North Country Girl: Chapter 16 — Junior High School: Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

For more about Gay Haubner’s life in the North Country, read the other chapters in her serialized memoir. The Post will publish a new segment each week. 

The back to school letter from Congdon did not bring good news. The enrichment program at Endion was supposed to be for two years: fifth and sixth grade. But yet another revolution in educational theory had hit Congdon, and the school pulled the five of us smarty pants out of the program, so we could enjoy all the benefits of the new system.

A modern extension had been wadded on to the old brick school building for Congdon fifth and sixth graders; we were to be the guinea pigs for a new “modular” elementary education. Someone had finally realized that teachers who graduated from college before World War II, and whose educational ideal was a pin-drop quiet classroom with seasonally decorated bulletin boards might not be capable of instructing students in higher math skills or science that wasn’t a slowly dying terrarium. Miss Ritchie, I’m afraid they were looking at you.

Instead of a single classroom teacher, we now had four, each one with a specialty: English, Social Science, Math, and Science. The new teachers were all under forty and to our shock, two of them were male—I didn’t think men were allowed to be elementary school teachers. The teachers each had their own room with new lightweight desks, so we had four different desks to keep our stuff in. Since each class of students moved from room to room during the school day, none of us except the most anal of twelve-year-old girls ever had the right books, pencils, or writing paper for the class we were in. The first ten minutes of every class was spent repositioning our desks in small groups or a big circle or in rows, or an original configuration, if the teacher could think of one, with chair legs screeching against the linoleum, and “ouches” and “ows” as we banged into each other, jockeying for position next to the most popular kids. The next ten minutes was spent scrounging for supplies that had been left in the previous classroom. Under this new regime, art and music fell by the wayside. I guess the amount of time we had spent in previous years creating shoebox dioramas and learning to sing “White Coral Bells” as a round was considered adequate.

The male teachers took over gym, and competitive games ruled. Out went square dancing, in came high velocity dodgeball. I was not only always chosen last, but also managed to get hit as soon as possible by placing myself directly in front of the first ball languidly tossed over by a girl on the other side. In this way I avoided being concussed by one of the boys’ vicious fastballs, and I got to spend gym period sitting dreamily on the sidelines, missing my wonderful enrichment class and imagining I was watching the Olympics in ancient Greece before strolling down to the Acropolis. During one particularly brutal game, when it got down to two players on each side, husky Mr. Levine, nominally our math teacher, pointed at Billy Shaw and called “Out!” to which Billy Shaw replied “F**k you, Mr. Levine.” Mr. Levine charged Billy like a freight train and proceeded to beat the shit out of him all around the gym. The rest of us huddled together, like wildebeests watching one of our own being devoured by a lion, and tried to get as far away as possible from the pummeling. This incident did not result in a dodgeball ban, or even in a reduction of the fierceness of the competition, which remained at major head injury level; there was just less audible cursing from the boys, and I continued to be able to avoid getting any exercise in gym.

A dodgeball resting on the court
Dodgeball. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Soo C. Kim, Wikimedia Commons)

For the first time in our collective student memory, there was a new girl in our class. Becky Sweet, a blonde so slight and pale she looked in danger of toppling over, was a pro at being the new kid: her father was a minister of some obscure Nordic-based Protestant denomination and was assigned to a different Minnesota town every few years. Becky had vast experience in recognizing which girl needed a friend the most and lit on me as her new best friend. I had never had another kid choose me for anything before, and fell into best friendship without a thought.

Becky was obsessed with sex and George Harrison and had the oddest family life I had every seen. She would not come to my home, but insisted that I sleep over at her house every Friday. I never once met her father. His work took him all around upper Minnesota and Wisconsin, driving to small farm towns to stand in for ministers who had dropped dead or shot their wives or been caught tampering with the livestock. Or he was at church, counseling parishioners, or rarely, in his study, NOT TO BE DISTURBED.

