Demolishing the Worst Year

At 13 I thought it was the worst year of my life when my family moved from the comfort of a small Michigan town to Birmingham. It was traumatic enough to have this happen mid-year of 8th grade but arriving with the curse of multiple chicken pox scars nearly scarred me for the rest of my life. I endured the cruel and blatant remarks of pubescent teenage boys. I survived chorus tryouts in front of 30 new-to-me classmates and being sent down to the music study room since I couldn't carry a tune. I hid behind the navy shorts and white gym shirt, humiliated as the last to be chosen for any team. I learned that if I told the gym teacher that it was "that time of the month" that I could skip swim class and leave the ugly black tank suit hanging in the locker room... that is until Mom got a note from the school expressing concern over the frequency of these periods. I escaped the clasps of the class bully when she taunted me the day I wore my badgeless green girl scout uniform to school. I had one friend but as much as we were best friends, due to some kind of misunderstanding, we became worst enemies and I'll probably never know why (are you still around Mary? - maybe I owe you an apology? Fill me in please).

Anyway, I missed the chance to drive by the old school when I was in Michigan last week. According to the Detroit Free Press, "It's all over for Birmingham's old Barnum School... City Commission voted 6-1 to knock down all of the original 1912 schoolhouse..." OK, maybe that's sad. I wish I could have been there to throw the first rock. Oops, sorry. But somehow the mental image of that first wrecking ball smashing all those bad memories to smithereens rings bittersweet.