The School From Hell

TRIGGER WARNING! This will be a difficult read for some people.

Before I get to the main body of this post, I need to give some backstory. You’ll understand why in a few minutes.

I was country, but not a backward hick.

When my mother first left home and got out in the world, she realized she was a backward country hick. She was determined her children wouldn’t suffer this fate. So we traveled!

We had little money, but we’d take our food, sleep in the car, visit tourist spots, and attend all kinds of events; anything with free or cheap admission. And we visited extended relatives who were scattered across several states in every kind of socio-economic position. We kids experienced so much, had visited so many amazing places, had so many exciting adventures. Our horizons were suitably broadened.

The other thing I need to explain is about me specifically.

When I entered first grade, I was already several grades ahead of the other students in my reading and comprehension. This continued throughout school- I was always way ahead of my peers. Everyone said I talked like a book, and they called me a walking encyclopedia.

I had a bad habit of correcting people (even adults), if they gave what I perceived to be a wrong piece of information. And if someone mentioned something I had an interest in, I would launch into a lecture about the subject.

It wasn’t until my 20s that I began learning to talk to people on their own level. Nowadays I can have a comfortable conversation with someone whether they have an IQ of 70 or 100 or 150. But in my school days, I talked to everyone like they had an IQ of 150.

As you can surmise, I had zero social skills back then. Most of the other students avoided me and the teachers didn’t know what to do with me. (I did make some real friends in Jr. High and High school in Sugarland; several sweet outgoing girls who didn’t mind my quirky ways).

Now I can get to the purpose of this post.

After a few years of country living in Sugar Land, the city started springing up all around us and we moved back to north Texas, where Charles (stepfather), had grown up.

The new school I was enrolled in was the tiniest school I had ever seen. There were only 6 classes- 2 grades per class. Some grades had less than 6 students.

And the students were all backward country hicks. At least it seemed that way to me. Most had never been further than the Ft. Worth livestock shows. To be fair, some did go to college after graduation, and many did end up living and working in a city. But at this point, they had a tunnel vision view of the world as they knew it.

I want to make something clear. I quickly learned that these kids were not stupid. As I came to learn, they had much knowledge and experience in things that I didn’t have. They had grown up using farm machinery, learning to doctor animals, knowing how to bale hay, harvest crops and work cattle. These are all skills most people wouldn’t have a clue about.

What was my experience? Boring chores like weeding the garden, picking ripe fruits and vegetables, unzipping peas, shucking corn and plucking butchered chickens and turkeys. Anyone can do those things. Not much skill involved.

There’s a lesson in this: never assume someone in a different social strata than you is stupid. They might be ignorant of your ways, but I can guarantee they have smarts about things you never dreamed of.

But to get back to the story… (Yes, I chase a lot of rabbits!)

These kids were part of a tight-knit community, with family roots stretching back for several generations in the area. Outsiders were eyed with suspicion and treated with hostility. Not only was I an outsider, my ways were strange to them.

My brothers had advantages I didn’t have and fit in quickly. For one thing, they were several years younger than me and still in elementary school. Their peers weren’t set in their ways yet, and hadn’t formed their clannish ways. My brothers also had social skills. And, perhaps their biggest advantage, they had both been born there (before we moved from north to south Texas the first time), and even more importantly, their daddy Charles had been born and raised there, and everyone knew him and his family. So my brothers were quickly accepted into the fold.

Of course my experience was opposite.

The high schoolers had already formed their enclosed group. I was an unwanted intruder. And they let me know it. They bullied and harassed me and tormented me mercilessly. But that wasn’t bad enough. For some reason I’ll never understand, the principal, who was also the math teacher, developed an intense hatred toward me. He methodically set out to make life as miserable as possible for me. I’m going to call him Mr. Butthead, and believe me, I’m being very nice.

What a piece of work he was. He had been principal of that school for about 15 or 20 years. In all that time, there was a particular rule that was strictly enforced, no exceptions. If a girl became pregnant, she was immediately expelled from school. Then his own daughter, who was a year or so younger than me, got pregnant. Guess which rule was changed suddenly?

Mr. Butthead lost no opportunity in letting me know exactly how he felt about me. But only when the other teachers weren’t around. If I passed him in the otherwise empty hallways, or if I needed to go in the office and he was the only one in there, he would start in on me. “You’re not wanted here”. “You need to go back where you came from”. And so on.

