Post your sixth grade memories here!

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

Being random tonight.

Sixth grade was in 1981-1982. I went to a lower middle class, older middle school in a burb of Dallas. I was the size of an eight year old and my mother cut my hair in a boy's bowl haircut to save money. I wore round glasses that were thicker than shit. I insisted on a Hello Kitty lunchbox, being too dense to understand middle schoolers carrying lunchboxes was NOT cool back then. On the second day of school, a big eighth grade girl with dark roots and frizzy bleach blond hair walked over to my lunch table, where I was sitting with my only friend, Joanna Womack and she leaned over and announced, "after school, I am going to kick your ass for bringing that lunchbox here." I said "ok what time?" which surprised her. We arranged a time and place and I left out the side door as fast as I could and ran seven blocks home. She forgot about me after that but I stopped bringing the lunchbox.

I was in orchestra and played the violin. Because my parents bought an expensive one, they insisted I not leave it in the band hall so I carried it with me to every class, where it got in everyone's way all the time, endearing me further to my peers. In math one day, Donald McQuiston knocked it off my desk on purpose and I choked back angry tears. He laughed. I hear he's in prison now.

My best(and only) friend Joanna and I took to drawing penises on pieces of paper in Mrs. Richey's science class and passing them back and forth. We would giggle, but really we were trying to figure out what the ADULT male junk looked like (we'd both seen our little brothers' penii), so we used our imagination. They were quite scary, I can tell you. Mrs. Richey saw our paper one day and took it up, asked us to come by after school. I nearly wet my pants. I was mortified she'd call my mother, but she simply told us not to do things like that in class. It felt like my whole head was on fire, but Joanna laughed her ass off all the way home that day.

Doug asked me, in a note, to "go with him." I said yes, though I barely knew him. He broke up with me the next day for a tall, freckled eighth grade girl. He came up to my locker and explained that he accidentally gave the note to me but he meant to give it to someone else. Oh yeah that's ok I'm not totally dehumanized yet, thanks.

We read The Hobbit in Mrs. Range's reaading class. She was pregnant that year. We were so taken with that book, that we started to try to scare other students by sneaking up behind them and whispering "PRECIOUSSSSSSS." It got so bad, the principal had to finally meet with some of us to get us to stop. I distinctly remember Mrs. Range stifling giggles throughout the whole meeting.

Mrs. DeShong was my English teacher, and it was rumored she was an alcoholic. She drove an Alfa-Romeo and we all thought she was cool. She never gave homework and told us wild tales of her youth in class almost every day. I got NOTHING out of English that year, except bits of advice such as "never fall for the 'what's your sign?' line" and "take a guy with you when you have work done on your car," helpful stuff for 11 year olds.

Mr. Lonnie was the orchestra director and he had anger management issues before anger management issues were cool. He'd snap the baton in half and throw it across the room at us, then throw the score at us. He terrified me. He'd jump up and down, turn red, and GROWL when we didn't play correctly. The band director soon discovered what was happening to his batons and decided to confront Mr. Lonnie one day during our class. He decked him right in the face, broke his glasses and made his nose bleed. Two girls cried. I had never seen anyone punched in the face before that day. They didn't have any more trouble after that.

One time, I took off my shoes during orchestra. No need for them right then, wasn't going anywhere, just sittin and playin. Two boys took them from under my chair and threw them up in the highest band instrument cubbies. I searched everywhere for them, in tears, late to my math class, and finally had to go barefoot. Mrs. Evans, the Witch, demanded to know where my shoes were and I simply said "I don't know." I was sent to the office where I told the principal as much as I knew. I only found out in high school what happened, when one of the boys confessed (I was dating him by then) because they were never found taht day. When I got home barefoot, I was given what we called "a whoopin'."

I threw up on Sandra Briggs in social studies. I was so embarrassed I started to cry and I was mortified to notice it smelled really bad with the vomit everywhere.

