My Current Conundrum

What is too big of an age gap when dating in high school? My youngest is 15 and a freshman this year. In all the years prior to this she has never shown much interest in boys. The ones in her class were her friends, and that’s the way she always described them.

This year has been different. She has had two interests this year, or three if you count the one I told her that in no uncertain terms would I permit her to date him, especially after she told me he had a probation officer. I’m sure she meant juvenile officer, but either way, it was strikes one, two and three all at one time.

The latest guy poses a different problem, and the problem just might be me. He’s a junior and I want to say that it’s too much of an age difference. Am I being over protective? I keep going back to the difference between me as a freshman and me as a junior, and it was quite a difference. Granted, girls mature faster than boys (or at least that’s how it is in my house) so maybe she’s more mature than he is already, but I won’t know until I get a chance to get to know him a little.

So, the question remains, when it comes to dating in high school, how much of an age difference is too much of a difference?

A Match Made in.... Study Hall

The biggest restriction to adding posts to this blog is a self imposed rule that I won’t use names when there is even the least bit of doubt that the people involved might object. I want this to be a fun place and I want people to remember good memories, but not at the expense of causing anyone any embarrassment or discomfort. However, in school I was a prankster and sometimes that rule hamstrings what I can say here..

I’ve mentioned it before, but probably the most unique prank was one day in Study Hall when a couple of friends and I decided that a very quiet and shy guy and an equally quiet and shy girl would make a good couple. The trick would be to get them together, so since everyone said I “write like a girl”, I sent him a note and put her name on it while one of the other sent her a note and put the shy guy’s name on it. After that you sit back and watch the drama unfold.

The unique part to this is that the two actually dated a few times, although I honestly can’t say how long they dated or that our notes had anything to do with it, but I like to think the notes helped get it started.

Maybe if they’re at the next reunion I’ll ask them if they remember the notes.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

This morning there is about 2” of new snow on the ground, or just enough to make you pay attention on your drive into work since you have to watch out for some of those 4 wheel drive perverts who actually seem to drive faster on ice and snow to flaunt the rules of common sense and physics. Anyway, it actually had to “warm up” to snow. Today it’s 25 or so; yesterday morning it was 5 and the wind chill was around -25 ---the kind of cold that makes your skin hurt even on the short walk to the building from your car. For only the second time in my life, with living in Alaska being the first time, I wear gloves when I’m outside.

Now, I realize Loudon is in a little more temperate zone, and at 17 you feel invincible to even the common cold, but throughout most of high school I wore either a sweater or an Eisenhower jacket; one of those WWII OD green, wool jackets that stopped at the waist. That was it. No overcoat, gloves, boots, hat, or even an umbrella; just that sweater or jacket whether it was raining, snowing, fall, winter or spring, and even though I hoofed it everywhere.

And the thing is, I don’t remember a lot of other people bundling up either. To begin with, the lockers wouldn’t hold that much, and who wants to hang a wet umbrella in their locker to drip on the stack of old papers I had stashed in the bottom? That means I would have to clean the locker, and I’m a guy, so there is no way that was going to happen.

I think I was better in those days at prioritizing my worries.

Industrial Arts

There was something unique about the credits received for Industrial Arts, but it escapes me right now what it was. I think one year was worth either 1.5 or 2 credits because I think they it was half day of shop and a half day of class work.. I’ll have to look that up.

Anyway, it was a fun class partly because Mr. Caldwell always seemed to have some place else to go. I won’t say he was gone every day, but on a good many days there was something he needed to do in the main office or teacher’s lounge or some place like that, so we were frequently left on our own.

During one of his times away the guys got into a discussion about which shotgun shells were best. That ended up with them removing the shot from a couple of shells, clamping them into a vice and using and hammer and a screwdriver to set off the cap. The echoes were heard over half the school. The guys in Ag must have jumped out of their socks.

Another time a couple of the guys spent the time he was gone making different body parts out of wood, or the time someone removed several screws/nails from another student’s wood project so that when he began working on it, it fell apart.

There were few dull moments in Industrial Arts.

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times...

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…”

Mr. Dickens defines high school fairly well doesn’t he? No matter how much time I spend thinking about it, those years are the least definable of any other period in my life. I can remember good things and bad things. I can remember things that made me laugh and others that made me cry, and still others that made me do both at once.

I can absolutely say that overall I enjoyed it, but it was the uncertainty of it all that gave it some of its appeal.