With 10th grade, all of the students from the other junior high schools came into the class fold. The person who sat next to me in history class was legendary in my mind, his name was John, and friends with two guys in my scout troop. One was the guy that I printed the KKK cards for, and the other a guy was named Norman.

At their junior high school, John and Norman had a system going on, where John would signal Norm to do something, and Norm would make a sound at a particular finger John held up. Unlike my just barely skating under the radar, they were well known to the office.

While Norman went to a different high school, John came to Parkville. It was a blast having John sit next to me in history class. His abilities in both memorization and confounding people were amazing. When called upon, a graduate college vocabulary was brought into play and very often and interrelationship to some facet of philosophy was formed.

Conversations, between him and myself were a blast, as well as abstract and esoteric affairs. Essentially he would become the music department's equivalent of what I was in photography.

My opinion about 10th grade was that was about the most stable school year that I experienced in a long time. Needless to say, I enjoyed photography and got a lot out of it and surprisingly, with me, the models seemed to enjoy their experience as well, though not everybody was a willing volunteer.

My photography mainly involved black and white film, then hand processing it and printing it out. I wanted to experiment with using color film, but still keeping a black and white theme in it. There was a girl sitting, just in front of me that was very attractive and better yet, fit the bill of the color portion of my photographic ideas. She was a preppy girl that often sported those fluorescent bright colors that I sought to incorporate into the photograph.

I asked her to model and she declined. I then used all of my talents to layout story boards with my ideas. I wanted us to take the bus into the city and used many of Baltimore's areas of perpetual grey architecture so that her clothing would stand out, with photograph using a fashion style theme. Again she declined.

I asked her and she once again declined. This project was so important to me that I asked again and offered to pay her. The response was, "Look, I said no and I mean no! I am not interested in doing anything with you, OK."

I responded, "I understand, but if you reconsider and change your mind, please let me know as my ideas were custom designed with only you in mind." This would become known as, "My reluctant models speech." What disturbed me more was, she was no longer turning around to chat, but I had the, "Such is life," attitude.

Most models were very willing people and worked great with me. What surprised me was how pleasant and appreciative they were and even mentioned that they got a lot from the experience as well.

My second favorite class was printing II, but there was an underlying friction between me and the printing teacher. In addition to letterpress printing, we were to learn and work with offset printing. I started at the ground level, in the camera room. Unlike photography, lithography was a very frustrating endeavor.

You use a copy camera to photograph type. This is a bear of a machine that you set the percentage that you want to reduce or enlarge a flat piece of copy. Then you stand on a box and sight it in with a ground glass. Last, you flip up the glass and flip down the film which is held on a vacuum frame. Then simply press the button to expose it.

My frustration was the darkroom was in an room that was in an unheated part of the shop. It was either too hot, or too cold. Not to mention the constant frustration of other students exposing the film in the box. With no temperature control, the film would either develop too fast, or take five minutes before the image showed up and quickly become damaged by the chemicals. I might get one shot in six, to turn out.

The printing teacher was constantly yelling at me for the amount of film in the trash can, but things came to a head when, it turned out that I was reshooting jobs that the other students couldn't get to work out. Instead of simply throwing away the bad film, they hid it by throwing it up on a top shelf. We had a shouting match and I refused to do his lithographic work after that.

Another problem that created resentment between us was when I dropped a California job case, he had a, "You break it, than you buy it," policy. When I dropped mine, he charged me $22.00 to buy new type. However if a girl dropped it, he told her that wasn't a problem. I said something when a girl had the ground glass of the copy camera slip and shatter. He told her, that is why the shop had insurance.

I enjoyed running the big Thayer and Chandler letter press but with two heavy metal platens coming together, it had its element of hand crushing danger. The students running the Davidson offset press wanted to try to get the Chief press up and running and they trained me in offset printing.

That was where I would be for the rest of the year and with its length, it always had two students running it, but it was easier for me to run it myself. The rest of the class needed a few times for their assignments and I would set type, work the Thayer and Chandler, make layouts, strip up flats, develop plates or cut paper. I quickly became known as Mr. O's, "Get it done man."

But the tension continued, while I refused to go back into the printing darkroom, I was actually experimenting with lithography in the art departments darkroom, and things were progressing great. I wanted to show Mr. Swartz how lithography is done for printing and Mr. O said it was OK., but after Mr. Swartz left, the printing teacher called me over and chewed me out.

"This is printing class, and the darkroom is no one else's business."

"But you said it was alright to show him."

"Well, I was hoping that you picked up on the visual hint. I don't need the entire art class, down here using our equipment and film up for their projects! You got me? Do something like that again and you'll be out of here."

