I remember impressing boys in Junior High...

Most of my junior high years were spent hiding from boys. They either didn't notice me, or did and abused me. I found it was best to try and stay invisible, unnoticed.

But I had one talent that could not go unnoticed or unappreciated. My tongue was (and still is) as long and beautiful as Gene Simmons', and in 1978, that was saying something. Do you remember the rumor about Gene Simmons' tongue? In our school, we heard that his tongue was so long because he had a pig's tongue surgically implanted in his mouth. I was living proof of the error in that rumor.

I'd be at my locker, and some boy would come up to me and say, "Uh, I heard that you can do that Gene Simmons thing with your tongue." I'd unfurl my tongue in the appropriate shape, and the boy would get a look on his face of wonder and amazement. "Wow. Cool." The boy would walk away, and for that moment, I'd feel proud of myself.

I had so much more to offer than my long rock-and-roll tongue. None of those boys in junior high ever found that out. Their loss.

I remember making my own flip books....

My mother just got back from a vacation, and she gave my daughter a really cool flip book that uses actual photographs of sea lions, so when you flip the pages, it's like you are watching a wee movie. The book is awesome, and it sparked a memory for me.

I was bored in many classes in junior high and high school. I would take my pencil, start on the first page of whatever textbook I was using for the class I was in, and I would draw a stick man. On the second page, the stick man would be moved very slightly, the third page a little more...you know how flip book animation works, right? I never knew what would happen to the little man until I drew it. Sometimes his head would pop off and he'd have to chase it, sometimes he'd fall off the bottom of the page and have to climb back up, sometimes he'd meet a stick woman...every text book was a different story.

It was perfect. I could still listen to the teacher, and as far as they could tell, I was absorbed in making notes or something. Once the drawings were all laboriously completed, I'd sit back in my seat and flip through the pages of my text and feel very pleased with myself as the little man would come to life. I don't think I showed these animations to anyone else. I had learned early on in junior high that any creative impulse must be hidden or you would be tortured for it. The little men were my little secret.

I remember finding stuff in my locker....

One of the perks of Junior High at our school was getting a locker in the hallway instead of just stashing your stuff in your desk like in the kiddie grades. I liked having a locker. It was my little space.

I opened the door of my locker one day and found that all my stuff...my books, my jacket, everything...was covered in cigarette butts and ashes. Someone had taken the time to cram the entire contents of their ashtray through the little air holes at the top of my locker. I sighed and began picking the dirt and soot out of all my belongings. I could hear other kids laughing as they walked by.

Apparently I was not allowed to have even the tiniest of spaces to myself.

I remember trying on clothes from the missionary box...

As the pastor's family, it was our privilege to have first dibs on the clothes that were donated for the missionaries. I never knew what missionaries these clothes were designated for, I don't know if anyone did. I just knew that if Mom came home with a big cardboard box, we were going to have to spend about an hour trying on clothes.

This was always fun at first. I'd pick out the old lady dress and put it on, then mince around the room like Carol Burnett as the old lady. If there was a hat, I'd put it on and pretend to be French. Mom would laugh hysterically, but soon she settled down to business. She wanted us to try on anything that looked like it might fit. Anything. Everything. Even the ugly things. And there were lots of ugly things!

Mom would spend a lot of time trying to convince us how great an outfit looked if she liked it. I distinctly remember the sinking feeling of futile stubbornness in my gut that arose as she oohed and ahed over a seer-sucker pantsuit. It was so out of fashion that I had never even HEARD of seer-sucker, but Mom was determined that it looked fabulous on me, and so it went into my closet.

I tried not to wear it, but one day there were no clean clothes and the bus was coming, so on it went. All day long at school, people laughed at me. I tried to defend myself, explaining that it was seer-sucker, but that term is nothing but cannon fodder to cruel junior high students. It was a long day, and I never wore the outfit to school again.

I remember getting hit in the back of the head....

The lockers at our school came in two rows, and the locker for my junior high years was in the bottom row. One day I was crouching down to get the books for my next class in the near empty hallway. Two boys from my class came running by, and one of them swung his Adidas gym bag, full of gear, into the back of my head as they passed. I was pushed by the force of the blow right into my locker.

If this was a scene on a TV show, there would be a laugh-track. I'm sure it looked kind of funny. I did not laugh, but pushed myself out of my locker and sighed. Another meaningless violence against me. I grabbed my books and continued on to class. I think I was lectured for arriving late.

I remember not wanting to walk into class...

Junior High. An awkward age for many, but especially awkward for me, as I was one year younger than everyone in my class. I thought it was very cruel for puberty to leave me alone for so long; while all the girls in my class were developing breasts, I was still a little girl.

I would get off the bus, go to my locker and put my coat in, grab my books, then walk to the door of my classroom and hesitate. I'd steel myself, then walk in. Every day my classmate, Terry, would sneer at me from under his long bangs and say loudly, "Jesus F***in' Christ, Rempel, are you ever ugly."

Every day.

There is no response to this. You can't argue it, you can't agree, you can't ignore it. It's a losing situation no matter how you look at it. Somehow his statement always made everyone else laugh. You'd think they would have got tired of the same announcement day after day.

I was 11. I thought I was ugly.

I remember feeling bad for Peter.

Grade 8 in small-town Alberta, sitting in class listening to the teacher. She asks me to read aloud from the text. I stand and read, clearly and with good diction. I feel somewhat proud of my reading ability. She asks the person behind me to read, and they do so, and so on down the row. She gets to Peter, the last in the row. He stands to read, and he can barely get the words out. He is sounding out simple words, words like "actual" and "promise". I become very embarrassed for him. Some kids are giggling, but I can't join in. I wonder how he can have got to Grade 8 without being able to read. I want to stand up and read for him. I want to tell the teacher to quit asking him to read, she knows he can barely do it. I do none of these things. I feel bad.

