Summer School

Summer School

My first week of summer after my sophomore year at Mater Dei turned into five days I’ll never, though try as I might, forget. About two weeks before the end of the school year, the old man gave me my reprieve, he was going to let me leave the rigors of Catholic School life and go public, it was a gentleman’s agreement, sans the handshake.

This was on a Friday and the following Monday we started taking our Iowa Basic Skills testing, an annual event to see if we were learning anything. I had tested in at Mater Dei two years earlier in the ninety nine percentile, which apparently gave the Mater Dei brass a free ride to put me in all of the harder courses, to challenge me. I took Latin and every advanced class they could think of, and for the first semester I was angelic, straight A report card, played football and basketball and no detentions, but like most things I got bored.

Boredom leads my mind to wandering and I now realize as a Junior Senior I’m allowed to have no filter, yet I was filter less back then as well. That led to me becoming King of the Class Clowns and in return I was given indefinite detentions, three days a week, every week until they could knock some sense into me, they had no idea I was senseless, ha!

So on the first day of the Iowa testing, I started drawing horses in the little dots on my Scantron, I actually surprised myself, I wasn’t a bad artist. The next four days were tanks and planes and football diagrams, it was a hoot. Yet I got my comeuppance when that next Friday dad had changed his mind, and I knew right then and there this wouldn’t turn out well for me.

I was called into the principals office with my Dean, Mr. Merino, and they took my tests from the top drawer, admired them for maybe a half a second, then the proverbial other shoe dropped. Tested in at the ninety nine percentile I had just recorded the lowest scores in the history of the tests, a composite eight percent. It was official, I was a moron, though ‘woke’ morons across the country would deny me status.

After a lot of screaming and yelling, my parents were let in and I found myself outnumbered by four to one, and none of them wore a smile on their face. This was doomsday plus one, and now they had to figure out more punishments for me, and I must admire their ability to work as one cohesive team, for they came up with a doozy.

When all my friends were going to the beach and starting their summers, I was awarded five days retaking the Iowa Basic Skill tests in the campus library with Mr. Merino, hell John by then, we were on a first name basis, he just didn’t realize it. He sat literally right across from me as I buckled down and actually tried and once again I scored in the ninety nine percentile.

To this day I don’t understand why he was pissed I scored so high, just because I was bored in class didn’t mean I didn’t understand my studies. Hell there were a few teachers there that could of used my help. My behavior didn’t improve and I was always walking the line, barely hanging on, but acing classes and hating the rules.

I recently watched a segment with actor Jim Carrey on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and he told of a similar story, with a different ending. Apparently one of his teachers gave him fifteen minutes at the end of the school day to do stand up, if he would just not act up in class. He took that time to write monologues and prepare himself, I was not offered that solution.

John Merino haunted me well into my fifties as I coached at Mater Dei and although we hadn’t seen each other in decades he needed no introduction to me. I was in the trainers room with my back to the door when I heard his voice “back again Mr. Dies?”

I turned to see him and smiled demurely, and went over and shook his hand. It seems I was around him so often and for so long, he came to recognize me in his sleep, and it’s nice to know you’ve made an impression on someone.

My junior year we finally parted ways when I was now in Spanish Class drawing a colorful picture on the cover of my typed five page report and the teacher accused me of finishing the report in class. The fact it was typed and we had no typewriters in the classroom made no difference to her, she didn’t like me and the feeling was mutual. My parents got called in to the office again and this time they had seen the report and knew something was amiss. After arguing with the brass they pulled me that day, and I do regret not graduating from Mater Dei, but I met a boat load of good folks at Costa Mesa High as well. It seems to turn out the way it’s meant to.

Crack Egg Out