The many women of Whitney Young Junior High

posted by Jeff | Wednesday, February 2, 2011, 11:22 PM | comments: 0

Something put my mind squarely in 1986 last night. Lucky age 13! I was going to Whitney M. Young Junior High School at the time, the year after the Cleveland school system shifted grade 9 into high school. This school was the honors school, because I was "gifted" or some such nonsense. Let's be honest about that... the bar was not high in Cleveland in the 80's, and it only got worse after that. Years later I took an IQ test that allegedly put me just short of genius, but clearly I've never applied myself at that level. My grades certainly didn't reflect any gift, as I had my share of B's and a C now and then.

I was a nerd. I got braces that summer, and in retrospect, my mom might have been buying clothes that were particularly uncool. It's hard to say, but when you get picked on for being a nerd, at a school full of nerds, that's definitely not a good sign. The weirdest thing about it all is that I was a really popular kid. Everyone knew me, if perhaps for the wrong reasons.

When I wasn't trying to score extra time in the computer lab with the PCjr's, I fancied myself as a ladies man. I was referring to girls on the playground as girlfriends years before that (and pulling hair, of course), and the hell of puberty made that worse. I think grade 8 was the first time someone, a teacher, told me I had a good voice for radio. I was 13! But hey, I figured Rick Dees probably gets a lot of chicks, so I welcomed the endorsement.

There were three girls that I recall being very fond of that year. The first one, Michelle, was someone I was drawn to the year before as well. She had a number of interesting hair looks, and was no stranger to product. She was no stranger to emulating Madonna's look either, and that was something not many white girls could really pull off. I thought she did it very well.

Michelle was one of the first girls I ever got nailed into the friend zone with. That's probably because I was a good listener in times when she didn't have a very good reputation. It makes me think about what bastards kids could be. I don't think she was sexually active, but she did have a lot of "boyfriends" that she never actually went out with. Who really dates at that age? Her worst moment came with a menstrual accident that was probably not a big deal, but to hear kids tell it, she left school that day looking like a horror movie victim. Like I said, bastards.

I think I can argue that Michelle was the girl who really established an early type for me, that of the free spirit, expressive type. I wouldn't quite describe her as a non-conformist (what teenage girl didn't try to emulate Madonna then?), but she rocked out with her style in a way that most kids her age didn't have the stones to do.

Also that year, I met Yani. We had two classes together. She was a great writer (we had English together), much taller than me, athletic, track star, and black. Clearly the court-ordered desegregation of the Cleveland schools had a positive effect on my generation, because there wasn't really any color in our eyes, but what I wouldn't have done to bring her home to my grandfather. He would have flipped out.

Yani was the first intense note-passing girl of my life. Every piece of paper passed to me had "JP + YP" in a heart, and that's hilarious. Relationships were so simple back then. Because of the way they moved grade 9 to high school, most of the third floor of the school, and parts of a side hall to the auditorium, were unused most of the time. We conspired to sneak into one of these unoccupied areas and make out.

Unfortunately, that never happened. As awesome as it would have been to have my first kiss at that age, how do you get a couple of nerds to break rules and do naughty things? Alas, we retained the honor in honor student. I hate myself a little bit for that.

Then there was Krystal. I was borderline obsessed with her pretty much the first day of grade 7. She had blonde curly hair, could sing, and rocked a headband look that was to die for. God, I remember the weirdest things. I also remember that she was, uh, advanced for her age. I've never been a "boob guy" in my adult life, but she was certainly endowed with blessings that other girls her age were not.

I only had one class with her, plus lunch, but that was the best half-hour of my day. I used to follow her around like a lost puppy. The thing is, I don't even remember anything particularly interesting about her personality. She was very into church, and I think at one point she even came to mine once. The details are a bit fuzzy now.

Unlike the other girls, this one had an epilogue. By the summer of 1988, we had moved to the suburbs. The 'burbs meant we had cable TV (not available in the city), and that meant MTV. Def Leppard made one of the best rock records of that year, with some neat concert videos that had lasers. I had to go see them.

I somehow kept in touch with Krystal, mostly by letter, I believe, and somehow we put it together that she got concert tickets and I convinced my aunt, Amy, to drive us there. That summer, I had my first date, seeing Def Leppard in the rain at Blossom Music Center. It was awesome. Europe opened, and "The Final Countdown" was awesome too. The bar for good music was pretty low in those days as well.

During much of that show, and especially when they performed "Hysteria," my teenage brain played out cheesy rainy movie love scenes, and I was going to grab her and kiss her, but I never worked up the nuts to follow through. It was getting cool with the rain, and I put my arm around her, but only for a few seconds. The big romantic moment came on the car ride home, where I nervously held her hand the entire way.

I rarely heard from her after that, though there was a hilarious letter exchange we had during my freshman year of college. She went flip-out born-again, complete with abstinence rants, got engaged to a guy named Manfred (really?) and described her fiance's plan to get rich from real estate deals. It was the most bizarre thing I had ever read. It was equal parts sad and hilarious.

It's weird to think of the simplicity of those early relationships. You don't think about "the one," or marriage, or getting laid. Simple holding hands can be something that smacks your universe around and shakes it with the intensity of an earthquake. I wish we could hold on to that simplicity a lot longer than we do.


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