As I mentioned, Mr. Butthead was also the math teacher. His classroom was his domain and no other adults were in there so he took advantage to bully me right there in the classroom in front of the other students. It was one thing when the other students would gang up in groups and bully me, but they didn’t know how to respond when as adult authority figure did the same thing in front of them. So when he would start in on me, they would all look down at their desk, fidgeting uncomfortably.

Now I had never been brilliant at math, but I did ok. I had made a lot of Bs, some Cs and some As. But it should come as no surprise that I failed Mr. B’s class. Which gave him a new word in his repertoire of names for me: stupid.

Another thing he kept doing: calling my mother from school and complaining about things I did. When I would get home, she would confront me. The thing is, they would be based on real incidents, but the details were so exaggerated and convoluted, a nothing incident would be blown up into something horrific I had done. I gave up trying to defend myself. It was my word against that of the principal.

So what did I do that was so wrong? I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible during class. I did what I was told to do, answered questions when called upon during a lesson, did my homework. I only spoke when spoken to. I had always been the kind who tried to melt into the background and go unnoticed.

When school was out, I headed straight to the library. Home was in walking distance, and I only rode the bus (a tiny little bus!), when the weather was bad. The rest of the time, I would spend maybe an hour or so in the library. When I got home, all I wanted to do was fool around with my chickens for a little while, work on the book I was writing, work on one of my oil paintings, or read whatever book I was reading at the time.

Mr. Butthead kept calling me a troublemaker. How was I a troublemaker? I think I know, based on several incidents that happened involving me. Only one of them was instigated by me.

In Sugar Land, I had joined the FFA (Future Farmers of America – a nationwide school organization) and took agriculture class. One of the first things I wanted to do in the new school was take ag class, which I think was the only elective they had (tiny school: no music class, foreign language or anything). Mr. B emphatically informed me that class was for boys only. Girls were not allowed. I knew this was wrong and I got insistent. As far as I can remember, this is the only time I made a fuss about anything in that school. Mr. B kept refusing: it’s only for the boys! I wouldn’t give up. He finally relented. The first day I walked into agriculture class (finally!) there were girls in there! He had lied to me! And I’m sure he didn’t like being caught out!

I don’t remember the order in which the following incidents happened, but they all happened and they were not of my doing.

One day I got called into the office. Mr. B had found some pills in my locker (why was he in my locker?). He asked me what kind of drugs those were, and I said vitamins, which was true. I was a stickler about taking my vitamins, and I had read they were best taken with a meal. So I kept a bottle in my locker, and every day after lunch, I took one.

Of course he didn’t believe that they were vitamins, but since he didn’t know exactly what they were, he couldn’t call the law on me. So the school sent the pills to a laboratory to have them analyzed. When they got the report back, there it was in black and white: Vitamin C, various B-Vitamins, etc. I bet they wished they could have swept that report under the rug and pretend it never happened, but by law, a copy was mailed to my address. My mother got a big laugh out of that.

Before I tell of the next incident, I need to explain something first.

In my previous school, which was a big one because it served so much of the county, there was a big field next to it with a lot of trees. After lunch, many kids would go out there to smoke cigarettes, and since teachers never went out there, they also freely smoked pot. I went out there too, but not to smoke anything. I just wanted to get outdoors for a few minutes. I did try the pot once, but only once, and never had touched it again. But I was very familiar with the small of pot smoke.

In the new school, those girls who were always tormenting me also went outside after lunch. I didn’t go, because I was avoiding them, so I would go into the next class early and read until the bell rang.

Just about the time it rang, in came that group of girls, like a gaggle of geese, giggling and reeking of pot. The teacher also knew what that smell was, but she was a tolerant sort. Sometimes she would roll her eyes and say something like, “You girls shouldn’t be smoking that stuff on school grounds”. They would just laugh.

Another thing, sometimes they would talk about the drugs they did and the alcohol they drank over the weekend. I had never done any of that.

One evening at home, a knock came at the door. My mother opened the door and there were two men standing there from the sheriff’s department. I don’t remember if it was the sheriff and a deputy, or two deputies, but they were official. They told my mother that they had gotten a report that her daughter was selling drugs and they needed to talk to me.

