Comments on: On the George Washington Bridge Project: Adventures in Fifth-Grade Despair and Redemption

By: c.

c. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:13:49 +0000

Alex G DeWitt wrote above:

“P.S. The teachers invariably found the slam books and confiscated them…one assumes they read them. What did they ever do with this pre-pubescent information?”
If they were anything like the adults during my public school education, they pretended nothing was wrong, and threw the books away.

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:36:25 +0000

I recall slam books also being called slang books — in kentucky in 1959. they were usually stenographer’s notebooks, as they were then called, and consisted of a sign-in page followed by a series of questions, one per page, questions such as “who’s your favorite” this or that, “who has the worst” this or that — you get the picture. they were usually designed by the most popular girls, who tended to be very mean. and i remember a guy in jr high [who later came out and moved away] who “published” a book of virgins — certain girls were terrified that they weren’t on it.

By: The Gay Recluse

The Gay Recluse — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:44:37 +0000

Thanks for the comment, AGD. I feel like there should be a museum filled with hate-filled artifacts like this to demonstrate to the world exactly how often geighs are impacted/terrorized/shamed by those around them at a very young and vulnerable age.

By: Alex G DeWitt

Alex G DeWitt — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:11:08 +0000

Ahhh. Fifth grade. Growing up in Westchestuh. I had a wonderful teacher. Mrs. Howard. We had “slam books.” These instruments of torture were made up of a single 3-hole-punched page for each person in the class (around 30) and carefully attached with those little brass doo-dads that expand/pull apart when you put them through the hole (too thick for staples.) After the title page [SLAM BOOK--Class 5C] followed the student pages, names centered on top, in alphabetical order. The book secretly went around the class and everyone wrote the worst things they could think of about each of their fellow students. Naturally, one could see what everyone else thought of you (sort of a precursor to an anonymous facebook wall) and you had the opportunity to “slam” your colleagues in revengeful ink. I was the tallest and one of the brightest in my class–my page was filled with ‘fckn faggot,’ ‘homo,’ ‘sissy,’ etc. Words of hate meant to demean and hurt.

40 years later…This Valentine’s Day I was away from my partner on business. I went into an iHop to eat with a gay colleague. Our waiter was an undergrad freshman or sophomore, this being a college town. We ordered. He brought our food. When we stood up to leave after paying the check he smiled broadly at us and sweetly said, “Happy Valentine’s Day!” He clearly thought we were a couple.

It takes time, but how far we’ve come…

P.S. The teachers invariably found the slam books and confiscated them…one assumes they read them. What did they ever do with this pre-pubescent information?

By: The Gay Recluse

The Gay Recluse — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:10:24 +0000

Thanks, Rottin! What was interesting about my crew was that they kept it to themselves, so that I felt like I was entering another world when I was around them.

By: The Gay Recluse

The Gay Recluse — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:09:36 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Francis — there’s obv something really agonizing about the beginning of adolescence for most people, but it’s particularly traumatic when you start to understand that your non-hetero leanings will place you beyond the ability to make people like you. I think your reaction makes as much sense as mine…ultimately it goes to show how damaged the ‘lil gayz’ are by the oppressive weight of societal expectation (and how we overcompensate to the point of self-destruction).

By: Francis S.

Francis S. — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:59:09 +0000

Fifth grade was the beginning of the worst years of my life… it really didn’t become awful until sixth grade though. But when I started fifth grade, I was determined to slough off my old teacher’s pet image, so I decided to be, um, bad. I taught myself to swear, starting with “damn.” And I ended up getting in trouble in most of my classes, including having to spend the year in music class sitting by myself on the other side of the room from the rest of the class, which in fact allowed me to make fun of the music teacher without being seen. And my social studies teacher, Miss Bendix, used to corner my mother in the grocery store and cry, complaining that I was the ringleader of the class. None of which had any affect on my schoolmates’ view of me – I remained a wussy little teacher’s pet to them no matter what I did.

By: Rottin' in Denmark

Rottin' in Denmark — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:59:07 +0000

“I managed to catch a glimpse of a note being prepared by one in which a list was being prepared declaring who was or wasn’t a “Cheddaball,” which I soon gathered was a slightly pejorative term ”

There was a girl on my school bus who used to yell ‘you ain’t got no biscuit!’ to fellow students she didn’t like. I remember this being incredibly cutting at the time, and since I was a member of the be-bussed ingroup, being thankful that I had biscuits.

By: James van Maanen

James van Maanen — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:41:19 +0000

Ah, fifth grade! It all seems so innocent now, though it seemed pretty awful at the time. Wish I’d had a group of girls to befriend ME! You had a pretty weird teacher in Mr. W, however. In my own fifth grade (back in 1951), the teachers were nothing like that. In fact, it was odd to encounter any male teaching elementary school.

By: c.

c. — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:40:26 +0000

Dark, with a couple chuckles underneath.

“…the friendship of these girls and their mysterious society was the salve I needed to cope, if not survive.”

Friendship, when it can be found, often is a salvation.

So, though, obviously, were your inner resources.