Terror In The Tenth Grade (a true story)

When I was a little boy, I didn't really care what shoes I had. If they fit, and didn’t hurt, I was good to go.

I even remember once, when we lived in Vidalia, Louisiana, that I needed some new tennis shoes, and my mother handed me a five dollar bill, and I rode my bike to West Brothers and bought myself a pair of shoes. I was probably 11 or so. This would have been around 1973-1974. I was fine with that.

Then in 1975, we moved from Vidalia (population, oh, about 4,000 souls) to the monstrous, ginormous, incredibly massive city of Monroe, Louisiana (population, oh, about 50,000 souls).

I started eighth grade there at Robert E. Lee Junior High School, and by then I had advanced to my first pair of Converse All-Star (Chuck Taylor) purple low tops. Not fancy, but I loved those things.

Throughout that whole year, I still didn't much care about having the "right" clothes, much less shoes. I bathed every day, and wore decent stuff from Jacques Penn-ay, so I was cruising along.

But next year when I started at Neville High School, for some strange reason, Sainted Mother let me buy my first pair of Nike's. I was in love. With a shoe.

Even then I wasn't trying to fit in. In fact, most of my classmates were all about the Addidas, but something about that white leather pair of Nike's spoke to me.

So, even though I was still a fashion reject because I never sported designer jeans which had become popular, nobody messed with me about stuff like that; I guess that the Nike's were socially acceptable enough. (Plus, being bigger than them helps lower the risk of ridicule.)

Life went on, high school kept creeping along, and then sometime in the tenth grade, whatever pair of Nike's I had at the time, had a serious enough blow out to demand new shoes, and quickly.

One problem, ye olde pocket book of Sainted Mother's was almost bare, and so we ventured off to Monkey Ward to see what could be had on the cheap.

By then, although by no means a clothing snob, I had become attached to Nike's, and dare I say it, dreading having to show up at school wearing a brand new pair of Trax from Kmart, or something that would bring down the ridicule of my friends.

They even had a weird name for lame, off-brand, or ugly shoes. They would call them "pies". Don't ask me why.

Now the word pie could be easily added to to reflect anything from the looks to the smell of a ridiculed pair of shoes and the owner of those shoes. Ex. Smelly AND ugly shoes could might be called "tuna pies." I know, it's stupid, but then so were we at 15. There's no plumbing the depths of the weirdness in the minds of a 15 year old.

Back to the store. I had at least avoided the massive humiliation of having to show up with a pair of Trax from Kmart, my compadres at school could spot a pair of those a good mile away. There was no hiding a pair of Trax. But thankfully they didn't sell them at Montgomery Ward.

Then the problem of Sainted Mother's lack of funds arose, and the only thing I could get, that I though I might be able to slip by my friends was a pair of Converse All-Star fakes, with the unfortunate brand name of "SKIPS."

So I go to school the next day, and all is well, for a while. We were in Phys Ed and had to change into our gym shorts and t-shirts. No more long legged jeans to help hide my Skips.

We were avoiding having to participate in volleyball as much as possible and a bunch of us were sitting on the high school gym's bleachers, as the volleyball nets were set up inside.

By this time, I had completely forgotten about my shoes, when one of my friends, Mike K., sitting a level below me on the bleachers happens to glance down at my shoes.

"Aw, man! Check out Big John's new pies! AW MAN! THEY'RE SKIPS!" and everyone fell about in laughter.

Skips were one level above Trax on the acceptable shoe scale, and my almost-Converse shoes had avoided being laughed at for precisely 4 periods. Half a school day.

The next few months were long, as I wore the Skips, and until I earned enough mowing money to buy my next pair of Nike's.

The ridicule eventually died away, and I was invisible again, just like I liked it.

I can't forget the ridicule of the Skips. I didn't mind the ridicule part, it wasn't what they said that bothered me, it was the ATTENTION. Good or bad, I didn't want attention, and I still don't.

And I'm still a Nike guy, even after all these years. I've tried converting to other belief systems brands of shoes, but I always come back to Nike's. Once I find a pair that fits my size 14 gunboats, I'm a happy man, and my feet are happy too. Everyone has a preferrence, and to me, Nike's always feel like I'm putting on a favorite old flannel shirt.

Jumpin' John

After my junior year (11th grade) of high school, I bought my first good camera, a Canon AE-1.

The head of the high school yearbook said I could work on the yearbook staff if I had a camera. So I worked my hiney off and saved and bought the camera during the summer of 1979, a couple of months before beginning my senior year.

I called the teacher and told her I had a camera, and she said I could go to a summer yearbook workshop that was happening just before school started. The workshop was held in my hometown at University of Louisiana - Monroe, so the week long event was a total blast. Easy to get to and I learned black and white film and print developing.