"Mr. O, it's not like that. We have our own darkroom which is better suited for the way we use lithography. No one from art is going to be coming down here, I promise." Well, his attitude scuttled my plans to volunteer a lecture on printing related lithography. It seems that after that, the teacher would also be throwing more personal comments my way.

It was also the year for driver's education and I looked forward to it because John from Scouts father was teaching it. It was a half year course where you have a couple of classroom days, then the rest would be split up between actual driving/study hall or the driving simulator which was a trailer out front of school.

It was the actual driving that drove me crazy, I had John's father in the passenger's seat and he just loved ripping my friend Timothy to shreds. "So tell me, is your friend Tim really a pothead? I taught him, are you going to be just like him. Take what I teach you and get all fucked up and try to kill someone?"

I was pissed, first the tearing down of Tim was nonstop, but I knew that once again, John ran his mouth with the only purpose of making himself look great. To me, this was intolerable, to have to constantly put up with comments when I really felt that Tim was a much better person then John.

After the third time, I caught up with John's father and asked that he stops talking about Tim, that I didn't like it. I also thought it was also a good measure to talk to Mr. Pfeifer, the principal. John's father talked with me after the next class and let it be known that he didn't appreciate that one bit. I mentioned that dealing in this manner is better than me telling the class about all the asshole things that his son has done.

The woman driving teacher was a real trip; she had the simulator duty with us. The trailer had rows of mock driver side of cars, complete with seat, steering wheel and controls. She stayed in the back at the main controls after she turned on the movie that we would be driving to. Despite the fakeness of it, she had a good gauge of how we all performed.

To the movie, you would go from a street and merge on to the freeway, change lanes and suddenly a small pine tree would fall off a truck, while she screamed and sent empty film canisters your way. "OK, half of you all can take your foot off the accelerator now you drove under the truck and you are dead!"

One time, she turned on the film and said that she was in a good mood. With us there trying to drive to the film, she chatted away like an old woman, getting louder and more excited as time went by. I know I wished that she would just shut up, then all of a sudden, she yelled, "God damn it! I'm talking to the class, look at me!"

"Now isn't that the stupidest thing that you all did?" She told us that it was her favorite part of being a driver's education teacher was irritating all of us the way that students irritate most teachers. I think I learned more about human nature in that class than any other, including psychology.

Still, the fun was with the weight room after school and in October, it was going to continue at Towson's YMCA class in the evenings. Because my father was an avid, "Letter to the Editor," writer and enjoyed speaking his mind at BGE shareholder's meetings, we got a few death threats and Dad signed us up for Karate classes.

These were three days a week, for an hour session. Afterwards, dad would go swimming and I would go to the weight room. The actual weight room wasn't a very pleasant experience as a couple of Prima Donnas let it be known that I wasn't welcome and basically made it so it was too distractingly hard to work out. I used the dumbbells some of the time, but most were bent as I found out that they would throw them on the rail after they finished.

I loved their Nautilus equipment and stayed in their room as well to use some of the Gym's equipment to strengthen muscle areas that were more specific what then weights could address. The Prima Donnas, called this the baby sitting room, but I shot back that I like the men that work out in there, as they were of great help. Between sets, one couldn't resist going out to the Gym and watch the women work out in aerobics class. There was actually a girl working out that I enjoyed watching.

One of the younger boys from Karate watched me checking out the girls and asked, who I was looking at. I pointed her out, "Really! I kind of thought she was ugly myself."

"No, she may be a bit soft, but I feel she's attractive."

"Well she's my sister and going out with a real jerk. He is constantly arguing with her and making fun of me. I would love you to ask her out as you are such a nice person. It would be great if she had someone that actually cares."

That gave me confidence that I needed and after aerobics class, I walked up and introduced myself and found out her name was Debbie. I then asked her if we could get together and go out, but she declined.

"Debbie, I really think that we should at least get together once and give things a try."

"No! Personally, I think you're a real asshole. When I come here, I just want to work out; not to be gawked at by all the dirty old men of the weight room and jerks like you. Personally, I think you a pervert and don't want anything to do with you. You get it! I'm not interested in you." I mentioned that I did get it, and was thankful to see that side of her.

Later her brother came over and asked how it went and I told him that she rejected me. He expressed his dismay and said, "Don't worry, I'm going to fix it for you."

"No don't do that, she was pretty clear on things." He didn't listen and ran up the steps and they got into an argument, to the point that he was told to mind his business as she went into the locker room. I was across the Gym doing dips and saw the boy come out of the locker room, when she came out he yelled, "I think you being a bitch! Mike's a good guy and would treat you right, unlike your asshole boy friend."

