One of my most treasured finds when cleaning out the homestead awhile back was a manila envelope with all my report cards in it from kindergarten till high school, along with teacher notes. They were nothing to be proud of or brag about, so my mom kept them carefully separated from the other stuff. It really has been an amazing discovery at this age and what stories they tell.

By the time I was starting my junior year in '67 I could catch my breath and see the light at the end of the tunnel. I had finally caught up to my grade level and I knew just how much effort I needed to slide through and had absolutely no fear of the teachers or administration by then. I wasn't thinking about college or my future one iota. All I knew was this high school hell was half over with.

I took creative writing but have almost no memory of that class. I am not even sure who the teacher was, though I seem to remember her being on the younger side. They would divide up the year in 3 equal 6-week periods for a grade and then average them at the end. I got F, F and A, a popular combo for me. It averaged out to a C.

I do remember writing 3 stories. One was about a student who held the principal hostage with a gun until he was given his diploma. It went south and turned into a blood bath. This was way before Columbine and all the other school shootings too. I was ahead of my time. The other story was about what an average school day would have been like if the Nazi had won WW2. It was satirical in the sense I pretty much described what our school days were like anyway. Those were how I earned my F's. I remember the teacher telling me both stories were "inappropriate".

I finally wrote a short sci-fi story about a world so contaminated with air pollution that there evolved human beings that thrived on it and went to war with the 'free breathers'. That was my A and was in the little student literary digest they put out.

It is a sad year when your highest grade was in PE, and you did absolutely nothing in PE. I guess the coaches gave everyone B's for just making fog on a mirror. They were a doltish bunch....