Coach Lutz was the social studies teacher and every girl had a crush on him. Once I asked him for a bathroom pass and he spelled my last name wrong, my maiden name had two t's on the end, so I said "tee-tee" and he said "I know, I'm trying to write your pass!" The kids laughed, I cringed.

Coach MacAfee was the science teacher and he used to make me take these overstapled love notes to another science teacher--a woman with long, dark hair who reminded everyone of Crystal Gale. I'd stand in the hallway and hold the note up to the light and read it. He always asked her out. When I brought it to her, she'd never fail to roll her eyes. She later married Coach Lutz.

There's more but I'm tired.

[bigwillq]

1. Sixth grade: 1989-1990

I was voted class secretary on the student government.

I ran the school store selling notebook, pens, pencils, t-shirts
I played little league baseball and was on the all-star team

This is the grade when I became "cool" and started to hand out with the "cool" kids.

This is the year when I had my first kiss with a girl.

This is the first year when I went to a "party" and the big news is that at the party the girl had one beer in her family's fridge and by the end of the night the beer was missing.


You had a good story Moonbeam.
Thanks for sharing.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

2. Hee hee

oh for the days when the biggest scandal you knew about was one beer missing, eh?

ROFL! Thanks for that chuckle! You are a young-un!

[bigwillq]

4. You're not that old either

So I don't know why you're knocking me about my age!!!!!!

I also have more stories, the list can go on and on.

I'm glad you picked sixth grade. As far as grammar school goes, sixth grade was the first year I got out of my nerd/dork stage and got out of my shell. It was a great year.

I think I "went out" with like 45 girls that year. Some for just 10 hours of so. I remember well passing notes and folding them in such odd shapes.

Oh what we did as kids to pretend like we were cool.

[HEyHEY]

3. I shitkicked some mouthy little punk

And told a teacher it was "None of her damned business" why I was in the hall. And my grandfather passed away.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

6. Sounds like a rough year!

You just reminded me of more:

If you were done with lunch, you were allowed to go out to this blacktop area outside next to the cafeteria. There was a big drainage thingine in the asphalt and the kids would grab hands across it and try to pull each other over to their side, whoever could won. Sort of a standing up-no table version of arm wrestling. And there were horrible fights out there, too.

One day as I was watching the weird arm wrestling, Misty Carpenter walked up, literally kicked me in the butt HARD and then ran off. She was the ONLY person in the whole school lower on the food chain than me and that was only because her glasses were thicker and she was dirt frigging poor. My friend Joanna consoled me by saying "she's just jealous because you have cute clothes and me for your best friend." She hugged me. I really didn't have cute clothes, but I did have Joanna.

I checked out every book the library had on etiquette and read them all cover to cover and I have no idea why. The librarian thought I was a crazy kid.

In PE, the boys' gym and girls' gym was separated by a simple doorway and every day before class, the cool girls would stand and talk and laugh and flick their hair with the cool, cute boys. I don't know what got into me one day, but I wandered over, stood there and started laughing with them, like I was one of them. Next thing I knew, my shorts were around my ankles and everyone was howling with laughter. I ran to the dressing room, but in my conflicted desire to want to run AND pull my shorts up at the same time, I fell face first skidding into the dressing room door. To make matters worse, this (and the laughter) caught the coach's attention, who blew her whistle, came over and chewed ME out. I went into the dressing room, got in a bathroom stall and cried. (In case it isn't clear, someone ran up behind me and yanked my shorts down.)

Becky was in my PE class and we used to marvel at how gigantic her boobs were. She must have been a D cup in the eighth grade. She couldn't do jumping jacks. No sports bras back then.

[GOPisEvil]

5. Chester W. Nimitz Elementary School, Honolulu, HI.

My last year in Hawaii before we moved to Texas.

Playing kickball every damned day at recess.

Being in a program for gifted children (ahem) that allowed us to develop a fictional product and make up the advertising for it. My product was a space craft that was so easy a kid could fly it to the moon. Hey, it didn't have to be VIABLE! :P

[Jokinomx]

7. Well... The first memory that I have is....

Lee Keel and I were the only kids in our homeroom and he was across the room from me. I had been chewing gum and I took it out of my mouth and said "Open wide"... he opened his mouth and I threw it across the room...BINGO... It landed in his mouth before he could close it...!!!! It was sooooo funny....