This not only led to a shouting match, she threw him up against the wall and hit him a few times. The argument continued down the hall and my guess was, also in the car on their way home. I never saw either of them again.

It dawned on me, I haven't been asking the girls out like I should and had to ponder why. I figured it out in short order, while I would love to have gone out with somebody, if Jean would have expressed a disappointment with me dating someone else, I would have instantly dumped them and gone with Jean. I just didn't want to do that to friends. Jean was the only woman to have that had that effect on me.

It was also at the YMCA that I would realize that not all women are nice. Mostly Karate class was wasn't about fighting, but actually just practicing kicks and Karate chopping air. I actually enjoyed the warm up more, as we would drive the upstairs office staff crazy, by hitting the wood post as hard as we possibly could.

Yes, all of the boys loved showing off. The Sensei spotted this and came over, admonished us about showing off. He then showed us his knuckles of scar tissue and really pounded the thing. We got on the other two and did the same. The office sent down a runner to get us to stop for fear of damaging the building. He showed us his knuckles again and they still looked the same. Ours were bleeding and the Sensei enjoyed every knuckle pushup that he made us do.

They had the heavy bag up and we had a contest about how high we could hit it from a running jump. I won it hands down when I caught my leg in the top chains and had to be have my spinning body rescued by the black belts.

We rarely sparred and most of the black belts spent most of our time encouraging us to hit them, the best sparer was a guy that would bring you out and show you a few moves. The Sensei's daughter on the other hand was a bull dike looking person, always with a scowl on her face. Basically, you spar with her and she'd just enjoy kicking the crap out of you, as painfully as possible too.

After Aerobics class was over on Thursday nights, I would join a Volley Ball team in their practice. It was mostly good fun; I enjoyed the workout and the intensity of it. The team captain's daughter was fairly tall and very strong. She served the ball so hard, it would hit my chest with a resounding bang, which sent me rolling backwards.

Once she discovered that weakness, she really enjoyed exploiting it. After about the third time I got blown backwards, I could hardly breathe. My teammates told me to forget it as she too much for me, but I was working on a way to deal with her. About the fifth time I had a game plan, she fired the serve my way and I simply fell backwards to the floor and let the ball hit my stomach. It was propelled straight upwards, and our team took command and scored. We would not only win the game, but it was a personal best as I took that girl's fun away.

My YMCA days were numbered, as Dad wasn't happy with Karate class because he wanted to learn the self defense aspects, instead of just practicing punches and kicks. Dad was disgusted that one wouldn't really learn serious self-defense and fighting, until you were a brown belt. We were white belts and couldn't progress until you went to their camp for a weekend, which was very expensive. He didn't like the idea of spending all that money to learn nothing and wouldn't take the class for a third time period.

Near the end of the school year, I choose the courses for next year. It was time for honor's physics and geometry. I choose photography II and was honored to be invited by Mr. Schwarz to join the photo-crew for eleventh grade. The photo-crew sets up the darkroom for the day as well as, cleans up after school.

Mr. Schwarz was different from the many teachers that would let students hang around after class. While he permitted that, he was productive and arts oriented and what made it special was his introducing a bit of reflection and philosophy into the mix.

He had his share of girls hanging out, but unlike some of the other male teacher, Mr. Schwarz was forthright and wasn't doing that for personal relationships. A couple of the teachers dated the students, after they reached the age of eighteen. If we went out on an afterschool outing, he made it appoint to drop off the girls first. Usually, I was the last.

I hated the study hall as one just sat around bored, and I was happy never to take them outside of the required one for driver's ed. However, having more credits then I needed, I gratefully made arrangements for a personal study with photography.

I was also hip deep into printing, as I managed to get a job at a small print shop just up the street from me on Linwood and Harford. My printing teacher was happy too. I was hired to run the equipment, but that lasted less than the first day. Their insurance agent walked in, saw me and had a shit fit as the print shops policy didn't have the expensive provisions for child labor with machine equipment.

I figured I was out of a job, but the small family business kept me on to do chores and clean up. Though not really as important, since offset printing was most of their business, I was setting up a few lines of type and their numbering machines for their letterset press.

Yet, once again with printing class, there was another problem with the teacher, he asked me if I decided to take another year of printing and I said that I had. He responded, "Good, then you dropped your photography class."

"No, Mr. O, I am taking that too."

"Look, in my opinion, you can only devote your time to one. If you're taking photography, then I don't want you in here taking printing."

Personally, I had enough of this crap and instead of either begging or getting into a fight with him, I simply said, "I understand."

"Good, I'm glad ou got that straight."

I did get it straight in my mind, I decided to drop printing, which allowed me that time for the personal study in Photography