Me Glorious Me

Not really, but this post is all about how I looked and when I looked that way and what was I doing. 

The pictures here are my school pictures and then the various forms of picture ID that I had as an adult.  As you can see I keep, or try to keep pretty much everything.  There are holes in this history, but no one is perfect, least of all me.



I have already posted a picture of me at 3.  The picture above is my 1st Grade picture taken in the calm before a pending storm.  I have other pictures posted of my first day of school.  The summer after 1st grade I had two sisters join me and shake my word with great tremors. 

I also got glasses.  Then school shots.  Summer was always a time of great excitement at the beginning.  Often new friendships that would fade once school began. But in August and right around my birthday reality came visiting. 




The Second (above) and Third (below) grades were relatively calm.



I do not know what happened, but in the 4th grade things took a turn. 




I began to get picked on.  I went to school and just tried to survive till the end of the day.  I learned not to go to the bathroom and developed a dubious ability to hold my water (so to speak).  I desperaely wanted to have friends but I guess I just put everyone off.  That is what I do today.  People just don't want to be around me for long.  Of course now I am a Pompous Ass and I suppose I was one then.  I guess it is unavoidable. 

 

By the 5th grade my teachers were beginning to realize that there was a problem with Roy.  We did not have the catalogs of "Syndromes" we have today so I could not just be dismissed as ADD and medicated. Thank goodness.  My Fifth Grade teacher Ms. Manahan was a no nonsense person but caring.  In the Summer between the 5th and 6th grade I attended a summer school at Ms. Manahan's home.  I remember going there on the first day, and not much more.

 

In the 6th Grade I had another great teacher - one of my favorites - Ms. McNabb, I Think.  She read to us each days and I loved those stories.   In my time, the 6th grade was the last grade in Elementary School.  We had one day where we went to 7th grade classes so we could see how the 7th grade was.  I do not remember who my guide was but I remember the day very well.  People were nice to me and I was enamored by the older boys.  It was not yet sexual attraction, but I wanted to be those boys friends.

 

Unfortunately I had to actually be in the 7th grade with the same people who either picked on me or ignored me.  A strange thing happened, boys quit picking on me in favor of spending time with girls.  They still made fun of when the opportunity arose.  In the 7th grade the guidance counselor, Miss Meadows, took and interest in me.  I was given IQ tests and other individual training.   

 

By the 8th grade I was changing as well.  I was beginning to have more defined feeling about other boys. 

I am not sure about the time line here.  I think in the summer between the 7th and 8th grades at Summer Band I met Ashley.  Ashley should have been a cool kid, but he was new and thus had to be friends with the rejects like me.  I was glad to have him.  I remember that in PE when we were changing in the shower room, he got aroused and ran around showing everyone his accomplishment.  I was not that developed yet and it was an embarrassment (I am an old prude) but a wondrous education.

I knew nothing about erections.  My parents had bought me a book about sex, but the thing I remember about that book was it started out, "Suppose you had a magic brick and from that brick you could grow an entire House?"  What?  Plus it was a book.  I had a hard time reading, so having show and tell in gym was helpful, plus I still have that visual. 

 

In the 9th grade my life changed again.  I was in the first, and experimental, class of the New Math.  It was called SMSG (School Mathematics Study Group) and had been developed in reaction to Sputnik.  The idea was not to teach Algebra with how to do things, but with why you do things. 

 

10th Grade. Do not really remember much about my Sophomore or Junior years.
 


 

I did not "walk" with my class at Graduation, but my Diploma says I graduated in 1964.  Like much of my education it was a lie.  In my senior year I finished off my record for failing English Grammar by failing both Grammar and Literature in my senior year.

 

As a result, I could not go through the ceremony of graduation, so I have never donned a Gown and handed my diploma.  In fact I did not finish my education at Alvin High School.  I took my last semester of English at Alvin Junior College, thanks largely to Jo Bennett, my English teacher at AJC. 

 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 



 


 


 


 


 


 

Random Pictures

When I think of my Mother I think of her in a 1950's Sun Dress, as she called them. Here she is walking back toward the house from the Clothes Line or the Chicken Yard. You can see the Chickens gathered so Mom probably just threw some delicious refrigerator trash over the fence.



That's Pogo I am torturing. He was a good dog. We kids thought he was our dog, but really he was Dad's dog. We called him Pogo because as a puppy he was white like the Possum in the Comic Strip. Pogo uttered the immortal word, "We have seen the enemy and they is us". I think our Pogo was just as wise. He is the one we told our troubles to.



There are a lot of things I blew in my life. One was not going into the Theater as a profession. I was always putting on plays as a kid. This is Christmas 1954. My Parents built two rooms onto their house so I could have my own room. The other room was a family room. For some reason rather than having a regular door they put in a double wide open door. I guess they figured that when my Grandmother passed on I would move into the room she was staying in and then the back rooms would not need to be private. My Parents never imagined at that time that there would have three children.



Anyway, I by default had a Proscenium to work with and work with it I did. The curtain that was put up to give me some privacy made the stage complete. The curtain can be seen to the right side of the Nativity Scene. The two rooms were the same size and for my productions the outer room was where the audience sat and my room was the stage. Very appropriate as most of my life as a child was lived in a fantasy.



Before my sisters, there was Donna. She has appeared here a number of times. I have no one to ask now, but it dawned on me that Donna moved before my parents adopted my sisters. I wonder now if the absence in my life of Donna caused me to ask for a sister - one that mine so she would not move away. At the young age of 6 I had so many people leave from my life.



I wish I could remember why I wore those boots. This was the period that I called myself Rawls.

Rub-a-Dub-Dub just me in a Tub

Ah yes, this is the life. Summer and my own private water hole. The near shadow behind me is from the garage and the next shadow back is of the house. The house across the street (Sidnor) is the Andrews' house. Martha Andrews was just a few years younger than I. We interacted at various points throughout our lives.



The swing set just behind me was amazing. It had a swing, rings, and trapeze. The greatest thing about it was that it was tall and had climb space. This was the frame around which we built all kind of play scenarios.