four year high school. That's certainly not small but it's nothing compared to the thousands in some of my fraternity brothers's high schools! This was in the late 1950's, so it really was in the "Leave it to Beaver" days. If you've ever seen the movie "Hoosiers," that was me. I actually attended the game that inspired that movie. (But that's another story...!) We had our cliques and in-crowds and cheerleaders and jocks. We also had a sub-class of REALLY bad guys we called "reebs" who were the terrorists of our day. "Reeb" by the way is "beer" spelled backwards! Oooo...! How horrible!!! No drugs - marijuana was just coming into the reeb community, but the rest of us had no clue. Sex scandals were rare and when they did, it was lifetime ostracism... Different world than it is today...! I was - and still am - one of the "geeks" and "brains" of the school. Science club, chess club, choir (that's where I met the girl in the story), advanced math and science courses... I graduated 9th in my class after a dismal start my freshman and sophomore years. In my senior year I made straight A's in all six of my courses (mostly advanced) where everyone else took only 5 courses. Only one other person, a junior girl, equaled that record that year. So I guess I had some respect academically. Sports was a joke. No way Jose! I was happy in my academic pursuits. I had lots of friends, but was certainly NOT in the 'in-crowd!" One of my life long weaknesses is making mountains out of molehills. And that continues to this day. Give me a minor problem and I can make a career out it! Looking back over it, I wish someone would have grabbed me and slapped me and yelled in my face, "IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU, BIRDBRAIN!" But I guess that's not an acceptable teaching technique these days, is it? Sigh... One of the major mistakes we made in growing up was the concentrating on overcoming our weaknesses rather than improving on our strengths. That made matters even worse for me as a stutterer. I HAD to cure my stuttering!!! That was my lifetime goal! I wish I had been able to relax and enjoy the people more. Life was far too serious. I guess that one of the reasons I liked that girl so much is that she made me feel relaxed and we really had some fun together. Absolutely nothing scandalous, you understand, just normal friends. She was soooo unlike me. I kinda envied her simple life. (That friendship continues to this day, by the way, after 45 years...!) I wish I had a better answer for you, Ann. But I hope this helps. Russ russhicks@mail.com