Those high school years

Well, by now you have had an opportunity to digest my skills in dialogue. I always thought that I handled dialogue well and that I would be a better playwright than a novelist. I know in ninth grade, I wrote two miniature plays for English class and got quite a reception. Ninth grade was a dreary time when I was at the old Peachtree High School. The principal was ready to retire and he would pretty much allow anything to happen to ensure that the boat stayed smoothly rocking towards his ultimate retirement. In the meantime, the lassez faire attitude was communicated to the student body and pretty much anything went. Couples were groping in the stairwells (particularly Pat Burke and Shan Gastineau). Classrooms emptied when the teachers turned to face the board. In the afternoon, the parking lots were full of students, ditching class in full view, socializing on their cars. That was probably just the surface of what was going on.

I hated it. I couldn't wait to transfer to Dunwoody when it opened. The atmosphere was much more controlled and disciplined (even for the early 70's).

Anyway, my favorite class was English with Ms. Gilbert. In the third quarter she split the class into groups and had us rewrite and perform an act each of Romeo and Juliet and then do a second play afterward. I was so excited that I went home and wrote an entire one act play in an afternoon. I took it back to school the next day and everyone liked it. After we performed it, Ms. Gilbert gave it to one of the upper grade English teachers who read it to his class. It was finally nominated to the Dekalb County Arts Fair and won a second place ribbon. I was excited.

My second play was a western, which had some good parts but I had to play the lead myself and I didn't like acting much. Oddly, my Juliet ended up being an actress. How really ironic.

Anyway, that was a good time. I later wowed them with a rendition of Patrick Henry's 'Give Me Liberty' speech. My speech took forty minutes to do and I just performed it without a break (with the exception of an announcement over the loud speaker which forced me to stop for a few minutes while we heard about something really important). That was probably the precurser to my leadership years at Dunwoody. It was only the next year when I was speaking before the student body, running for student body president.

Dunwoody was so much better. I think John Boswell and I were the only students who really enjoyed Dunwoody High School. Even with all the embarrassment and growing pains. Oh well.