Well I made it to being a teenager and now I'm 14(?)
Mom and I are living in St. Louis and I'm going to the Principia School an exclusive Christian Science private boarding school in the area.
I had also went here briefly when I was in first grade or 6 years old. I don't know why it was so important for my parents to send me here, I guess private school has a higher education in an exclusive private school we could not afford this either.
I don't know why I'm not that in immersed in my studies but I guess that at this age is where your trying to use up some of that extra testosterone.I was interested in science and did some science fair project about cosmic rays. I used two Geiger counters together to see if the incidence of gamma radiation is higher the further up in the atmosphere you go. The balloon was a huge rubber weather balloon and the two Geiger counters where surplus from the civil defense days of the 60's
We did not loose the balloon but we did get some erroneous data perhaps from radio interference
I was able to get the project together for the science fair which was a re occurring theme of a few my high school years.
Problem Propulsion was one of them, in this one I researched about the nuclear lunar rover which would not in reality be that great due to shielding for the riders. But they do use small nuclear plants on satellites and deep space missions unmanned.
I was in sports I tried out for the track team but got wind splints (chest pain) when running so then tried out for the Olympic sports a little, I guess that I can say that was not my thing. I tried the pole vaulting but that was a little scary up there...to say the least.
In the winter mom would follow me through campus with the car while I ran at night trying to get in enough shape for the sports there.
I also tried out for the soccer team and ended up on the swim team which I did okay with. I was not probably the fastest swimmer but we practiced for hours swimming in the heated enclosed pool there. I remember coming home eating a meal and crashing out from the workout. I would always be just as skinny and had a bony waist and lanky body.
I made a few friends it was ninth grade, a girl in another grade (eleventh) asked me out to a dance once which was nice of her we even made out before.
Then there was my best friend or Kevin O'brien we did some stuff on and off campus together and he was a boarder or in other words he lived on campus.
I guess I was a bad influence with all of my off campus life and playing but at that age who's to blame.
I lived with mom so we on the weekend would stay up and watch those dumb B horror movies on tv or I would just do it by myself.
Something corny about them yet you still stay up late to watch them to this day I am not sure why I liked them maybe because I wanted something cool to happen but because they were so watered down due to censorship nothing really too bad ever happened or it if did they deserved it or there was sometimes a lesson to be learned (frogs, birds can be deadly)
I never really hung around with the bad guys as I always get accused of, maybe I was a want to be one. We used to snow slide down the hills there in the subdivision and met some seedy characters at the place as well
Then there was the time that we somehow decided that climbing up these huge transmission towers was a good idea. I mean after you get up about 40 feet there's a nice ladder to climb on.
So Kevin and I get up there and there's quite a view but now it's getting darker and it's cold out so time to come down. Had to help him down because he was getting a little scared of the height,I would guess it was over 100 ft up there. It was a slow decent..
I did some rappelling and rope sliding down 100' piece of gold line rope with a small nylon sling.
Went out to the country and did some rappelling down a cliff with the rope around a tree at the top.Trying to climb back up was pretty hard, loose rocks and not much hand holds, going down was more fun anyway gravity working and fast adrenaline
Also did some rappelling off of bridges or anything else that was high enough to ride the rope down.
Once when coming down an overpass did the twisting motion as I came down almost getting tangled a little,had to slow it down some, that was strange.
Mom's car
Mustang pretty cool not great on gas but super nice car. I remember one night had like this "great idea" to take it for a spin. Got the key late one night pushed out of the parking space and drove around a while super late at night. Gas getting low decided to come back home coasting in and quietly sneaking back inside. Teenagers , we never really thought of all of the what could happen, and I drove like a grandma it was not my car anyway just borrowing it. Sorry mom.
There was the kite festival in downtown St Louis police on horses and everyone with cool kites, my box kite suffered a construction collapse and did not fly right but there were concerts and people it was pretty cool urban scene in the big city downtown.
Electronics always interested me, as from a small age would take things apart right after they were deemed garbage just to see how they worked or what was inside of them. Clock radio, radios, if it's broken look inside. Later the erector sets and the train sets then some electronic kits and some 101 projects on breadboard, look made a crystal radio.
Phone shenanigans
So with this primitive electronics would tap into the phone, by adding a rheostat and another phone on the line could slowly turn up the volume while someone else was speaking on the line.
Never really got anything good but you never know....only did it a few times remember hearing my name while trying it and got scared...not sure if the static was a give away or not.
KSHE 95 fm was the kite festival sponsor a rock station http://www.kshe95.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KSHE
they actually played real progressive rock which could be albums,jazzy rock, fusion or cool punk rock but more easy listening club anthem rock and some fusion .
School
The Principia School is a highly rated private school not for the pranksters or the slouches, they are probably one grade or two above the public school and have high standards.
My grades were suffering already so when I got the call to come see the principal and my mom was there I knew it was not good.
Due to something that happened off campus with me and my friend I was canned, nothing terrible but it was stupid (no law trouble) I never saw my friend after that.
Retrospect
If I had it all to do over again would I have done the same things? not sure, my attention was not with the demanding subject and study matter like it should have been which was my fault, but my parents especially mom wanted me to have a rich and better education.
I guess by that time my interest was mainly in science and other subjects. Popular Science was my magazine the future always looked so cool inside of those pages even in that time 1974(?).
The constant moving and packing unpacking continues, so many places that I lived and went to school then sometimes before the end of the year would be moving again.I guess much like the military families moving every two years or less.
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