I remember getting frostbite...

Junior High was a bad time for me; I tend to not drag up memories from those years too often, but I just saw my old gym teacher walking down my back alley, and this memory popped up unbidden.

I'm not quite sure of the year, either 1977 or '78. It was one of those days where the mercury had dipped down to -38 C or something ridiculous like that, one or two degrees too warm to warrant closing school for the day. We were taking skating lessons for Phys Ed at the time, and were expected to walk from the school to the arena, a good eight or nine long blocks. I had forgotten my mittens on the bus. I knew this was a bad thing, I wasn't trying to be tough or anything....but nobody liked me in those years, and there was no way I would be able to borrow gloves or mittens from one of my fellow classmates, so I began the walk with bare hands. I kept clenching and unclenching my hands, stuffing them in my pockets, moving my fingers, trying to snap them....they hurt so badly after only a few minutes! If I kept my hands in my pockets too long, my skates would start to fall and I'd have to steady them, exposing my fingers to the frigid air.

I only got half way. I went into the drugstore to warm up. My fingers were white, and I couldn't move them. As they started to thaw ever so slightly in the store, I was overcome with the worst pain I had ever experienced...it felt like someone was trying to saw off my skin with a rusty hack-saw. I began screaming in pain, I couldn't help myself! Some of the girls from my class had also come in to warm up, girls who generally hated me and tormented me as much as possible. I could see the confusion in their face as they felt compelled to help me, yet repulsed and embarrassed by me and the scene I was making.

Somebody had the presence of mind to call the doctor, who had an office just down the street. He came running over, put his arm around my shoulder and began walking me to the clinic. As we walked, he grabbed some snow in his mitten and covered my white fingers with snow. "You don't want them to thaw too quickly or it will hurt!" Gee, really? I figured that one out in the drugstore.

My parents were called, and I got to go home for the rest of the day with the last three fingers of my right hand bandaged up to protect them. Over the next few weeks as they healed, the top layer of skin on each finger came loose and eventually shed off, like a snake shedding its skin...I remember grossing out my gym teacher by pulling the skin on my right pinkie finger up and down like a little jacket. I figured it was the least he deserved for making us walk that day.

Seems to me that from that day on, whenever a class had to go to the arena, the school provided a bus. Me freezing my fingers sort of made me the sacrificial lamb, taking one for the whole school. You'd think the students would have been more grateful....

I remember wanting to go see Star Wars when it first came out.

Major problem...we were not allowed to go to movie theatres. Ever. For any reason. This did not make sense to me, and at the age of 11, I was seriously grilling my mother for reasons why. "Why can't I go?" "What is the big deal with movie theatres?" "Why?" She could never give me a satisfactory answer, and I was the only person in my whole school who hadn't seen Star Wars when I was in Grade 7. I would sit on the school bus and listen to the other kids talk about how many times they had seen it, and I would just want to cry.

This led to an obsession with Star Wars on my part. I bought the Star Wars novel. I bought Star Wars trading cards. I imagined I was Princess Leia kicking the snot out of overly-religious parents who wouldn't let their children go to see movies in a theatre.

The obsession is mainly over now, though I will always remember with fondness the first three movies. Anybody want some trading cards? I have almost the whole set....but they're in really crappy condition. I spent too much time looking at them, playing with them, using them to tell myself the story of the movie, counting them, sleeping with them....you get the picture. On second thought, I think I'll keep the cards.

2002-12-06 - 8:19 a.m.

I remember Carol crying on Christmas Eve. She was my sister, a decade older than me, and I adored her. We were all at Grandma B.'s for the holiday. Carol was a college student at the time and low on funds, so she decided to make Nanaimo Bars for our brother-in-law, Jim's, Christmas present. I don't know if you've ever made Nanaimo Bars, but they are kind of fussy to make. When Carol took them out of the fridge and tried to cut them up into squares, the whole pan crumbled into a gooey mess. Carol burst into uncontrollable tears!


I was thirteen or fourteen, and I remember wondering why she was so upset. I did a lot of baking, and I never cried if a cake didn't rise or a jello didn't set.


Carol has been dead now for eighteen years, and I still remember her shoulders heaving, the sobs wracking her body. She must have felt completely inadequate. "I can't even make Nanaimo Bars!" I would love to talk to her about that now. She was completely unafraid to hide her emotions, unconcerned of what we might think. She became more human to me that day, brought down off the pedestal I viewed her on...but I became more fully human, too.


Thank you, Carol.

2002-08-28 - 7:37 a.m.

I remember: one day at school, the teacher was really getting under my skin. I was 11. By lunch time, I had had it. I took my lunch and quietly walked off the school ground and headed toward the highway. "He thinks he rules me? I'm walking to the city." The city was 70 miles away. I remember I was wearing a blue-and-white checkered dress, sort of a large gingham check, with a big bow in the back. It was made of polyester. I walked for hours on Highway 21, heading to Calgary. I didn't know what a prostitute did, but I did know that if you ran away, that was your way to make money, so I was determined to become one as soon as I got to the city. Thoughts of my family would fleetingly enter my head, but I'd push them aside. I was stubborn enough that I probably would have walked to Calgary, except for a man in a big sedan, driving the other way, heading back to my home. He pulled over and called out to me. "What are you doing by yourself way out here?" I lied to him, quick as thought, "I live near here, and I'm just out for a walk." Thankfully, he didn't believe me, and suggested that maybe I needed a ride back to town. I sighed. I got in his car. When we got back to town, I realized I had just missed the school bus, so I had to call home and lie again. And the next day at school, I had to lie to my stupid teacher as well.