A 7th Grade Memory

 Bruce David Tracy

            So there I was waiting for it to happen.  I had a sort of sixth sense back then, and sometimes I could feel things that were coming down the road.  Over a hundred and fifty students were sitting in chapel that morning and there was absolutely no reason in the world to think that they were going to call my name as the Star Student, but I knew that it was going to happen.  I wasn’t a great student, absolutely wasn’t a vocal leader, and did my best to blend in without having any attention drawn to me.  Still, there was the sixth sense I mentioned, so none of this mattered.  I knew they were about to call my name in front of all of my peers, and announce that I was the third (and what turned out to be the last), Star Student of the Month at West Valley Christian School.

            The Star Student was supposed to be the greatest award the school could offer a young student.  In reality, it was a horror of Freddy Kruger like proportions.  What made adults think that a fragile seventh grader would want his name called out in front of everyone and have it officially announced that he was in fact a dork of the highest order, and that teachers actually liked said student because of his amenable and compliant nature.  “Would young Mr. Tracy please stand up in front of everyone present so that we can paint a bull’s-eye on your backside and officially tattoo a kick me sign on your forehead.”  Ok, so it wasn’t that bad, but I am pretty sure I would have rather been paddled once and got it over with (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I went to one of those schools that still employed the paddle, and I had the misfortune of being one of the few students on campus who never did anything bad enough to warrant it.  Man, I was a soft kid).

            The inevitable happened, and I stood looking at my feet from the pew half way back as they announced me as the current (and last) Star Student of the Month.  I peeked out of the corner of my eye to see if my friends were looking at me. They were all either looking out the stained glass window or looking at their feet as well (bless them).  I stood, I sweated, and I waited.  The speech about my accomplishments lasted a lifetime (ok, so it was more like thirty seconds).  I could sense the end coming, when I could finally sit down to my rightful place in anonymity, when the worst sentence ever spoken in the English language came out of the principal’s mouth.  “And as a reward, Bruce will get to go out to lunch with his favorite teacher.”  I almost threw up on the kid in front me.

            That night I started the torturous process of deciding what teacher I would spend the worst hour of my life with.  I was pretty sure my germaphobic English teacher had nominated me for the award, but I was afraid that if I went to lunch with her, she would get trapped in the restroom fearing to touch the bacteria infested door handle.  She had in fact taught an English lesson earlier in the week about the dangers of public restrooms.  Her exact lesson had something to do with the problem of washing your hands and then touching a door handle immediately afterward.  This was, of course, before state standards.

            After eliminating her from the list, I turned my attention to my chronically angry physical education teacher.  I am not actually sure that he was in fact angry, but he did yell a lot.  He was easy to eliminate because I imagined him standing behind me while I ate my lunch hollering in my ear to pick up the pace.

            That left me with my Bible/Band teacher who seemed fairly harmless.  He was an incredibly large man, so I assumed he would focus on his food and forget about the painful conversation that I was desperate to avoid.  The next morning, with my decision made, and after a failed attempt at being fake sick, I made my way to school.

            My private school was desperately under funded, so it was common for teachers to teach several subjects.  My Bible/Band teacher in fact became a principal at a later date, so there was a time when he was the Bible/Band/Principal teacher.  A boy could hardly dream of attaining a title like that.  None of that mattered to me at the time though, because this was the man that I was going to have to eat lunch with, and ever more preposterous , I was going to have to find some common interest to talk about.  Was there a chance that he collected Star Wars figures?

            The lunch bell rang, and my friends quickly deserted me.  The moment was too painful for them to have to watch, so they drifted to the lunch area without offering as much as a single word of encouragement.  I was on death row and my final meal was fast approaching.

            I may have understated it when I said that Bible/Band was an incredibly large man.  He was more like two incredibly large men sewn together at the waste.  For some reason, I imagined that there would be a limo waiting for me in the parking lot.  Instead, my teacher was standing there waiting.  At least I thought he was standing, until he called for me to get on.  I am sure I looked confused, but then it hit me like a wave of nervous stomach.  There was actually a set of wheels under him.  My Bible/Band teacher did not drive a car, he rode a Vespa (which was like a moped, only smaller).  I thought about running, but I was pretty sure this man with wheels would catch me.  Instead, I found the two and a half inches of seat that appeared at the back, sat down and grabbed his belt so that I wouldn’t fall off.  My butt was less than an inch from the back tire.  As we rode out of the parking lot, we were quite the site.  To passing cars, it must have appeared that a man and a boy were riding down the street on a seemingly invisible motorcycle.  There were a few honked horns and a lot of funny looks on passing motorists, and I was fairly certain that I would be dead within the next few minutes.

            I didn’t die,  at least I don’t think I did, and soon we were pulling into the parking lot of a Pizza Hut.  Up until that moment, I wasn’t sure where we were heading.  It turned out that my teacher had a two for one on linguini and had decided for us that it was going to be Pizza Hut.  I learned a valuable lesson that afternoon.  Not only was I not the kind of guy that would drive around in limousines, but I was also not worth the cost of a full price lunch.  That is not a bad thing per se, and it was a good thing to learn so early in life.

            The seventh grade pallet is not yet cultured enough to enjoy a bowl of Pizza Hut linguini (they have long since given up serving pasta), so I pretended to like my food, and in fact paid special attention to it so I wouldn’t have to talk much.  Who would have ever thought that I wouldn’t even be allowed to pick what I got to eat. 

            Years later I have tried to recall what we talked about at lunch that day, but like a painful repressed memory, I can’t remember.  My next memory is of climbing back on the submerged moped and making the long trip back to school.  This time there was even less room on back now that Bible/Band had eaten and I am pretty sure my butt met the rubber on the back tire several times on the return trip.  My friends weren’t waiting for me when we got back to school.  In fact they never even asked me about it (bless them).

            They say that trials build character.  That day, and the memories of it, has created enough character to last a lifetime.  When I think back on it, it was an afternoon of lousy food, forgotten conversation, and a ride on an invisible moped.  A traumatic experience for a seventh grader, but come to think of it, it just sounds like any other day for the adult version of me.