Sophmore HS year...

My Sophomore year was a "Ying Yang" year.  I finished my Fish time...freshman year by failing Algebra 1 with a 0.1 average. I could not for the life of me get math. At that point in my teen life I was at the lowest ebb of my high school scholastic life.  So, I signed up for regular freshman Math 1, in my Sophomore year.  I made up my mind that I would not amount to much and I better at least try the “easier” math class so I can at least graduate from public high school.  Depressing at it seemed the classroom was wall to wall freshman and I was the only 10th grader.  So I felt really out of place; this coupled with the Yang part of my high school life is that I really must have hit a spark in the one class I really didn’t care about...lol...R.O.T.C.   The old sarge really took a liking to me and promoted me as a Sophomore to a Staff position...So now when I walked into math class with a bunch of freshman I was decked out in my Rot C uniform with rank of a senior classman, I was caught with the notion that I was in a spotlight. I couldn’t do as I did in Algebra the year before, in that math class, I just couldn’t.

But as usual my Ying sparked up as a twofer...that means two good things. First I sat down at my desk with the fish, and stared up at the blackboard, listened to the instructions on how to do our first set of problems and like magic, it made sense?.. Oh my god!! What the hell, I actually looked at the problems and it made sense.  (later I think, actually very much later, I surmissed I must have been lead poisoned by mom who insisted on cooking pinto beans in a Mexican clay pot called a comal.  When the pot broke and mom switched to a shiny new stainless steel pot at the end of my freshman year. Alas back to my revelation that I was getting math and even more so I was making A’s.  

Ying 2… It was in the same math class that I noticed, two good looking girls.  One, sat behind me, and the other on my right side on the next row. I really didn’t know anybody so eventually they struck up a conversation with me. One of the girls older brother was one of my cadets that I was in charge of and we had that in common, but the other girl, was on my bus route that I rode to school in the morning.  She didn’t always take the bus, but some days she did.  I really didn’t talk to Ruth, but only at school, and only at math class.  In retrospect, I wish I did. I really was infatuated with her, she was nice but also kind of serious sort of way.   I was pretty shy around girls, as a matter of fact, I just didn’t really talk to girls. But these two made it easy to at least have a conversation, even if it was only in math class.

Yang...Oh yeah Yang...I kinda liked Ruth, I thought that she was a nice kind of girl.  So I did what most adolescent just feeling their Cheerioats do...buy a football mum for Homecoming...Football Homecoming that is.  (Side note:  football homecoming is the time that any girl whose has a sweet heart receives a huge mum, with ribbons, novelty medals of little footballs, mascots etc.)  Generally they have the girls name on it and other sweet things from their admirers. Girls wore them like badges, in girl world; the more mums the better.  Well I told my mom that I wanted to buy a mum for a girl and she gave the money to order it.... I ordered it at a crowded, fold-up table and I placed a relatively simple mum but I froze at what I should have written on the ribbon. Instead of saying” happy homecoming”, or for “Ruth”, or any sappy saying...I said put my name on it.....let me spell it..F..e...l...i...x.....F....and the rest of the letters of my long last name....    Needless to say she got the mum so she could wear to the game...I really didn't see her at the game that night. But the next day, I get..."you got me a mum?..why did you put your name on it?......ok....I did not know what to say....  I never really talked to Ruth after that...but I used to ride my bike past her house when I went to visit my best friend, hoping she would be outside, but that never happened.  In retrospect I moved on rather quickly, since the life of a Sophomore going on to be a Junior in High School is such a big deal... well I thought so at least....

Yang 2....46 years later, I'm looking at Facebook at one of the many sites that I am part of a "group"...The high school group, that I belong to has it mix of followers who peaked and trying  to relive their glory days, those who peaked later and like to let folks know that that they might not have shined in high school, but now they are successful. Along with those who generally are curious to revisit their past and see how everyone has changed....I hope I fit the last category but still it had some info on some long lost friends...I noticed that I have lost several friends including my best friend, whose house I used to go to when I biked by Ruth's house. When "K" passed away I was upset since we were about the same age and a vicious form of cancer took his life.   But, when I saw Ruth's obituary announcement. I at first had not heard or even thought of her for almost a half century, and the memories started coming back. I looked up her FB page, and saw a fine looking more mature, person but still the same girl...she had a son, who pictures of her and him literally were almost the only pictures posted in the last 3 years of her FB page.   I later found out that her son passed away, the same, 3 years earlier...she aged visibly those last 3 years, I can only imagine she passed on with a broken heart.