The other thing I remember is getting in trouble for fighting.... I had lost a marble game to a kid and I gave him a "wooden" marble. He wasn't to happy about it...but later he lost to me and tried to give it back to me. I wouldn't take it and we got into a fight. This was the first and last time I actually hit someone... but I punched him in the face.

We ended up in the principles office and she asked me how much that wooden marble was worth? I said maybe a half a penny.... she then said was it worth it?

She made her point and I agreed that it was wrong, apologized... and she sent us back to our classes.

:kick:

[specimenfred1984]

8. A bully was hitting me with his "boosher"...

a knit cap with two gloves in it, he was beating the crap out of me as he had everyone since 2nd grade.

I lost it, started swinging at him, my papers and books flew out of my napsak all over the playground and I was trying to grab his throat. If I would have been able to get ahold of him, I would have tried to strangle him.

I chased him around for about 1 minute before I exhausted myself. Insanity was rewarded and I was never picked on again.

I was a patrol officer, a straight-A student and my mother was paranoid schizophrenic. Therapists have always been amazed that I "turned out normal". I'm amazed too, I thanked my lucky stars everyday for about 10 years.

Now the whole country is insane, or about 1/2 of it anyway.

[JohnKleeb]

9. ahh yes

98-99. Playing basketball with the guys everyday at recess. Just having a good time and above all, going up to Philly.

[latebloomer]

10. Oh, my Goddess, Moonbeam!!

Those be some sad stories!

Adolescence really does suck!

:hug:

[TlalocW]

11. 84 to 85

At Clearwater High School in Clearwater, KS. A small farming community south of Wichita.

The class weirdo and somewhat bully, Brett, used to pick on me every day after lunch. He stopped when I started kicking him in the crotch. Now he, another guy he picked on, and I are the best of friends. He claims that he was just "playing." He was probably one of the few kids who really needed Ritalin to be able to pay attention in school, but it wasn't around back then. He's a great guy now.

Space Shuttle Challenger blew up. I was home sick, watching it.

Dissected frogs in science class. One popular girl who was trying to be extra cool was talking about how "rad" it was going to be. She threw up. The aforementioned Brett, through sleight of hand and good acting, convinced his group that he had eaten one of the egg sacs in their frog.

Started playing trumpet in the middle school band. Once again, the aforementioned Brett was sent to the office one day after the director told him he looked like a fish (he was playing saxophone and was taking a breath after each note). Brett replied that the director looked like a turd.

Got the math/science teacher upset by exploiting a bug in a computer game he had us play to teach us about the mathematics involved in running a simple business. The game was that you sold hot dogs and soda at high school football games. I discovered that you could charge 5 cents for hot dogs, 5 cents for sodas, and then charge $5.00 each for napkins, ketchup packs, and mustard packs and run a booming business.

Science teacher introduced the class and me to one of my few heroes in life when he handed out a magazine article on James "the Amazing" Randi, magician and professional debunker of para-normal claims.

Really not that much in 6th grade. It was just a boring year.

TlalocW

[Red State Rebel]

12. 1968-69

I started out 6th grade at the school I had attended since first grade and we moved in the middle of the schoolyear. We were in the same district but there was such a culture shock. My first school was more rural and the kids were pretty well behaved and orderly. We had one teacher for all classes and I really liked my 6th grade teacher. I remember Mrs. Robinson came out that year and I thought a boy in my class looked like Dustin Hoffman on the album cover. At Christmas when we were decorating the classroom and tree (back before PC) someone brought angel hair aka fiber glass strands to decorate with and we all got itchy from it. They let everyone go home to take a bath and come back. Almost nobody's mom worked except a couple in the school cafeteria so it wasn't a big deal. When we moved to the new school it was so different! You changed rooms for classes and the kids were more worldly and rowdy. It was quite a wake up call for me. I didn't like it as much because I was just hitting that awkward phase - puberty came with 10 extra lbs. and face break outs. It also came with boobs and that freaked out the neighborhood boys. It was that funny age of do girls have cooties or do we like them?

