A Christmas Past 1951

One of my special memories of the Christmas season occurred in a highly unlikely place--my high school's locker room during ninth grade.  The story of this special memory begins in the fall of 1951.

Although situated in the high school building, our school district's ninth grade, along with the seventh and eighth grades, was considered junior high.  Since I had attended the local Lutheran elementary school for the first eight grades, I was in a new school where most of my ninth-grade classmates had already been together for two years.  I was trying to find my way in a different culture where I was an outsider.  I was new to the school and to the class.

My rigorous training in grammar while in sixth grade at parochial school enabled me to stand out in my early afternoon English class.  Our teacher, Mr. Evans, was in his first year of teaching in the school district.  Because his background was math, Mr. Evans sometimes found the English he was teaching somewhat confusing, and I helped him out with explanations.

Garry, the captain and quarterback of the junior high football team and also the president of the junior high student council, was in my class.  Although not particularly good-looking, he was a nice guy, as well as a class leader.  I don't know why, but Garry noticed me and began paying attention to me.  He sent me daily hand-written love notes with little circles dotting the i's in the missive.  Perhaps he found my grammatical ability to diagram a sentence attractive.  I felt flattered to have the most popular boy in our class like me.

Because of Garry's attentions to me, I was invited to the parties of the leading social clique in my class.  At the first party, I was introduced to the Spin-the-Bottle party game.  Never having played this game, I followed my classmates' lead. 

In the version of Spin-the-Bottle we played that evening, the girls sat in a circle, each with a boy in back of her.  Someone spun a milk bottle.  When the bottle stopped, the girl to whom the neck of the bottle pointed, was supposed to turn around and kiss the boy in back of her.  On the first spin at this first party, the bottle pointed to me.  Not knowing the rules or object of the game, I naively sat there until someone told me to turn around and kiss Garry.  Rather clumsily, I did.

A few weeks later as we neared Christmas, I was in the girls' locker room after gym class when a group of girls began to serenade me with a ditty to the tune of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.


Verie the red-lipped sweetheart
Had two very shiny lips,
And if you ever saw them,
You would even like her hips.

All of the other girls
Used to laugh and call her names,
And they never let poor Verie
Play in any of their games.

Then one foggy Saturday night,
Garry came to say,
"Verie, with your lips so bright
Won't you be my date tonight?"

Then how the girls loved her
And they shouted out with glee,
"Verie, the red-lipped sweetheart,
You'll go down in history."


At the time, I was taken aback by this individual attention and thought the words clever.  Ever since, I smilingly remember the event during Christmas season when I hear Rudolph in stores or elsewhere.  Now, all these years later, I realize Garry helped me make my way into a wider world than I had previously known.  And Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer may not be great art, but the parody of the song reflected what I experienced in ninth grade during 1951. 

 A 1951 studio photo of me with my "two very shiny lips"

By the end of the semester, our young romance was over.  Garry found another girlfriend, and I began to date the vice president of the junior high student council who was taller and better looking.  For a long time after dating Garry, however, I dotted my i's with circles.



To the best of my recollection, this story is factual.  However, the names of individuals mentioned in the text have been changed to avoid possible embarrassment to their heirs.