Becky’s mother was also a ghostly presence. I would catch a glimpse of her when I walked into their house, wafting from room to room before vanishing into her bedroom. Becky and I were left with her older sister, who supervised the making of huge bowls of popcorn, dinner for the three of us, washed down with Hawaiian Punch, about as transgressive a dinner as I could imagine. Then a car pulled up, a boy shouting and blasting the horn, and big sis would take off for the night. Becky and I settled down on her couch to watch the Friday Night Fright Fest, old black and white sci-fi movies where radiation would create giant women, tiny men, and plants that could walk and eat people. When the Duluth broadcasting day ended at midnight, Becky and I climbed into her bed, back to back. I fell asleep listening to her explicit fantasies about having sex with George Harrison, the important details of the act having been supplied to her by her sister. Had I met Becky the year before, I wouldn’t have cared about missing the “Becoming a Woman” educational film and I would have been voted Most Knowledgeable About Sex at Camp Wanakiwin. Becky’s obsession was almost innocent: she didn’t try to touch me and I don’t think she touched herself. Unlike the other Beatle-crazed girls I knew, Becky didn’t press me to pick a favorite Beatle. I was the audience for her stories about George Harrison and his undying lust for her pre-pubescent body To me it was far from erotic; it was just another piece of Becky’s Bizarro World, like the missing parents, the wooden crosses on every wall, and the fridge that held nothing except can after can of Hawaiian Punch.

Four Ghostbuster action figures stand before a threatening Barbie doll
Monster movies. (monster777, via Creative Commons)

These Friday nights were a dark, musky secret at the heart of our friendship. My mom was too busy with an infant and a missing six-year-old to ask about my sleepovers at Becky’s, so she never knew about the popcorn dinners, staying up until midnight, or the lack of adult supervision. Since Mrs. Sweet never seemed to leave the house, she was far out of my mother’s social orbit; mom felt no compunction to invite Becky to sleep over at our house, as she would for a daughter of a matron of long Duluth standing. Becky never showed the least desire to come to my house; a real dinner might have been a serious blow to her digestive system.

Then in the spring, Becky was gone, her father sent off to another parish. Because I had been away from Congdon at the enrichment program for half the year during fifth grade and held in isolation by Becky Sweet for most of sixth, I was now completely friendless. I read, watched TV, held my baby sister, and kept an eye out in case Lani reappeared.

***

The street where I lived, Lakeview Avenue, was on the very border of zoning for two Junior High Schools, Ordean and Woodland, so I could opt to go to either one. I was the only one in the Congdon sixth grade to occupy this geographic odd spot; all of the other kids lived in the Ordean zone and were headed there.

I took stock of my friendless state and decided that I needed a fresh start. I was the four-eyed bookworm, the eternal teacher’s pet, the kid you did not want on your dodgeball, volleyball, or softball team. But if I went to Woodland Junior High, I could re-invent myself! I could be a woman (girl) of mystery. Girls would want to whisper to me about other girls and pass notes about which boys they liked, and boys would want to walk me home, carry my books, and hold my hand. I could be cool.

My fantasies were not unlike Becky’s. Somehow she would meet George Harrison and he would be smitten with love for her. Somehow I would enter Woodland Junior High and be popular. Before our pre-school shopping trip to Minneapolis, I pored over Seventeen magazine, noted that grape and rust were the in colors for fall. From the “Back to School” racks of clothing I carefully selected skirts and dresses in those hideous shades, all at a slightly above knee length, as I had been instructed by Seventeen. My mother, the shopaholic and former beauty queen, was delighted that I was turning into a real girl.

I thought I was ready to conquer Woodland Junior High, an uninspired white brick two-story building, bland as boiled rice on the outside; inside held a disturbing whiff of chlorine from the pool and all the miseries of being a pre-teen girl. The boys contributed their own smell: sweat, Clearasil, Right Guard, and the Jade East cologne worn by sophisticated ninth graders. This smell permeated the halls we streamed through, every hour, year after year, as we traveled from one classroom to the next.

Theatre interior
Woodland auditorium. (Perfect Duluth Day)

I had been overconfident in my ability to transform myself; the scratchy new sweater the color of Welch’s Grape Jelly and the coordinated plaid skirt were not enough. Clothes do not make the seventh grade girl, a lesson I seemed incapable of learning.

The first morning of Junior High was filled with the excitement and confusion of a hundred new students trying to find their different classrooms, prompted by a confusing buzz of the school bell every fifty minutes, overseen by bored teachers trying to determine if you were in the right class. When the noon bell sounded, I followed the seventh grade shift of lunchers into the gigantic cafeteria.

I waited in the endless school lunch line and wished I had brought a packed lunch, looking out at the tables already crowded with kids pulling sandwiches out of brown paper bags. When I finally got my tray I stood in the center of the cacophony in my new duds, grinning like Alfred E. Newman, and waiting for someone to wave me to their table. My stomach and my heart squeezed together as I realized that my plan was not going to work. All the girls already had their cliques from elementary school; new comers need not apply. And I am sure that not a single seventh grade boy noticed that I was dressed out the pages of a Seventeen magazine.

