Surviving or thriving

Maybe I should have been red-shirted.
But then I wouldn’t have graduated with all my friends from the class of ’66. And maybe I wouldn’t have met my wife.
I was born in the second half of November, which was not a big deal until it came time to go to school.
Today, a kid with my birth date would have to wait until he was six-going-on-seven before starting first grade.
But back then they were pretty casual about those things.
If you had an October birthday or a November birthday or even an early December birthday, you could have the option of going to first grade when you were five-going-on-six. It was up to the kid. It was up to the parents.
In my case, I headed off to first grade on sort of a tentative basis. The deal was, if I liked school and felt comfortable there I could stay.
But if I was uncomfortable for some reason, I could red-shirt myself and go to first grade the next year.
In the old neighborhood, there were forces pulling me in different directions. My good friend Don Starr — an October birthday — was going to first grade. But my buddy Jim Klopfenstein — a year younger than me — wasn’t going until a year later.
The choice was mine, and in spite of my great and ongoing friendship with Klop, I went to first grade at age 5.
That might not seem like a big deal. But I think it was.
Last week, I was reading Michael Ondaatje’s new novel “The Cat’s Table.” Much of it is a recollection of events as seen through the eyes of an 11-year-old.
And suddenly it hit me, almost as if I had blocked it from my memory, I had gone to junior high at age 11.
Now, in first grade, the age difference of a few months was no big deal.
But when you’re 11 and going into seventh grade, it is a big deal indeed. It’s the reason middle schools take such care to keep students within their own age cohorts.
Fact is, seventh grade is scary enough. To face it at 11 was absolutely terrifying.
I was a boy. But I was in an environment dominated by boys who were quickly becoming men. That made me a target for bullying. It also made me the most socially clueless member of my class during those early years of adolescence. More than once I thought that everyone else on earth knew what the heck was going on except me.
I was the kid. They were fast-tracking their way toward being grown-ups.
It didn’t help that the louts most inclined toward bullying were guys who had been held back a few grades. So while I was an 11-year-old seventh grader, they might be 16-year-old ninth graders.
In some ways, it’s a wonder I survived.
But the funny thing is, I not only survived but married someone who had gone through the same experience.
My wife Connie was skipped a grade or more, back when that sort of thing was done. So she found herself — a girl among females who were quickly becoming women — as an 11-year-old seventh grader.
In many respects, it was tougher on her than on me.
Both of us, as a result, went off to college when we were 17. (Yikes, we weren’t even very good drivers, let alone ready to face college.)
The good news — the great news — is that we met.
It happened to be the spring of her freshman year. I was a sophomore.
The day after we met, she would turn 18. I wasn’t invited to the party. We didn’t know each other that well.
Two weeks later I would ask her to marry me.
So maybe, this red-shirt stuff isn’t all it’s cracked up to be after all.[[In-content Ad]]