I was furious, and convinced those girls were trying to get me in trouble. So I told the law I had never done drugs, and here are the names of the girls you need to be talking to. I gave them the list of names, and they went knocking on doors, as I found out the next day in school.

If you’re not thinking it, I’ll say it. That was a really dumb thing to do. The school was in an uproar, and I was at the center of it. From that day, things just got worse for me.

It didn’t occur to me until years later that Mr. Butthead is probably the one who reported me. I feel bad that I may have falsely accused those girls of something they were innocent of. I doubt they were dealing anything. I do get a bit of satisfaction in thinking that Mr. B., somewhere in the back of his corrupt mind, must have known he was indirectly responsible. He had tried to get me in trouble and it backfired.

Then there was the parade incident. Which as far as I’m concerned was a non-incident. In fact, it was such a nothing, it’s completely ridiculous that I need to tell about it.

Our county had a parade and rodeo every year in the county seat. Each class in each school in the county made a float for the parade. Our class spent a month building the float. I don’t even remember the theme.

Parade day came, and the school towed the float the 20 miles or so to the county seat. Initially, they stopped with it at the edge of town, a few miles from the starting point. Everyone in the class was to meet the float there and give it a good going over to make sure everything was intact and in order. Kids who had their own cars drove themself to the appointed spot. The kids who didn’t caught a ride with a friend, or their parents dropped them off. I guess my mother dropped me off. The only person there besides the students was the school janitor/handyman, who had towed the float.

Once it was determined the float was ready to go, all the kids ran and jumped in the available cars and took off to reach the parade starting point. Nobody said anything to me. They just suddenly jumped in the cars and roared off. I was just standing there, a few miles from where I was supposed to be on a blazing hot day. Mr. Handyman was getting ready to leave with the float, and I asked him for a ride.

We arrived at the starting point, and those girls saw me get out of the truck cab. An uproar ensued. Everyone was pointing accusing fingers at me, yelling, “Mr. B! Mr. B! Did you see that? She was riding in Mr. Handyman’s pickup!”. Apparently I had committed some terrible sin and that was just further confirmation of what a bad person I was.

What was I supposed to do? Walk? By the time I got there, the entire event would have been over, assuming I didn’t have a heat stroke first.

The worst incident happened one day during the lunch hour.

I know I said I didn’t go outside during lunch, but one day, for some reason I had cause to go out. There were those girls. As usual, I did my best to ignore them. One of them approached me and said I wasn’t welcome there. The rest of the group was watching with interest. Her words got my back up, and I tried to go around her, but she got right in front of me, almost touching me chest to chest. I raised a leg and pushed against her leg, trying to get around her. That did it.

The entire group jumped me, pushed me to the ground and began kicking and punching me. There was nothing I could do to defend myself, except to curl up and try to cover my head. I finally got away and limped back into the building. A teacher saw me and asked what happened. I told her that group of girls jumped me. So once again, chaos erupted and I was the center of it.

Mr. Butthead was as furious as I ever saw him. He called them and me together and yelled at all of us. They all insisted I started it. He believed them, even though I was the only one covered in bruises from head to toe, the other girls being untouched. In the strictest sense of the law, I guess I would be considered guilty since I initiated first contact. But I did not start it!

After Mr. B yelled at all of us, he turned his full venom on me. I don’t remember anything he said, except for one statement that resonated in my mind. “We never had trouble in this school until you showed up!”. I learned in later years that wasn’t true. They were just always quick to hush up a scandal, but the incidents involving me were such that they couldn’t be covered up.

I got suspended from school for several days. I had NEVER EVER been in any kind of trouble at any other school. But now, I was getting suspended. Just me. The other girls were getting off with a slap on the wrist.

Many more incidents happened, but I’ve told enough to give the reader an idea of what it was like.

My situation at home was also deteriorating. (I’ll tell about that in another post). It came to the point that I had no relief anywhere at home or school. And my sleep was filled with nightmares. I was becoming increasingly suicidal, and finally dropped out of school. I couldn’t take any of it any more.

Why did Mr. B hate me? I suspect that he was driving his daughter hard to be the best at everything. Perhaps he couldn’t stand that I was obviously much smarter than her.

Or maybe I reminded him of someone from his childhood whom he hated. That’s one of those things I’ll never know or understand.