I tossed the contents of my tray into the garbage and spent the rest of the lunch hour weeping silently in a bathroom stall. 

1936: Golden Moment of Triumph

Jesse Owens wrote a series of Post articles about great U.S. Olympians in 1976. In this article from the January/February issue, Owens recalls his own moment of triumph in 1936 Berlin and the people who inspired him to become a champion.

 


 

1936: Golden Moment of Triumph

By Jesse Owens

Originally published January/February 1976

Illustration of Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens (Illustration by Robert Charles Howe)

Editor’s note: In the Olympic Games of 1936, held in Berlin, a superb American athlete by the name of James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens won four gold medals. He won his first two medals with astonishing performances in the 100- and 200-meter sprints, setting new records in both. His leap in the broad jump won him a third medal, once again for a record, 26 feet 5 5/16 inches. And finally, Jesse ran in the 400-meter relay to help set another world record and to win a fourth gold medal for the United States. As a mere boy in junior high school in Cleveland, Jesse had run the hundred yards in 10 seconds flat, a phenomenal feat. That was the beginning of fame for a youngster born in 1913 on a tenant farm in northern Alabama, one of seven children who worked with their parents in the cotton fields. This splendid man who was a great-grandson of slaves, who was called by Dr. Paul Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist leader, “a black American auxiliary,” has made everyone in America proud of his lifetime contributions as a citizen. Goebbels had to eat those words that day in ’36 as Jesse swept the field time after time, and in due time was selected by sportswriters’ polls as the world’s “top track performer since 1900.”

Jesse’s fame has not dimmed through the years, as he has continued to represent the character of American athletic competition as an inspiration to youngsters, and an image of integrity that has never wavered since the days of his track triumphs. Arthur Daley once commented, “Owens was so matchless in his sheer grace and speed that his like may never be seen again.”

Today, Jesse Owens is scarcely a pound heavier than in his running years. Trim, erect, square-shouldered, he walks on those marvelous legs, still, like some relaxed panther ready to burst into galvanizing energy at a moment’s notice. His own story of his Olympic victories tells you much about the kind of man he is.

 

Since I was 13 years old, it was my dream that I might someday participate in the Olympics. It all came about simply because our junior high school coach, Charles Riley, who happened to develop quite a lot of good runners for this country, brought to our school, Fairmount Junior High School in Cleveland, Ohio, a man who at that time was known as the “World’s Fastest Human Being,” Charles Paddock, the great United States sprinter famous for his leaping lunge at the finish of every race.

Charlie Paddock had just returned from the 1920 Olympics in Amsterdam, Holland, and he was a very nice man who settled down and just told us kids all about it.

When Charlie Paddock was through talking to us, the coach came down to where I had been sitting in the front row in an end seat in the auditorium and he whispered in my ear that since there were a lot of youngsters who might want to get Charlie Paddock’s autograph, perhaps I could take the problem in charge and help them line up. I did this, and as a reward after the last of my schoolmates got the great man’s autograph, I was invited into the coach’s office to meet the famous runner.

I can remember facing this great athlete as he sat on the coach’s desk with one leg hanging down, and he and the coach seemed to be in such deep conversation that I was afraid I was interrupting them. But they didn’t seem to mind my standing around and the great Paddock shook my hand as he left.

Afterward the coach asked me, “Well, what do you think about him?” And I said, “Well, gee, coach, I sure would like to be known as the ‘World’s Fastest Human Being’ some day.” So, then, Charles Riley told me something I have never forgotten.

“Everybody should have a dream,” he said. “Every man must remember that dreams are high and that you must climb a ladder to reach them. Each rung of that ladder has a meaning of its own as you climb. The first rung of that ladder, of course, goes back to one important point — just how dedicated are you? How much of what you have are you willing to give to the dream? And the next rung of the ladder is your determination to train yourself to reach the dream at the top. And the third rung of that ladder is the self-discipline that you must display in order to accomplish all this. The fourth rung, which is one of the most important rungs in that ladder to your dream, is the kind of attitude you have in going about all this. By this I mean, are you capable of giving every moment that you possibly can to making this dream come true and of throwing your whole heart and soul into the effort?”

I remembered that moment nine years later when I stood at the starting line of the 100-meter race in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, waiting to run against the finest competitors that the world had to offer. I looked down that field to the finish 109 yards and 2 feet away and then I began to think in terms of what it had taken for me to get there, the number of people who had counseled and coached me; and the people who believed in me — the community from which I had come and the school which I attended.

