Teenage Cleavage.

*This memory is a continuation of the 'Flemington Road Public School' memory.

When I first arrived at Lawrence Heights Junior High School for grade seven it felt as if I was on another planet compared to my grade school. It was completely different in every way from Flemington Road and I now had my very own locker along with the ever popular Dudley combination lock.

As well, I now had multiple periods all in different classrooms each and every day. There were so many subjects I was now going to be learning for the very first time. My new school was much larger on three levels and there was also both a boys and girls student entrance. Quite a few of the older students smoked outside in the parking lot during lunch hour. Up to then I had never seen students smoke at school before. I no longer had a morning or an afternoon recess; instead I would have a rotating spare period each day.

I was learning how to paint, draw and blend colours in my new art class. I remember being taught how to sketch with charcoal and I was also painting on an easel with both watercolours and oil based paints. For me art class was a total waste of time and I wished we would have had an extra gym period instead.

I was also taking a music class and I wanted to play the drums as did every other boy in my class. There was just the one drum kit so I was relegated to learning how to play a viola, the ugly big sister of the ugly violin. I learned how to pizzicato the strings until my sticky rosin coated fingers hurt. I found it difficult understanding how to read or write music, but I do remember how to draw a treble clef.

Metal and wood shop classes were also now part of my daily timetable. For the first time I was learning about tools and more importantly how to use them. All I can ever remember us having at home was just a small hammer and an adjustable cheap screwdriver with all the various bits stored in the handle. We also had a small pair of vice grips and my mother had a little cloth roll-up sewing measuring tape that would only extend up to six feet. That would be the extent of my toolbox growing up in the Jungle.

Metal shop I didn't like and I once got into trouble for using the welding torch to make holes in quarters. I would wear my self made monetary donuts around my neck along with my latchkey. I much preferred the wood shop if not for anything else the smell. I loved the smell of our woodshop with all the various woods piled on the rack and I also enjoyed the burning smell of a sawblade ripping through lumber. By far my favorite projects that I enjoyed making in wood shop were Ken Dryden plexiglass goalie masks. I would wear them playing road hockey, but they would never stay on my face properly. I think I made three or four of them over the years while I was there and they all ended up in the garbage.

I was now experimenting with chemicals and dissecting crayfish in my science class as well sex and human reproduction was being taught in my new health class. I was also studying drama and performing skits in theater arts. The teacher was a tall very attractive woman and she made the class all the worthwhile. She always told me that I was a funny guy and that I should be a comedian someday.

Gym class was now much more structured and sports oriented rather than those silly games we all played in grade school. I was very happy there were none of those hanging ropes with the big knots like we had back at Flemington.

I didn't miss those at all.

I also now had to have a towel in my gym bag because all students had to shower after gym. A lot of students didn't like taking showers with other students and on purpose would forget their towel. However, it never worked and those students still had to have a shower after being given six feet of brown paper towel by the gym teacher. No student was excused from having a shower if they took gym class. It was simple, no shower no gym.

A lot of students failed gym class.

Once I started high school, I became much more interested in girls. I was also learning how to type while always trying to keep my eyes on the copy and my hands on the home row. There was one girl in my grade nine typing class who I will never forget, she was Italian and she sat right beside me to my right.

In grade nine I didn't pass typing. Although my hands were always on the home row, my eyes were always fixated on her beautiful teenage cleavage. I just could not help myself; she was such a beautiful girl. She had a pretty smile and she always wore tight low fitting tops. She always called me 'White J.J.' in reference to the tall, skinny character on the 70's sitcom Good Times. Had she sat anywhere else in the classroom, I have no doubt that I would have passed typing in grade nine.

Geography, history, math and English would round out my daily academic schedule.

I also now had a school cafeteria where it seemed like every kid was eating french fries and gravy with those little wooden forks. How could I ever forget our cafeteria's canned gravy or those gristly meat pies?

I can’t.

Lawrence Heights Junior High School technically was not within the Jungle boundaries and unlike Flemington, students who attended were not just kids who lived in the Jungle. Kids from other nearby neighborhoods were now attending the same school I did. They came from all the other area grade schools and I now had many more Italian classmates at my new high school.

Sock hops were very popular when I was in high school. Every couple of weeks or so there would be a sock hop in our gym. For students to participate in any after school sock hops, fundraisers and intermural activities they needed to purchase an activity card. My mother refused to buy me the $2 card because I was not allowed to associate with 'worldings' during my free time. My mother said anything I did after the school bell rang was on my free time. During all six of my high school years I never attended one sock hop, fundraiser or any other activity to promote my schools.

There were also a few more Jehovah’s Witness kids at my high school. They were all from the Italian congregation and went to a different Kingdom Hall. Each morning we would all assemble in the cafeteria for Oh Canada, the Lord's Prayer and the morning announcements before returning back to our homerooms. This daily ritual made me different from the other kids and I believe it was the reason why I was constantly picked on and bullied while at Lawrence Heights.

Probably my best memory while attending my first high school was on September 28th, 1972.

On that day all of Canada stood still while game eight of the Summit Series was played. The game would be deciding worldwide hockey supremacy between Canada and Russia. Paul Henderson scored the winner with just thirty-four seconds left in the final game to send both my high school and all of Canada into a state of euphoria. Canada had beaten those Commie Reds and like every school in Canada, our school had also taken the afternoon off to watch the game.

That game I will always associate with my first high school. Just the mention of Lawrence Heights Junior High will always conjure up an instant flashback to that afternoon. For that reason when I reflect back on my time spent at my first high school, I will always have a smile on my face.

That and beautiful teenage cleavage in my grade nine typing class.