High School Confidential

High School Confidential

Bad things do happen to good people.  Have you ever had anything happen to you that you felt wasn’t fair or deserving.  Because it did happen to me in high school.  Ever since that day I’ve learned to expect the unexpected.

Everything I ever did in school was to try to excel to be exemplary.  I had 100% attendance most years from elementary through high school.  I would even go to school when I wasn’t feeling well.  A particularly challenging time was the beginning of football season.  For my small town school, football practice began before the start of the school year.  Our coach would have the team start getting in shape in the second week of August.  He would work us until we dropped from exhaustion, and then push even harder.  I would go home and have a fever over night from the physical abuse under the hot August sun.

During the Cuban Crisis, I was asked by the high school principal to teach a class to the Cuban Refugees (a group of 6 students).  The students ended up in our town sponsored by the local Catholic Church.  Of the 6 students 2 were from the Junior High school, and 4 were high school age,  The two schools were only a few block apart so the junior high school students were transported to the high school to attend my classroom (the period just before lunch break).  I can’t take full credit, a counselor and teacher helped in the planning of the curriculum, and I was just an instrument for delivery because of my fluent bilingual skills.

The 6 students were made up of two families four girls and two boys.  The junior high students were related to the high school students.  Every one of the six was matured beyond their years.  Julio the oldest of the six students went on to become a very successful architect in Madrid Spain, I don’t know what became of the others, but I know that every one of them was capable of achieving excellence.  Julio and I became good friends, but like many of my friends I either leave them behind or somehow lose track of them (I am sorry to say that I’ve always been busy making my way through life).

Two big perks for me where; the beautiful Cuban girls had a crush on me (I can’t say I didn’t notice their beauty, but even then I was aware of boundaries), the second and most important perk was that I got to meet with all the other teachers in the teacher’s lounge.  The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the Cuban students' progress.

Here is the confidential part.  One fine day I was summoned to the principal’s office by the principal himself.  On the walk back to his office, he asked me to stay calm, and not be afraid.  That little chat alone got my legs to shaking.  When we arrived at his office there was what I considered the most beautiful girl in high school with her parents whom I immediately recognized.  The girl (whose name will go unmentioned) was a very popular blond blue eyed cheerleader, whom I always was friendly with but deep inside I felt that she was out of my league.  Even though I was a letterman in 3 sports, and a 4.0 GPA student, she was the focus of every male student (basically it meant that she could have her pick).

As soon as I greeted the gathering, I asked the principal what was the reason for the meeting.  It seems that the beautiful young girl was pregnant, and she had confessed to her parents that I was the father of her unborn child. I didn’t know if I should cry out of fear or jump for joy at the thought that I had fathered her child (not).  I knew the girl and her two brothers, I had also previously met her parents, and liked them.  The next development was amazing.  The father spoke next; he said that I had brought shame to their family, and he was prepared to offer me a car, and two thousand dollars cash if I would move with their daughter to a different State.

My fear and/or joy didn’t last very long.  When the girl heard her father’s statement, she came clean and told the gathering that I wasn’t the father.  As it turned out the father was a young Hispanic individual that worked on her father’s farm.  The girl was afraid that her father, and brothers would harm him, and she felt that I stood a better chance of handling the repercussions.  Thanks, I guess for having confidence in my strengths, but I would have preferred the 2 Grand, and car (I guess I would have taken the girl too).  The best is yet to come….