For me it was more than mere “teasing”; it was both atmosphere and actions that set me apart… like these:

The boys called me “Buck Boob” in response to my oversized teeth, and “Flat Albert” (a play on a Bill Cosby character named “Fat Albert”) for my flat chest.

A boy invited me to take a bite of his freshly peeled banana and when I tentatively accepted, slammed the whole thing in my mouth to the great amusement of friends.

The girls all piled onto the bus once, forcing me to the back of the line, then streamed out the back door to leave me alone.

I was the only one in the class not invited to party at a student’s home.

The ‘favourite phrase’ beneath my yearbook photograph was, “Oh Goody!” (it still makes me cringe).

I wasn’t singled out for my schoolwork or my grades but rather just for being “me”. I was a newcomer with no one else from my elementary school and I was a year younger and slower to develop physically, but I’m sure most importantly I was unwilling to act “out of line” and I was no doubt pretty quiet.

I think of those years as awful, and I refer to them as the worst of my life, yet there was much I enjoyed with memories that make me smile. I had a couple of close girlfriends, was active in sports, and I liked my studies; I never balked at physically going to school.

I credit my parents and my large, loving family with guiding me through it all relatively unscathed and in the end quite happy. Almost from the outset, my high school years were completely different. In that enormous, 1200-student school, I met new friends, was surrounded by scads of different people, and drew close to a group of 10-12 girls and guys who spent lots of time together. The challenges of junior high simply faded away.