Slam or Be Slammed

As I look back on them from the vantage point of almost forty years later, I can see why the faculty and administration at my high school disapproved of "slam books". Any grownup with any decency about him or her would have done the same. But, as juniors and seniors doing time in a penal colony as punishment for the crime of being a teenager, we prisoners needed a little diversion. And one of those diversions in 1968 and 1969 was creating and/or signing a "slam book".

What the hell was a "slam book"? It was a tablet that you had converted into a guest book of sorts so that other students could sign it. But there was a sick twist to that. A "slam book" was a way to "slam" or to get back at other kids whom you hated or disliked. Here’s how a "slam book" worked:

1) On the inside cardboard back of the tablet was a vertical list of numbers, such as 1 to 25. Beside each number, a fellow classmate would sign his or her real name or initials.

2) On each page within the tablet was the same vertical list of numbers, 1 to 25.

3) At the top of each page was a question. Some of them were quite innocent, such as "What is your favorite meal?", but most questions were loaded guns just waiting for someone to pull the trigger. Those kinds of questions made up the bulk of the "slam book" and read like this: "Who is the stupidest guy in our class?" or “What do you think of so-and-so?” or "Do you think so-and-so is ugly or cute?" and "Who do you hate the most in our class?" And so on and so forth.

4) Students answered these questions by writing on the numbered line that corresponded to the name or initials inside the back flap. Of course, you weren’t supposed to look back there. Unh, hunh.

Personally, I didn’t like "slam books". Like the faculty and staff, I thought they were a waste of paper, terribly bad behavior and very cruel to others. But I’d occasionally sign one, and I’d only answer the innocuous questions like "What is your favorite meal?". Where most other students had answered "pizza and Pepsi" or "burger, fries and Coke", I’d write "filet mignon and a nice hearty Burgundy" or something aloof and high-brow, just for the hell of it. Just to be different.

I never heard of "slam books" from any kids in the next generation that followed me. They probably had their own version of hurtful snobbery. And the kids in high school nowadays are probably text-messaging each other the same insults and nastiness, without leaving a paper trail that can get you in really deep do-do with the warden.

“Fairy Loops”

A “fairy loop” was an American slang term for the little fabric hook on the back of men’s and boys' shirts in the 1960s and they were put there by the manufacturers to hang these shirts on a locker hook or whenever a hanger wasn’t available.

These nifty little clothing hooks were not intended to show that you were a homosexual, daring bullies to call you a “fairy” while ripping them off your shirts — often tearing the shirt — as you walked down the corridor in high school. Bullies back then liked to call any male student a "fairy" if that student was better looking, well groomed, got better grades or was better liked by the girls. Go figure.

I was as "girl crazy" as the next guy in junior high and especially in senior high school. I had serious crushes on several girls in my class and carried a torch for at least one of those girls throughout my freshman year in college. None of us regular students (actually we were "pupils" because we didn't pay tuition) were fully prepared for the onslaught of hillbilly, farmboy and "greaser" redneck hatred regarding these so-called "fairy loops". The same bunch of fairy loop hunters, who were either serious "fairy phobes" or just seriously mean and hateful, even went so far as to declare that any boy who wore a red shirt on Friday was "queer".

By my senior year of incarceration for being a teenager, the incredibly stupid and nasty boys with "queers on the brain" added the warning that wearing yellow shirts on Wednesday and pink shirts on Thursday was also proof that you were "queer". This extended bully-ass manifesto gave these white-trash freaks access to a lot more "fairy loops" and the chance opportunity to destroy more personal property belonging to the smarter, friendlier and better groomed boys in the process. These guys were so stupid they didn't even realize that their ridiculous queer criteria made most of our class "queer" and the rest "queer phobes".

Now, don't jump to conclusions. I wasn't for or against anyone's "personal lifestyle choice" back then and that wasn't because I was so opened minded. No. It was because that shit wasn't even an issue back then and also because I just didn't give a shit, one way or another. I was more concerned about getting good grades to get into college and about the girls I had crushes on. For several years, I secretly imagined the "deaths" of these Nazi  fairy loop hunters and I vowed to never return to those "hallowed (hallowed, my ass) halls" ever again or, worse yet, to attend a class reunion, once I was finally set free of them and that place on graduation day. And that was a promise I never broke.

And I made that promise to myself and kept it because, unfortunately, in my 1960's high school experience, hostile redneck hillbilly asshole students were on a continual quest for “fairy loops”.

Talk about queer.

Post updated 11-9-13 for image link and for clarity.

The Jointure Bandwagon

When the Korean War ended it seemed that Americans had crossed another domestic threshold. It appeared that no one wanted their kids to attend high school in their own hometown. The same post-World War Two, home front introspection that had built GI Tract housing and put women back in the kitchen had reared its head again after Korean Vets returned stateside. Only this time visionary Americans were determined to tear down all those ugly two-story hometown high schools and build “Jointures”. After all, this was a new age. Milton Berle was the new American icon. TV dinners were on their way. MacArthur had "faded away", Truman was out and most of America was already liking Ike. We had helicopters and jets now.

Jointures were super high schools that combined the student populations of several small school districts under one big, single-story roof. They were the academic shopping malls of the future, where grammar school was sold as Junior High School, with high school freshmen being reduced to the same ranks. The new Senior High School became an exclusive hangout for Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors only. There was new tax money for big lawns with lots of athletic fields and a football team backed up by a shiny new band and cheerleaders from several different towns and rural areas. All rolled into one. The wave of the future.

Unfortunately, these new academic visionaries forgot about the fact that hardly anyone could walk to school now. Most would have to be bused and that meant that seventh graders would have to rise and shine before the sun did and wait for school buses in the freezing cold and then travel ten to twenty miles or more to school whereas, before the Korean War, they just got up an hour before school, ate a leisurely and healthy breakfast and walked to school with their siblings and friends. But now they were called students and not pupils. Apparently none of the forward-looking parents and administrators had bothered to look up either word in the dictionary for its true meaning.

Before Jointures, students got to attend classes with kids they grew up with and already knew. Kids they had already made their bones with on the school playground. But no one seemed to care about that back in the 1950s. I’ve often wondered just how many visionaries on the new American school boards also snared the school bus contracts for transporting kids out of their neighborhoods and into the unknown.