Seventh grade

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."
--L. P. Hartley

My brother visited me for Thanksgiving, bringing with him a gift beyond price -- a box full of old family photographs that we had feared lost.  Included were my class photographs for kindergarten and grades 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7.

I quickly digitalized the class photos, to avoid their disappearing once more, and cleaned them up digitally insofar as they had begun to fade or -- more noticeably -- discolor.

Then I allowed myself the luxury of losing myself in the photos, of studying every face, recalling names, and -- eventually -- trying to think once more as I had as a child.

All the photos bring back wonderful memories of myself at various stages -- at a time in one's life when two years growth is sufficient to change you from one person to another. 

I focused most intently, perhaps, on my seventh grade photograph -- partly because I find it easiest to identify now with the person I was then.  I see myself and my friends lined up in rows, each of us teetering on the brink of adolescence but still children in looks and -- in many ways -- in the ways our minds worked.

I can recognize almost every boy and girl in the photograph, and remember who I liked, who I disliked, and who I largely dismissed from my thoughts.  I can remember actual conversations I had with classmates, and with my teachers.  I can remember feeling more emotional at times than I would as an adult, but possessing a greater inclination to suppress those emotions. 

In fifth and sixth grades, I had been in the "band and orchestra" class -- all kids taking instrumental music instruction were placed together.  As a result, my classmates were, relative to the rest of my community, disproportionately upper middle class.  But, moving to junior high school, the deck was reshuffled and my seventh grade classmates were -- to some degree -- noticeably less motivated and "refined." 

I recall being bothered by this perceived change in social status for maybe the first month, but I established good friendships in short order.  I was elected as class president and class representative to the boys' club ("Muchachos") in seventh grade, and to student council by largely the same students in eighth grade, so I have some evidence that I got along well with classmates.

I remember facts about seventh grade, and my ambitions and dreams.  And I remember my feelings about classmates and about school in general.  But as I stare at my photo, I  recognize how hard it is to put myself now into that young boy's mind.  The gap is too great.  He knew a lot about a lot of things, but he didn't know yet the future, or his part in it.

I wish I could assure him that his future was going to be happy -- more successful and considerably more interesting than he imagined at that time.  And I wish I could warn him that he would be even happier later if he depended less in junior high on his natural abilities and curiosity, and learned to study even then in a more disciplined manner.  I wish that back then someone had thought of AP courses, where he would have competed --  would have been forced to compete -- with kids more similar to himself.  In some ways he lacked self confidence, but in others he was excessively certain of his own ability to BS his way through school.  Developing a certain amount of discipline in his studies in those early years would have paid off in the future,

So I stare at him, and I stare at him with inordinate fondness.  He was a bit lazy, but he was intelligent and possessed a curiosity that went well beyond schoolwork.  And he was, all in all, a pretty nice kid.

Good luck to you, my former self.  Rest assured that you're going to enjoy the years that lie ahead.