SLUMBER PARTY FUN

Okay this is a true story. When I was in about 8th grade I used to hang out with Nancy Tudman and Sheila McCusker and some genius taught us how to make ourselves faint. What you do is you squat down and you hyperventilate like crazy and then suddenly stand up and hold your breath. You would set up pillows in advance because whammo -- you'd go right down. And when you fainted you'd have weird dreams -- it only lasted about a 5 seconds and then you'd let the next person try it. I wonder what sort of brain damage we caused ourselves. We thought this was a great thing and I remember one of Nancy's slumber parties we set up 3 or 4 pillow areas and taught everyone how to faint.

Nancy and Sheila are my same friends I first tried smoking with -- also in 8th grade. We stole a bunch of cigarettes from Nancy's mom and we went up to where they were building these new houses and hid behind this concrete drainage thing. We smoked 3 or 4 cigarettes each really fast and thought we were really tough. Then Nancy spent the night at my house. Later that night she started throwing up and I thought it was because we had been smoking. I called her sister and I was crying because I thought we were going to have to tell that we were smoking and we'd get in trouble. Nancy's mom came over and got her and said it was probably because Nancy worked at Camp Calamigos serving hot food at barbecues out in the hot sun all day long.

SPELLING BEE

This is a story from when I was in 3rd grade. It seems like in primary grades things just sort of happened at random and I remember one day our teacher, Mrs. Rubenstein, had us all line up and we were having a spelling bee. Next thing I know, I won for my class and I was in the auditorium with a bunch of other kids (other 3rd grade winners?) and we were having a big spelling bee. The principal was giving the words. I can't remember who was watching -- maybe spelling-challenged third graders. I'll bet that was an exciting assembly. Hey kids, these are the things we did back before there were TVs and computers at school. Anyway, I goofed up in the very beginning and spelled "again" wrong if you can believe that. And speaking of stone age school technology -- remember film strips?

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PHOTO: Pam in Victoria, BC. PHOTOGRAPHER: Bobman

Posted: 4.18.99
http://www.pamrentz.com/pampage/xmas/v6/p3.html