Skipping Right Along

It’s almost time to wrap up the month with these next few entries from the diary so I am going to speed things along.  I do write a little bit about school, my marks (some good some awful).  I write a whole lot now about my girlfriends and who they liked but as they asked me not to tell I won’t.  J  I jump from loving David Selby to Derrick and back again so many times it makes my head spin.  I expect that is how women got the nickname “dizzy dame” from all their about turns!  I no longer write about Jocelyn since she went right out of my life after she dropped out of school (her choice not mine) and I become best friends with Silvia and Ranee.  Both of them didn’t think Derrick was cute at all but that did not stop me from having almost a 2 year crush on him.  Mind you I didn’t think their choices of crushes were so cute either so we evened each other out! 

·         I picked out baby names:

Rebecca Maureen, Jennifer Bridget, Katherine Scarlett, Charlotte Irena, David Quentin (of course), Robert Jason, Michael Paul, and Chad Peter.  The very next day I changed one of the names to William Chad.

·        I have trouble with Math but manage to pass the year.  I have an “epileptic fit” due to my science sludge test beaker stand breaking. 

·         I turn 17 in June.

·         I get my first summer job in the livestock office at Burns Foods and work the full 2 months – 8 weeks.  I learn to work on a comptometer (it was an old fashioned adding machine but I became a pro due to my dad showing me some cool shortcuts).  I freak out as I get honked at a lot going home.  I taped in my first paycheck ($65/week)

·         The infamous Lincoln ghost story:  Last night I had the most dreadful scare in ages.  I thought I was seeing ghosts (2 to be exact)!  It was Abraham Lincoln (the Abraham Lincoln) and a woman. It was the woman that scared me. It moved close and away. It was really awful.  When “she: went against the wall I ran to Jeanette’s room. My god, but I was shaking!  She came with me to my room and she saw them vaguely against the wall. I kept saying “You’re a ghost. You’re a ghost. Go way.” But it didn’t.  Then it was moving close and Nette and I ran out of the room.  My blanket got stuck and then I started screaming the dark. I went hysterical and laughed and cried at the same time.  My parents came down and tried to calm me down.  Finally I did.  I went to sleep finally – and in my room too!

·         I had my first date.  Erik Derby (formerly Derbinski) asked me on a double date with David Delf.  We went to the zoo and had a good day.  We had been good friends since Gr. 9.

·       There were a lot of funny episodes with guys during this summer which always had me being dramatic and thinking I was a kook.

Fast forward to Sept 13, 1970

We are back in school and full of troubles over my schedule.  It seems that I am lacking the credit of one grade 11 subject.  The principal has refused that I should take grade 11 American history plus my grade 12 subjects (History, English, Geography, Biology and Math).  So both myself and my dad are on a rampage. My dad’s lawyer Mr. Frank Kennedy happens to be the school trustee and he is looking into the matter.  I am thoroughly disgusted myself because the school has done everything possible to upset my future plans. My dad refuses to let me repeat grade 12 for one subject – even a million subjects. So if I haven’t a complete grade 12 by June 1971 I will be unceremoniously plopped into a world of failures, all because of a stupid book of rules and regulations. As if anyone was made (or rather everyone) to follow something made up by a bunch of doddering dodos. 

NOTE:  My mother ended up resolving this by having me take Grade 11 typing while keeping all my Grade 12 subjects so I was able to have all my courses to graduate. The clincher was that I had told her of another student who also was taking an extra subject and he wasn't being harassed to drop his course.  I don’t mention it in the diary at all!  Ungrateful daughter.

Shortly afterwards my writing becomes extremely Victorian sounding due to the overwhelming influence of reading “Jane Eyre” and shortly afterwards Charlotte Bronte’s biography by Winifred Gerin (“The Evolution of Genius” – in my opinion the definitive biography – I have read more than a dozen Bronte biographies and am somewhat of an authority on the Brontes).