Public HS oddities of yesteryear
 

Some of the posts in the "Inherent the Wind" thread had me thinking about other institutionally-sanctioned oddities from my education at the hands of the state of California.

- Roller-skating was a PE elective in Jr High. As was archery. If you were caught shooting an arrow at the neighboring Christian academy, you received an automatic "F". On the last day of the class various deviants all shot arrows at the future Ned Flanders’ school.

- My HS had a smoking section. If you were 18 (I guess) you could go to this painted-off area and smoke. I'm sure there were also long conversions on Dio vs. Ozzie and JP vs. Dokken going on there as well.

As you are moved, please share your own…

Did you go to Torrey Pines? That was the only school I've ever heard of with a smoking section...

Table tennis was a PE elective in my high school. You had to take a test on the rules of the game and then play a certain number of games throughout the term. Easy A.

We had badminton. It was fun. A FB player, who went on to play D-1, sent a kid to the hospital with a shuttlecock to the eye.

Staying with badminton for a moment, my HS had a badminton team (yes, seriously). It was a girls sport. A male band nerd (no offense and present company excluded, of course) sued to be on the team. He won. Imagine how embarrassed he must be about that today...

I loved growing up in SoCal. We would start school in Sep, then immediately proceed to get a day off for Rosh Hoshanna and a day off for Yom Kippur. I love Jews!

When I went to BYU for my freshman year, I remember asking if we got the Jewish holidays off. I was naive.

I was also dumbfounded that Pioneer Day was a state holiday.

We had some of these.

My school had a smoking area, right outside a back entrance, and it was certainly not restricted to 18+. This was the 80's, so things might have changed.

Also had Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur off. The school was about 50% Jewish.

We didn't have cheerleaders, as we felt they were beneath us.

99% of the students went on to college. One of the last issues of the student newspaper had a list of all seniors and where they were going. God help you if you listed a community college.

A higher percentage of my HS teachers were PhDs than my teachers my first two years at BYU.

As you can probably tell, I went to HS in a very wealthy area.

My HS had a smoking section. The punishment for being caught smoking weed was to pick up cigarette butts in the smoking section for a week. I always had the impression that the confiscated weed went directly into the teachers lounge.

We definitely had a smoking section. Just outside the NW doors by the corner of the building.

you went to highland?

I took a girl out on a blind date that was from Paragonah before my mission. She was fat but I did not know that until the date officially started. I did my best to be kind so I took the overweight Mormon girl from Paragonah to Westwood. I asked her about the differences between Paragonah and SoCal, she started this longwinded response about the 24th of July and how nobody takes it serious in California but in Paragonah they have a parade and eat potato salad. Above and beyond me not being surprised that caloric intake was the most vivid memory to her and the highlight of said event, I spent the entire night trying to figure out what the hell was so important about the 24th of July. I finally gave the bucket seats in my PHAT Toyota Tercell the relief they so fervently wished and ended the evening by dropping her off at her Uncle's house in Somis and began my long drive back to Simi Valley still perplexed with her riddle.

Fast forward many years forward where I had concluded that living Paragonahlike was far more attractive to me than Westwood, save I did not wish to have to push my dear eternal comp into a swimming pool and find the bubbles before I could uhhhhh "hit it," I was attending the local American Falls, Idaho stake Pioneer Day Celebration with my smokin' hot wife. I finally solved the riddle.

A few years later after my revelation I was in a meeting with the Utah Public Services Commission arguing with some cell/wireless providers about local number portability. We agree that we need to have another meeting and the representative from "Western Wireless" was not very western at all. In fact he was a swarthy little man with an annoying NE accent, I think it was more New York than Boston but in any case they are both annoying as all shit. The swarthy Noreasterner recommends that the next meeting be July 24. I died laughing and asked if he wanted to leave this life hanging from a willow tree somewhere near Perry compliments of some Danites? Some folks got the joke, but somewhere out there in Paragonah is a fine mother of 8 or 9, whose father probably has a swimming pool, who inspired my retort to the idea of a meeting on the 24th of July.