Year Thirteen - 1979

In 1979 things started to change. Everything was changing. My body was changing. My home life was changing and by the end of the year, my school would be different. I would be in Junior High!

First, let's end things with Hogland Elementary School. At the end of your time at Hogland, when you are a sixth grader, the school used to sponsor a three day long camping trip. This was a fun three day adventure with my classmates out in the wilderness of Iowa. It was a chance to be away from the parents and walk for many miles each day. It was fun, but it was a lot of work and at the end of three days.....all of us kids were pretty dirty. But we did get to go away.....and carry a backpack....and eat freeze dried foods for three days. It is one of my favorite memories of the end of my time going to Hogland Elementary.

Shortly after the camping trip, we were off on summer vacation. I was delivering papers for the Times Republican and this was not always an easy job. On a regular basis my mother would take the paper to task for various things....and that left me with a little bit of a reputation there I think.....I was not their favorite paper carrier. However, I did have one of the largest routes in Marshalltown (117 papers every weekday and Saturday) and when the TR would run contests for its carriers, I was always high in the probability to win. At the start of this summer I won a ten speed bike. And right at the end of the summer, I won a weekend bus trip to Kansas City to watch a pre-season football game between the Chiefs and the Minnesota Vikings. I really could care less about the game....but I loved the travel. I liked feeling independent and experiencing new places.

As Fall approached, it was time to go back to school. And for me that meant going to Junior High back in my old neighborhood at the Anson school complex. It was about a two mile walk from my new home to Anson Junior High. As opposed to Hogland Elementary, which was basically in my own backyard. At first making this trek was not much of a problem. It was pretty much a straight shot....but as the weather got colder and wetter....it was not as much fun to walk two miles in those conditions. I usually walked alone. There were others from my neighborhood who went the same way....but some got dropped off by their parents...and others just walked in groups with their friends. I started to get used to being alone. And things did not get better once I got to school.

This was the start of some of the worst years of my life. I tried to keep a low profile and not draw attention to myself....but the bullies always seemed to find me. From knocking my books out of my hands when walking in the stairwell to outright spitting on me in the hallways....it was really kind of a nightmare that never seemed to stop when I was at school. And the names they were calling me...."gay" and "fag" and "queer". I knew these were not the things you wanted to be called....and yet, something in me knew there was some truth there.....I WAS different. I just did not know why....or what it meant to be different in that way.

I started to withdraw in class and classwork. And at the same time, my parents had started to argue more.....and it was becoming clear that they were going through something serious.