Little Boy In A Big Locker

This is a repeat from another blog I started named "Wierd". It was going to be blog specifically about growing up in East Marietta in the '70's. It is titled "Wierd" because that is way everyone at Wheeler High School spelled "Weird". I soon discovered having one blog is hard enough, but having two is impossible if you anything else going on in your life, such as a job. "Wierd" is no more, but, here is the story I posted in it about the time I got trapped in my locker.

One of the differences between the 70’s and now is that back in the 70’s schools had lockers and kids went to their lockers between classes to get their books for the next class.

Unlike those of my son’s generation who carried a four hundred pound backpack to every single class. There will be some wealthy chiropractors in the future.

When I entered 7th grade at East Cobb Junior High School, it was my first encounter with a locker. Some how, some way, I lucked out and got a big locker.

At East Cobb, lockers came in two sizes: big and small. The small locker was actually a compartmentalized big locker-instead of the one locker, it was two: one stacked on top of the other. The big locker was the size of the two small lockers. At the top of the locker, it had a shelf and it has enough room for a couple of coats.

It was like this: if you had a small locker, it was bad. It barely had enough room for your books and your coat when it was winter. That is, if you didn’t have to share it. A lot of kids had to share a small locker, dividing the top and bottom with a piece of wood. In this case there is only room for the kid’s books. No other item could go in the locker.

How you got a big locker was strictly up to chance. It just depended where you had home room. My home room was next to a set of big lockers, so there you go.

It was beauty, too. It was the first locker in the row, right out side of the Spanish class, taught by a refugee of Castro’s Cuba who had a germ phobia. My combination was 17-5-19. That’s pretty good considering those are numbers from 1971-1972. I’ve had a cell phone, since 1998 and I’ve never learned the cell phone number.

One day before school started, me and a bunch of guys were doing what the East Cobb kids did back then: hang out in the halls. Somebody, and I'm not sure who, said, “Hey Manis”. [ Whenever somebody in my life has said, “Hey Manis”, I know nothing good will follow it] “Why don’t you get into the locker and let us close the door so you can tell us what it is like in a locker?”

To understand why I agreed to this is to understand that I am the type of short person that tries to get along with everyone I possibly can out of the realization that everybody can beat me up. So I agreed.

I got into the locker and the door was shut. There were slits in the door, so I could see out a little bit. The guys were in fine form. “Uh, what’s that combination again, oh man, the locker’s jammed! You may have to stay in there all night”.

I was okay. I knew they were clowning around and then I heard that voice.

The voice of Tater. [Note: not his real name. When I published this last year someone on Facebook remembered this kid and published his full name.]

Tater was a kid I feared and for some reason he smelled the fear and came around me as much as he could. He was a tough hombre, only 7th grader I have ever met that had a tattoo. He also, and this is the truth, chewed on a tooth pick all day, like he was some sort of Robert Blake impressionist.

“Maaaaaaanis…are you in there?” I wanted to say, No, Tater, I’m not in here, but I was very certain I would get out and I wouldn’t want Tater to be mad with me.

For you see, I not only feared Tater, I would have dreams about Tater throwing me off of the Holt Road bridge into Sope Creek. He was my own personal Freddie Kruger.

“Hold on, I’ll get you out” and with that he began punching the locker door like he was Joe Frazier. It was very loud and I’m not sure how he thought beating the door was going to help me. It seemed to help him.

“Did you feel that?” he asked. Um, no, Tater, I haven’t become one with the locker door, but again I wussed out and said it was okay.

Then the bell rang for home room. Everybody left. I was stuck in my locker. Alone. So I did the only thing I could think off: kick the door and yell for help.

It felt like a long time, but it probably wasn’t when Sammy Lawhorne came up and opened my locker, letting me out. I was late to home room for the first and only time of the year. The teacher didn't ask me why I was late.

If that had happen today, I’m pretty sure a movie would have been made out of it or at least a reality TV show. But, by the time third period rolled around, it was yesterday’s news except somebody told my math teacher, Mrs. Fussel, who said I could have died. Nobody got in trouble and now that I think about it I’m not sure I ever told my mother about it.