I remember windbreakers were cool and mini dresses and skirts. I had a hot pink mini dress that was a tent dress which meant that the slightest breeze had it trying to wrap around my head. Girls were not allowed to wear pants of any kind to school. I think the next year we could wear them under our dress or skirt if it was below 20 degrees.

I had a crush on Kenny Barron but was terrified to kiss him. After a few days he broke up with me for Janet Klammert and broke my heart. My mom told me not to cry because there were better fish in the ocean that haven't been caught yet. I have remembered those words many a time :)

[shanti]

20. i attended 6th grade in 1966

the tent dresses i remember well. i wanted one so much and finally found one that was bright yellow with large white polka dots. i had a bright pink miniskirt with yellow plastic belt and yellow blouse, ha! and remember baby doll dresses with the puff sleeves?

the monkees were right in style and many a night i would wash dishes while listening to am radio and "i'm a believer", singing at the top of my lungs!

first kiss, first boy/girl party, first 'boyfriend', dayne. he was cute, smart and MINE! we used to sit in the dark cavernous auditorium during assemblies in our old elementary school (built around 1930) holding hands in the dark. we even snuck kisses in the bushes around the school...we both attended different junior highs, but met up again in high school. i thought it might work again, but we did NOT click! when i did a google on him, i found that he's in a classic rock band and loves playing golf!

but what i especially remember about that special year is gramma. we lived down the street from her for the first and only time and we really had a chance to grow close. gramma taught me how to play gin rummy, knit, and crochet. she also made me learn a new word from the dictionary (gramma loved her crossword puzzle) every morning before school. i miss her so.

thanks for the memories...

[SW FL Dem]

24. Same here - 1968-69

I was tall, skinny, gawky and smart. No wonder I have forgotten much of it. Sixth grade was still elementary school so I was spared the personal attacks. My biggest victory was beating my Dad in a challenge to get straight A's and win a new bike (pink with a banana seat and the high handles - I can't remember what we call them). I had my first crush that summer with a boy I met at a church camp - I'll never forget where I was when we landed on the moon.

[Red State Rebel]

27. OH! I had a banana seat bike that year too!

Mine was a red glittery seat with the big handle bars :)

[gauguin57]

25. Wow, SaidFred ... I was in sixth grade in '68-69 too!

I was the vice chair of our class Hubert Humphrey for President committee. I loved that man. However, I remember admiring the two girls who reluctantly volunteered to represent George Wallace. I thought they were crazy, but brave to try to be fair to such a horrid man, just because he was a presidential candidate that year.

Bobby and Martin had been killed the previous spring and summer, and LBJ wouldn't run again, and the body count in Vietnam was on television every night, and it seemed like the world had just gone nuts. Very confusing to a kid.

My main teacher that year was young and a groovy dresser, but was a total bitch -- she used to drop a pile of encyclopedias on the floor to "get our attention" -- but was very cool about teaching us sex ed. I was astonished when I finally got the whole story on exactly how people "did it." My mother never told me jack s***!!!

We girls couldn't wear pants at my school, either -- we wore shorts under our mini-dresses so we could hang upside down on the monkey bars.

I desperately wanted to be a hippie like my older brother; I used to teach my friends to meditate (yoga-style) to Monkees records, and I would tell my mother, as I went out the door, that I was "going to a freak-out." I used to make my parents knock on my bedroom door and say "Oh, Guru, I wish to enter."

I wrote a short story about a distant planet and its dictatorial ruler, and when I read it to the class, I got a big ovation. You never forget those early bits of approval for your creative endeavors!

