USJ

I have a lot of memories from eighth grade. It was a really great year for me. That may be why I wrote so much at the time.

One of my favorite memories from the eighth grade though, is the USJ. What's that you ask? Well it's the United States of Joe! One day I decided we needed some sort of organization to unify the class. And I knew I was the perfect guy to do it. So the USJ was born!

Right away, I had many loyal subjects: Zack Funke, Andy Harrington, Richie Harrison, and most of the boys in the class all joined right off the bat. With a growing population, I gathered the necessary props - a flag with Latin words on it and a cool emblem, a national anthem, and some incentive for other people to join.

First off was the flag. I had just read House of the Scorpion and I thought that the emblem should be a cool-looking scorpion. So I googled scorpion and found a nice one. As for the words, I used Paint and inserted "USJ" and "LIBERTATOS NOSTRORUM NUMQUAM CAPIENT" which means "the freedom of us shall never be taken." (I was thinking about Braveheart at the time...)

Next up was the anthem, and it was unanimous. We held a vote, and the anthem became "We're Not Gonna Take It!" Before the week had passed, the class would randomly burst out into a chorus of our anthem.

And finally came the incentive. I had saved up $20 for something like this. What do all eighth graders like? Candy! So off to Albertsons. Before you know it, we had a personalized goody bag with four candies in each one and labeled for each citizen of the USJ. The morale of my subjects soared, and I soon had many new citizens.

But of course, this couldn't last forever. Before the nation could live long, we found opposition from a few of the boys. Which wouldn't be a problem if they hadn't been the largest and toughest boys in the school. We soon found ourselves challenged to an airsoft war. But before I could organize one, I came down with appendicitis. My Vice President had to take over, but he was not exactly liked in this new position of power. Morale went down, and when I came back to school, weak as I was, the USJ no longer had the strength to counter the threats that it was receiving from these boys. And so ended the USJ.

But it was one of my great memories from the eighth grade. And it's another perfect example of me taking joy in the randomness of life. It's what I do best. And I will never forget those happy months that I was the president of the USJ...

Mondays, Part 2

Here's another part of my half-finished book. If you want to read the first part, here it is.
Mondays
A little background information - I wrote most of this while I was in eighth grade. At that time I went to St. Mary's Catholic School. Great place. At any rate, recess was a very big thing for most of the students, mostly because of competition. As eighth graders, we played the seventh graders in football. It often got really tense and at times both teams were known to cheat and play dirty. It was mostly from this that inspired this 2nd part of my book.
Enjoy! Comment if you like it!

After Algebra, there was History with Mrs. Lancaster. As usual in the class, I sat with everyone else, but read ahead, ignored the teacher’s discussion and did none of the checkpoint questions that everyone else did. So far, I’d been doing this for a month with no consequences. While they were reading about the War of 1812, I was reading about the end of the Depression. I had asked Mrs. Lancaster if she knew that I wasn’t with the class, but she just laughed and told me to do my work. She was a character.

While switching back to homeroom Andy bumped into me and said, “You suck. Wait for me next time you jackass.” I did my best to ignore the comment, and set my things on my desk. It was hard to ignore him sometimes, but it was always harder to punish him for it. For example, if I punched him for insulting me or annoying me, he would not logically link the two together and stop doing what caused me to punch him, but defiantly say something along the lines of “I didn’t do anything. You’re just a jerk.” This did nothing for either of us but further infuriated me. But for now it didn’t matter what he said to me. It was time for recess.

The school was small, maybe two hundred kids for the nine grades it offered: Kindergarten through eighth grade. Each of the grades got recess, but this was the last year that I would get the privilege before high school. The upper grades- the fifth, sixth seventh, and eighth grades- had their recess right after the lower grades, which were fourth on down.

As for the games, classes usually compete against the others. Eighth versus Seventh; Sixth versus Fifth; and so on. The sport was a variable, and the game pool included kickball, bump, basketball, dodgeball, four-square, wallball, red-ass, and many others. But the eighth and seventh played two-hand-touch football out on the grass field. It was what the two classes lived for. There was rivalry and friendship out on that field, and each football game was better than the last.

I ran out onto the field to face the seventh grade with my team. The odds were stacked against us. They had perhaps a seven-man advantage. Nick, our quarterback was shouting orders at everyone. We were receiving the kickoff. The ball soared into the end zone and Mark kneed it for a touchback. Hike! Nick dumped it to Luke, who made some good running yardage. Hike! An incomplete pass. Hike! A long pass to Mark. Hike! A short dump to me, touchdown. Score, 1-0, us.

I was a surprised at a touchdown so early; we weren’t usually this smooth this early in the game. When you’re in a football game and you’re outnumbered, no yardage marks, and no first downs, it’s hard to get a good start. On top of that, there were no referees, so if they cheated, than oh well.

We kicked off and I managed to tag the recipient before he could make it too far. John and I rushed Peter, the seventh grade quarterback. We had to rush through maybe three times as many blockers, but we pretty consistently made it through and if we didn’t make a sack, then we at least put good pressure on their QB, Peter.

So it was their ball. Hike! John and I sack Peter. Hike! QB run, maybe a ten yard gain. Hike! Incomplete pass. Punt! A quick recovery for us. We didn’t do so well for the next series of plays, and the game continued in such patterns until the score was 2-2, until it was late in the game. We had the ball perhaps fifteen yards from the end zone. It was fourth down, too long to give an easy pass, and too short to give a soaring one. I whispered to John, “I’ll be open.” On the hike, I ran straight into the end zone as fast as I humanly could. Still running, I turned to see the ball hurtling toward me. Still running, I felt my foot connect with a leg, and tripped over it. Crashing down, I saw Peter grin and make a grab at the ball.

He missed of course, but my class immediately sprang into action. John, having seen the deliberate tripping laid Peter out on the grass, and the seventh graders tried to come and wrestle us down. They weren’t able to; they couldn’t. While our age and strength may not be much use for two-hand-touch football, any sevie would be sadly outmatched to us when it came to fighting. But it was very hard for seven of us to fend off fifteen of them, even with our advantage of strength.

There wasn’t much else but tackles, but the two classes were in an all-out brawl by the time a teacher came and broke it up. He took the ball and said a little speech about our behavior, and said that the next time it happened, it would be gone for the week. It’s a simple thing to say, right? Not for him. He turned this into a five-minute long ordeal. I didn’t pay much attention, but there was something strange about how he said the speech. It was probably just that his voice kept on squeaking in the middle of it. I didn’t care. He was a pathetic teacher, and I had disliked him ever since I first set foot in the school. The only reason we hadn’t gotten in worse trouble was because he wouldn’t have known how to deal with it. All I gathered was that if it happened again, the football would be taken.

The bell rung and we clamored up the stairs, walked past the huge map of the world, and into our separate classrooms with plenty of exchanged glares.

To Be Continued...