Let's Go Panthers - 7th Grade

...Continuing down memory land to tell my story from birth to age 18 with Mommy Piggy Tales in fifteen posts and  I am now over halfway.  I hope this inspires you to join in telling your own story.

My precious grandmother joined our family on our summer vacation to Arkansas prior to seventh grade. On our trip, we searched through roadside junkyard-antiques for an iron bed which we tied, Beverly Hillbilly Style, upon our trusty station wagon for the ride home.  This new bed would begin my bedroom decorating - this time more subtle.  My bed would be sandblasted white and adorned with gingham check blue and white. My room would hold a large, cubed-legged, modern, white kitchen table without the chairs. This large table was big enough for studying and sewing.   Side tables would be cube-legged-square white tables, where my alarm clock/radio would rest.  I would go to sleep with music and wake up with music.

Janette's Top Billboard Songs for 1975 and 1976

Hooked on a Feeling, The Streak, Billy Don't Be a Hero, I Honestly Love You, Love Will Keep Us Together, One of These Nights, The Best of My Love, Lovin' You, The Hustle, Mandy

With my metal mouth, long hair, standing 5'6" and sewn clothes, I would confidently enter Junior High. 

•  Old life friends from my past neighborhood would be bussed  to my new Junior High, making this year a year of reunions and new friendships
• I would ride a school bus for the first time to my out-of-the neighborhood school, walking to the bus stop would continue until I drove and was allowed to use the car
• Lockers - combination locks that I had to memorize - six classes, different teachers - five minutes between each class - crowded halls - what excitement!!!
• PE class - SHOWERS!!!!!!!!!!! UGH!!! - running around the school fence, can you say humiliation?
• Joining the pep squad, I would release my vocal ability and support our football team.  Each week we would enter our pep squad bus to different football fields, after we had rallied the school "spirit" in the morning pep rally.  I would wear my uniform with pin on "spirit" ribbons....red and blue ribbons in my hair
• My fingernails grew and became the envy of "mean" girls at school....cliques would form
• We would have 50's day at school
• Slumber parties were almost every weekend...some I didn't get invited to. Instead, to cheer me up, my house was papered by friends....this meant you were liked
• Boy/girl parties were the rave (no I have never allowed mine to go to any of these) they were pretty harmless, spin the bottle was played  to pick who you would kiss....very uncomfortable indeed and the fear of those of us who had braces getting them locked kept the game to pecks only
• I would sew almost every outfit I wore....usually just days before the event - my dress for the Junior High dance,  my dress for Valentine's Banquet, party outfit and daily wear

• I attended my first Valentine Banquet at church with a date...along with high school students 
• I attended my first school dance.  (I would never attend another dance or prom.) This was the year where the girls stood on one side of the gym and the boys on the other...very few danced, mainly 8th graders
• I would continue taking piano lessons...my sister was better, but I learned to play the piano to release stress - I haven't touched it in years, but my children and husband's fingers dance across our piano
• I tried out for cheerleader...didn't make it, oh well!
• I had my first and only boy/girl party.  I made matching outfits for my friend and I.  Our garage was converted into a game room.  We decorated with streamers and played a lot of games - it was fun!
• I would get my first yearbook...where we wrote to each other that we would be friends for "life"

• Summer would bring the first of many youth choir trips.  I would be among the youngest to go.  Because I was one of the youngest, the older girls felt it was their "duty" to make me look more stylish.  So, to my mother's horror, one would pluck out my "Brook Shield" massive eyebrows to one single line of hair!  Many of these high school girls would become life time friends as I started to establish a group of older friends
• We lead revivals and performed "Agape" in Kansas City and at the Gainesville boys prison
• Gas crisis - 55 MPH speed limit enforced across nation to conserve gas - I believed I would never get to drive a car because of cost...I was so worried about missing this rite-of-passage driver's license
•  Helter Skelter - book about Charles Manson is released and tops the New York Bestsellers List
• Watergate Scandal shakes the nation
• With all that changed in the world around me, I still continued to dream of my future life. 
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