I had crushes on Paul (the only jock I ever liked -- but he later became a doctor, so he was smart, too) and Donald (class clown).
Neither gave me the time of day. I had a training bra, but no boobs to speak of. *sigh*

My mother refused to allow me to shave my legs, and she made me wear anklets to school (no hose, no kneesocks -- made me feel like a freak, and a baby). I was mortified! I wore ponytails with big day-glo-yellow plastic balls on my ponytail holders, and I carried cheap Avon lip gloss in my purse.

My aim in life was to be thrown "out" in dodgeball as soon as possible each game, so I wouldn't be injured or tortured, and I could sit with my friends and put on cheap Avon lip gloss.

*sniff* good times.

[no name no slogan]

13. Sixth grade, 1980-81

I went to dreary mid-western elementary school mostly populated by the kids of white working-class parents. Except for that one token black kid who had just moved here from Racine, WI.

Not only was he accepted right away, he became one of the most popular kids in the class. He was cool, he was different, and he owned a 12" mix of "Rapper's Delight".

This kid basically introduced the whole damn school to rap music, back when it was something that was just played at parties and clubs in inner-city neighborhoods. Eventually, damn near everybody in the 6th grade memorized those lyrics, and we'd "rap" them in the back of the schoolbus on the 1/2 hour ride home.

[Reverend_Smitty]

14. 6th grade in 1995-96

Not much trauma that year considering I was an overweight girl entering a middle school that I didn't know a single soul in. I made a friend in band class, her name was Danielle and we quickly became best friends. When I moved back home to NJ, we still kept in touch up until 9th or 10th grade.

However I did seriously bruise my tail bone at a roller skating party, so much so that my mom had to pick me up early and I missed like 3 days of school because I couldn't sit on my ass, it was the worst pain I've ever experienced...other than that 6th grade was good!

[Wapsie B]

15. '68 to '69

The first and only time in my life I got straight A's on my report card.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Sixth grade, 1961-62

We moved from Wisconsin to Minnesota in the middle of the year. Before we moved, I was editor of the elementary school paper and in the special math group that was allowed to work at its own pace. I was also part of a group of sixth graders who read to the kids in the lower grades every morning. We were studying the Western Hemisphere countries in social studies, and by the time I left, we had completed units on Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean islands. Our school was old and ill-equipped, with one class per grade,

My new school, located in an outer suburb, had several classes per grade, as well as a cafeteria, which was a new experience for me, since I had always walked home for lunch. Another new experience was riding a schoolbus. I started in Mrs. Peterson's class, which was studying Europe, but then the school authorities realized that I had never studied the vital subject of Minnesota history, so I was transferred to Miss Haarstick's class. At my new school, unlike my old school, the girls all carried purses. We had a school choir. In the spring, the boys voted on which sixth grade girl would be Little League Princess. In the spring, we were taken on a tour of the junior high school we would attend the following fall.

[stupid grin]

17. 1987-88 - I still hadn't gotten my period yet....

so I faked it. The really cool thing to do was go to the girls' bathroom and change your pad, and how I yearned to have a bloody pad to change. So I wore my mother's giant bulky pads colored in with red marker. (in hindsight, I can't imagine that red sharpy marker rubbing up against me all day was healthy) I had no idea how often periods came or what they felt like so I just went with the "flow" and followed my friends' examples. I didn't get my damned period until the summer after 8th grade. I couldn't believe it when it finally arrived. What a dream come true! But, I had nobody to call......

[gauguin57]

26. MaineKerryGirl, that is a GREAT story.

And it TOTALLY sounds like something I would have done, if only I'd thought of it. You rock!

[LiberalManiacfromOC]

18. 2001-2002

Septemebr 11th is all I can remember :cry:

[vajraroshana]

19. sixth grade '77-'78

Sounds like you had a pretty typical sixth grade year!

We had a great band and everyone was very competitive. We won lots of awards. I'd love to see a tv show try to capture the spirit of that, instead it's always crappy bands with loser nerds in band/orchestra.

One drama of the year was I had long hair parted on the side and got it "styled" (instead of cut at a barbershop)and parted down the middle. My dad blew a gasket and said I looked a goddamned hophead! He was furious with my mom for that.