And as I looked down at the uniform of the country that I represented and realized that after all I was just a man like any other man, I felt suddenly as if my legs could not carry even the weight of my body. My stomach said that it wasn’t there. My mouth was dry as cotton; the palms of my hands wet with perspiration. And as we stood there, unnoticed — unnoticed because a German boy had won an Olympic victory in another part of the stadium, and the crowd was giving him an ovation that was due an Olympic champion — this was the sight that I saw within that wonderful arena. As my eyes wandered across the field, I noticed the green grass — the red track with the white line. A hundred-and-odd-thousand people crowded into the stands. And as my eyes looked upward, I noticed the flags of every nation represented there at the Olympic Games underneath that German blue sky.

Now, my attention was diverted from that beautiful picture, because the whistle had been blown and we were to assemble around the starter to receive our final instructions for this historic event. After our instructions had been given, every man went to his mark and adjusted hands and feet. Every muscle in his body was strained. And suddenly the gun went off. The athletes ran neck and neck for some yards, but our Ralph Metcalfe of Marquette University led the field at the 50-yard mark. From then, the 70 to the 90, Ralph and I ran neck and neck. And then for some unknown reason I cannot yet fathom, I beat Ralph, who was such a magnificent runner.

The greatest moment of all, of course, was when we knelt and received the Wreath of Victory, and standing there facing the stands, we could hear the strains of the Star Spangled Banner rise into the air and the Stars and Stripes was hoisted to the skies. It was then that I realized the immensity of my ambition of nine years to become a member of Uncle Sam’s Olympic Team and to emerge as a victor in the Olympic Games. Yes, this was the moment I had worked for all those years. And let me say that as you stand there and watch your flag rise above all others because of your own efforts and you can say to yourself today, “I am an Olympic champion,” there cannot be a greater thrill. But we have to remember that more than victory itself, the Olympic Games teach us a sportsmanship that transcends all prejudices and national and racial lines. That year was a very difficult year because Hitler had declared the dominance of the German Aryan race and we had the impudence to come over and prove him wrong in so many cases.

But there was one incident that happened in those Olympic Games which I shall never forget and which represents to me an example of how friendship and sportsmanship can transcend all obstacles when given the opportunity. The broad jump was an event that I was supposed to win with some ease because in the past I had failed only once to win first place in every track meet in which I had participated in my entire athletic career. But on this day, something was going wrong. I couldn’t imagine what was happening to spoil my jumping technique, but I had jumped only 23 feet 6 inches as a qualification effort and apparently was about to be eliminated. But there happened to be a young German broad jumper, Lutz Long, the greatest of them all in his own country, who was watching as I took my qualifying jumps. I had already fouled twice, and it looked as though I might not even be able to survive in the competition. But he came over and remeasured my steps, remeasured my takeoff mark, and he laid out my sweatshirt right next to the takeoff board as a marker to help my jump. Thanks to his suggestions and confidence in me, I was able to produce a leap which qualified and opened up the pathway to ultimate victory. Lutz Long jumped 25 feet 9 27/32 inches for a new Olympic record. I managed 26 feet 5 5/16 inches and so won. Lutz was second; but in my book of sportsmanship he ranks first.

You can imagine how touched I was at such sportsmanship. My friendship with Lutz Long, which commenced so brightly on the field of competition, continued after the Games. We became great friends and we corresponded regularly. But during World War II, sometime during the invasion of Poland, the last living traces of Lutz Long were obliterated in the Holocaust.

In 1951 I returned to Germany and among a delegation, which came to visit me at the hotel where I was staying, there were a woman and a boy who came up and introduced themselves to me. This boy was the son of my lost friend, Lutz Long, and his name was Kai. Lutz Long had been only 22 at the time of the Olympics, and as the preparation for World War II rushed across Germany, it transpired that this little boy had seen his father only three times in his life. And so I began to correspond with Kai, and then we developed our own friendship that arose from the father’s noble and self-sacrificing sportsmanship and generosity. Kai Long and I continue to correspond and whenever I hear from Lutz’s son, my mind goes back to that afternoon in the Olympic Stadium when an athlete sacrificed his fame and victory for the sake of pure sportsmanship. And then I know that the Olympic ideal is something that should be cherished and never forgotten.

 


For more of our historical coverage of the Olympic Games, check out “The Summer Olympic Games: Heroes, Hope, and Hostility.”