When school started, they supplied me with a "potato masher," a big flash like pros used, to take pictures at football games and whatnot.

The camera, I just carried around all day at school and took photos of the other nobodies like myself. The yearbook's main photographer was another senior, but this guy was born to be a pro photographer. He already had tons of equipment and experience and was being counted on to deliver the great shots.

Steve did fantastic work, but there was only one issue with all of that; Mrs. D, the teacher in charge of the yearbook wanted photos and she wanted them fast. And a bunch of them.

What to do? Steve was such a social person, he often was able to take photos at events but somehow didn't have much time for grinding out the film and print work in the school's darkroom.

"Uh, Mrs. D? I can stay late on school days, and I can come in on weekends and do darkroom work for you. As much as you want. Whenever you want," Said I.

She looked at me like I had a two heads. A high school student, working on a yearbood for which he got no credit, and for which he was willing to work what amounted to a part-time job for free? She immediately took me up on my offer.

My feet didn't touch the ground for two weeks. Unlimited Kodak Tri-X (ISO 400, B&W film) for the school year, and as many prints as I could churn out for Mrs. D.

When the film was developed, I would make contact prints by putting a piece of 8x10 light sensitive paper down, lay out the strips of film, flatten it it all together with a piece of glass and shine the enlarger light on them for a few seconds, and then develop that print and let it dry.

Mrs. D would take a stack of these contact sheets, each showing small pics of a whole roll of film, examine them with a loupe and circle the ones she wanted me to print.

After school for many days and many weekends through the year, I did much of the darkroom work. Steve did his share, but I was Mrs. D's go-to guy for rush jobs and weekend work.

But the sweetest part of the whole deal is that I made sure, with Mrs. D's blessing, to develop lots of photos of the nobodies, dregs, and wretches that usually never make it to the yearbook because yearbook space is usually given over to the beautiful and the popular. I'm very proud of my senior year yearbook because lots of folks got their pics in there that wouldn't have otherwise because of lack of being a jock or popular.

Why in the heck is this post titled Jumpin' John then?

Well, one Monday after my high school's football team had won a playoff game the previous week, several classmates called to me in the hall. "Hey! There's Jumpin' John!" and then move on. I had no idea what they were talking about.

Finally someone on the football team told me. They had all come in Sunday afternoon to watch films of the game, and when our running back scored the winning touchdown, the coaches rewound the game film, and then said, "Now, watch what happens on the upper part of the sideline when and after the score."

And they re-ran that portion of the film, and there was Me on the sideline, camera held to my eye, waiting for the running back to dive for the short touchdown, took a couple of shots, watched for the umpire's signal confirming the score, whereupon I apparently started running and leaping and dancing up and down the far-side sideline.

The football team got a laugh out of it, and the coaches re-wound the film and they watched it again, and one of the coaches mentioned for the players to watch and see that I got the shots, waited for the official to signal the score, and THEN started my celebrations.

So I was Jumpin' John there for a few weeks in the fall of my senior high school year, and then some other schmuck did something stupid and they left me alone and started eating on other carrion. High school students have short attention spans thankfully.

Not that I cared anyway, I was bigger than most all of them and they were sure to do their picking on me in a good-natured way.

Anyhoo, that's my story.

The top pic is of a physics classmate pretending to pound Mr. Luther with a dusty chalkboard eraser.

The middle pic is of a behind-the-lines tackle I photographed in a playoff game against Lake Charles High School.

The final photo is a bust of none other than the great William Shakespeare, dressed up as a Neville Tiger fan. It was in our English class.

Picture Post, Sunday January 21, 2007

Well.

I've been milking the Louisiana trip's photos. So I'm gonna just keep right on milking.

I took something like 500-600 pictures on that trip, so these probably won't be last ones from that trip you see either.

Mwa-ha-ha-ha.

This first photo was taken at the University of Louisiana-Monroe. It's a foot bridge from some of the dormitories across Bayou Desiard to the other half of the campus.

This is one of the lamps that light the foot bridge in the above photo.

This is a photo of the front of the football stadium at Neville High School in Monroe, La., where I went to high school.

This is a photo looking down Bayou Desiard, taken from the middle of the foot bridge in today's first photo.

This is a photo of Bayou Desiard at a place near the university. It was a gorgeous day, and I thought the sky and the bayou made a great looking pair.

This final one was kind of unexpected. I really like the way the sky and trees of this cemetery are stark enough to give the image the vibe of a black and white image, but BAM, the flowers in the foreground give it a splash of color. (I almost said that the flowers in the foreground give it some life. Get it? Cemetery? Life? Oh, forget it.) Don't be afraid to use that flash outdoors to fill in the foreground boys and girls.