8th Grade

 

It’s official:  My daughter is an 8^th grader beginning in September.  Only 5 more years of learning and growing academically, socially and emotionally ahead of her in order to cross the Rubicon of college for the brave new world of young adulthood!

Yikes!!

Do you remember 8^th grade?  I do.

In 8^th grade, I started to feel like I was on the path to something important…maybe, the presidency.  But I had a few little things I had to attend to first, like Earth Science and growing stinky lima beans in the dark and damp of our basement for some experimental reason, just don’t ask me what…and Algebra, because someone in school thought I actually had a brain for math; a notion they would be disabused of once I took Trig in 10^th grade.  My favorite class was American History, taught by the local tennis club champion and history scholar who was so smart and so dreamy.  (I also had his younger brother and fellow tennis champ for 7^th Grade Math, where I learned pre-Algebra using an abacus.  Funny, the things that stick with you.)

Finally, English:  I can’t for the life of me remember the name of my 8th Grade English teacher, only that she was a former nun and a stickler for grammar with a passion for diagramming sentences.  Despite that, I adored the class and the authors we read…Dickens, James Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorne, chief among them.  My grammar remains better than average thanks to that teacher. 

The summer before the official commencement of my 8^th grade year was a big growth experience too:  My parents allowed me to take the Fire Island ferry with my friends, unchaperoned, for lazy beach days.  Tucked into our bikinis while noting the boys' growth spurts as they dragged surfboards into the water, we slathered our skin with Baby Oil, turned lobster red, and cooly ignored the threat of future melanomas.  I also remember Friday evenings of Beach Club dances in July and August with local bands playing badly – but we didn’t mind.  That’s where we learned to work out our frustrations and budding hormones on the dance floor, flirting with each swivel of our hips.  I especially remember a white cotton shift with halter-style shoulders that I whipped on my sewing machine for beach club dances.  I wore the dress with a colorful necklace or scarf – very short, very sixties, very homemade.  Boy, I loved that dress.

Many of the friends I knew then remain my fondest today, and everyone I knew then contributed to whoever I am today in their own very specific and significant ways.  For that, I thank you – even those of you who made life tough or miserable or just plain ick at the time.  (You know who you are, I’m guessing, even if I don't. Such are the joys of aging!).

I know what lies ahead for my daughter and worry about it too, but this summer my beautiful, remarkable, utterly charming, funny and smart child – and her friends --  will start making the memories they'll noodle on from time to time for the next 70 years.  I will watch them all with wonder, awe, sadness and a wee bit of envy.

Now it begins.