The biggest drama at school was when someone put acid in a history teacher's coffee cup. It must have been a lot because I've heard that heat and chlorine from tap water mostly destroy it, but the poor guy freaked out and had everyone leave class while he held onto the edge of the desk until the ambulance came. They never caught who did it.

The biggest drama at home was when my oldest brother got caught with a quarter pound of pot and my dad threw it in the fireplace. So my brother ended up running away for a few days. When he was out one of his friends broke into our house in the middle of the night high as hell on something claiming he was looking for my brother (maybe he was the one my brother owed the money to for the quarter pound?). We watched as the cops led him out in the driveway where he must have smarted off to the officer who then billy-clubbed him in the face. It even pissed my very conservative parents off to see that.

Kinda a "Dazed and Confused" year except I didn't smoke dope, even though my dad was sure I did. He was convinced the part in the middle was code for the other kids who did.

It's funny how a lot of people idolize the seventies, but as kids then our favorite expression was "Man, the seventies suck". And most especially the big expression was "disco sucks". Another expression that seems to have disappeared completely is "that's tough" usually followed by "duhfinitely, man" meaning "that's cool".

Ahhh the seventies.......

[sundog]

21. 1982ish

I remember "The Thing" was out at the movies... Tom Sawyer by Rush. Bette Davis Eyes... Luke & Laura were shot on General Hospital or something to that affect (the whole school was just buzzing)... Jordache Jeans... I've blocked the rest out rather intentionally thank you very much :7

[fortyfeetunder]

22. Sixth grade late 60's.

The year from hell. Painful. Going to school the summer after King and Kennedy assassinations took its toll. School was starting to have no meaning

Nixon won, and even I was pissed at that tender age. The teacher, Mrs X was showing us how to remember the Cabinet members name. "Now Mr. Hickel, is the Secretary of the Interior, and Hickel rhymes with pickle, and where does a pickle go?

The only bright spot that year was a science teacher took interest in me and let me work on a science project by taking wet bulb/dry bulb temperature during the day. Thanks to her, I did end up a scientist of sorts.

[fudge stripe cookays]

23. What great stories!

1977-78
St. Louis Catholic (that's the big church across from Northcross Mall for you Austinites)

Not many of my teachers stuck out in my head that year. 7th grade was more memorable schoolwise.

But I did get my first diary that year. I'd had a "luau" birthday party over the summer before school started, and Cathy bought it for me.

But I did begin checking "They Sailed Into Oblivion" by A. A. Hoehling out of the library every week. I loved reading about shipwrecks. Don't ask me why!

Sister Odelia was the librarian. When you made noise, her response was always "Come here, buddy." If you were a girl, it was "Come here, Susie Q."

Mrs. Lingo, our religion teacher, loved my voice, so she persuaded me to get up in front of the entire school on Friday mornings and lead the singing for mass. I started off a little wobbly, but got much better, even though my knees were knocking!

My best friends were Karen Cole, Cathy Hellinger, Sally King, Valerie Yanker, and Gina Roberts. Sally & Gina & I wrote notes constantly. I saved them for a long time. Wish now I hadn't thrown them out. Sally made up flower child names for us. I was Zudifletch, Gina was Mergatroid, and Sally was Qualibahebus.

Our English teacher, was Mrs. Ryan. She was the first person older than 20 I'd ever seen with braces. She had this idea for a great final project at the end of the year. We put on a slide show for our parents, called "The Sixth Grade Survivors," like a disaster movie about us being in a plane crash. It was lots of fun overacting for this thing; being injured, using crutches and smearing fake blood on ourselves.

There was a huge drainage ditch in the street that ran alongside of the school. One day "while shooting", we got down in the ditch and someone dropped "snow" on us. The snow was Ivory soap. I got some in my mouth, and I can remember that foul taste to this day!

I bought copies of Boz Scaggs' Silk Degrees, Arrival by ABBA, and the first Toto album.

I had a Dorothy Hamill haircut. Didn't everyone?

FSC