1990

Finally back is my years of life blogs. Hopefully I can catch the good flow I was at remembering before my break.

I finished 8th grade in 1990. After a hectic 7th grade year, 8th grade was much quieter. Most of my memories come from band. I was in advanced band and that was 8th and 9th graders. I still had a crush on the sax player. His name was Kody. Anyway, I had many embarrassing moments with him in band.

My friend Joann (who was a 9th grader) and I were practicing for our duet at the state competition in the band director's office. When I came out I witnessed Kody running back and forth with a chalkboard eraser in his hand and Rachel, another 9th grader and sax player who also was in my ward, standing by the chalkboard. You know how in the movies when something important is happening and they slow down the movie. That is how it felt that everything slowed down. Kody stopped and looked in horror as I slowly turned towards the chalkboard and really big it said "Kody loves Melynda." I felt my face flood with color. I was pretty sure this girl in my ward didn't know about my crush on him but this had to be a joke.

That night at YW I asked Rachel why she wrote that on the board and she never really gave me a straight answer. My friends thought it would be a great idea to call Kody and ask him. He said he didn't know either. Nothing ever came of it but I still wonder if she was just being mean to me or teasing him.

Another embarrassing moment happened to me that year with a ninth grade boy. One day Dinece and I were eating our lunch alone (Carrie was gone that day) and two 9th grade boys came over and sat down with us. They were popular boys, Jeff and Lance. Anyway, I had a crush on Jeff and Dinece on Lance. They flirted with us and we were shocked. Well, a little later in the year I was walking by their group of friends with my very heavy and full over the shoulder book bag on one side. My friend Carrie thought it would be funny to push me into him. Well, gravity played its lovely little part and the books acted like an anchor and I fell right into the middle of that group. They just stood there staring down at me. No one helped me up. My friends were giggling in the background. I had to struggle and get up on my own.
That summer I got on a work program for kids and was assigned with the school district. I worked with a couple of other kids and the head basketball coach at the high school was our boss. We went to the different schools cleaning different things. I worked with a guy named Angel that was my age and then the other kids were older. It was my first real job.

I rode my bike the 4 miles to work every morning where we met and then take a van to the location we would be working that day. We met at the maintenance shop for the school district. My great uncle was the head maintenance guy at the school district so I saw him almost every day. One day my boss dropped me off at the shop to get my bike and took off before I went in. The door was locked and I couldn't get my bike. I walked the half mile or so to my friend Carrie's house and called my mom. She called my uncle and then drove in to get me at Carrie's and then my uncle met us at the shop so I could get my bike.

That fall I started 9th grade, Freshman. Dinece did not pass one class and since they didn't offer it out at the high school she had to stay out in the Junior High with Carrie and I. We all ended up lockering together in one locker and our locker was right in the middle of all the popular boys.

I also started seminary that year. We had release time and met in a little building across the street. Seminary was taught the first three periods of the day. I believe mine was the 2nd period. My friend Amoretta was in my class and that was the first class she and I had had together, I think, through junior high.


As you can see my sister cut my hair my 9th grade year. (Yes, and I did have a tail but only for a few months before I cut it off since it drove me nuts.) I hated my hair short. As soon as it grew out enough I got a perm in it (last perm I have ever received.)