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Grade School |
Middle School |
High School
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We've delve into the schooling and events that helped shaped Doug Malcore
into the person that we know him as today. My experiences are based off of Luxemburg Casco's
School district, as they've help to shape me into the person I am today.
Each year is described in detail. You can pick a year from the links, or just read them all
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I grew up on a farm. I think we've already established that. So preschool, or
day care, did not really exist for my brothers and myself. My day care was playing war with my brothers, and
our day care teachers were whatever hired hand my dad had working for the summer.
However, i do remember going to a class, and I think we called it preschool. I just remember one class, and
we planted some sort of flower in it. I think we were there with our parents too. But I was really young, and
the memory is very foggy.
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Before I started school, My father mentally prepared me. "5 days on...2 days off".
I remember singing that with my father. That's what school was. "5 days on...2 days off".
Kindergarten was only half a day for us. I had the morning session. So we get on the bus, go to school, and get
to come home around 12 or so. Just in time for Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. Perfect. Although we had to wait
until 3pm for Transformers.
Story:
I fell off the monkey bars at recess one time. Hurt so damned bad. I had to go to the nurse and all
that stuff. I was really afraid I was going to get yelled at for whatever reason. My mother had us
hooked up with a lady to watch my brothers and myself after school. I'd take the bus there. On this particular
day, I was afraid of being yelled at. So instead of getting off the bus and going right into their house...
I wondering the streets of Casco for a while. I had no idea why I was scared, just didn't want
to get yelled at. I hate being yelled at. I hate nagging girlfriends, I hate nagging, and I do everything in
my power to avoid it. For whatever reason, I was scared of getting yelled at for falling off the monkey bars at
school. Hmmm... pyschiatrists? I have my own theories on this. Anyhow, a while later my mom found me wondering,
and I got bitched at big time. Good idea Doug, avoid the situation that isn't that bad, and make it worse for
yourself. That story is a metaphor for my life today.
I had good friends in my class, and a great teacher...Ms.Malchow. There were 3 kindergarten teachers, and most of my
friends that I've had all throughout school were in am kindergarten. Strange, I don't think I know one kid that
had pm kindergarten.
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Going into school for the first time... I have to be there all day. I wasn't scared, like the kids
that were crying that we picked up. Getting the big 'pictures' on the first day of school sucked. I knew no one,
and I'm walking down the hall, I have no idea where to go. A teacher sees me..."first grader?"..."yep", so then I went
and met my teacher.
When I was in school, we had one teacher the whole day. Ms. Jerabek was mine. She had these thick glasses that I'll
never forget. She was a great teacher though. I don't think she teaches there anymore, as I used to tutor first graders
when I was a senior. That would have been great working in her class.
There were 4 first grade teachers, and you only left your teacher
for math and reading. Which was definitely interesting. There were four 'classes' of reading and math. You best not
be put in the 'dumb' math... or suffer dire consequences at recess. People were never really 'nerds', and there
never seemed to be bullies. At least with me. I stayed pretty much in the middle of the road. Second highest math, and
second highest reading. I don't know how they judged these skills, but that's where we were put. I remember coming
in from recess one day, and seeing 8+7=15 on the board. Almost everytime I see 8+7 now, I think of that time I saw it on
the blackboard. Strange.
I did get a ladyfriend sometime during the year. Sara Jerovitz, or something like that. She was with a few guys that
year. Everytime someone asked the teacher "what's for lunch", I always said "frog legs". That stuck, and I was the cool
guy early on because of that line. That's what attracted Sara to me. She was a big time Doug fan because of that. She kissed
me a few times. You know, the 'pecks'. I wasn't very into it at that point though.
I also met my best buddy during school. Alex LeClair. He was the son of my mother's boss. When riding the bus when we were
in kindergarten, he was sitting in the seat behind me. I turned to him and said, "my mom works with your dad". He said, "i
know". We were buds from then on. Pretty good moment, and we both remember it well. Alex had good quotes during school. I
remember a discussion our teacher was having about cuss words. His suggestion for alternatives..."grapes". So we were always
saying "grapes". Ahhh... good times.
The last day of school, Ms. Jerabek looked at me, and told me to go to the nurse. The nurse diagnosed me with
Chicken Pox, and I had to go home at the middle of the day. On the last day of school! I was sitting in the nurses office,
when my class walks by to go to the cafeteria. Ms. Jerabek..."doug's going home for the rest of the day, everyone say
goodbye". Awww.... How sad that was. I still get a bit misty eyed thinking about that. |
2nd grade. Good times. I'd pick second grade as one of my better years of school. My teacher was
Ms. Schneider. She seemed like a total bitch, but she was actually pretty cool. We still stuck with changing teachers
for reading and math. About a month into school, they decided to move me into high reading, so that was cool, because no one ever
really moved up. So I was a big deal for a while. It made me seem smarter than the other kids that were already in those
classes. My first day being moved up, I went to Mrs. Werner's class. She was the mother of a kid who went to the church school.
He was a good buddy in high school, but didn't go to grade school with us. She gave me this huge, smothering hug my first day.
She was always so animated, I guess it's more appropriate that she's teaching kindergarten kids now.
TNT (gifted and talented) was started a few months into the year for the first time. About 15 kids from our class got to
miss out on stuff to go into that. I wasn't in that.
We had a substitute teacher one time, and Alex dared me to look up her dress. I took the dare. I set my plan, and put it into
action. We all sat down for her to read us a story, and I sat right in the front, and right in the middle. My plan was simple,
sit cross-legged, and when the story is done, I would get up, trip myself, and sneak a peek. Worked to perfection, and I still
remember the image of those white panties to this day. Not that I'm perverted or anything, it's just hard to forget something
like that. I wasn't caught or anything. Good job Doug.
I had a ladyfriend this year. She sat behind me during the math period. When she would correct my homework, she'd put
little notes and such on there, and I'd do the same. Although there was no kissing or anything, it was all about romance and
passion, and letting our imaginations quench our thirst for each other. My father saw these papers and notes we sent to each
other..."Doug, I don't want you to get involved with stuff like this". Phmfff... Like he could control our passions for each
other. It was more than that. Unfortunatly, it didn't amount to anything... Chrissy Vandenhouten...
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3rd Grade, my teacher was Ms. Jonet.
I wrote a great story this year, titled "Space Balls", about baseball in outerspace. That story qualified me for TNT, which
was great. The appropriate committee read the story, and all I had to do was pass the test. The lady who gave me the test told
me I did an excellent job, and I was in TNT with about 15 other kids.
TNT was great. Alex was in it too, which kicked ass. We made a toothbrick bridge that kicked some ass, held more water that
the other teams bridge. It was such a great class, and Ms.Malchow was the teacher for it too. We miss out on some class time
doing stuff that was cool. We built a huge contraption for Odysey of the Mind, it was all a bunch of really creative or
really smart kids, and me. All these kids are now Doctors, and all the other succesful careers you could have, and then there
is me, running a web design company. Well, that's ok I guess.
In third grade I started to become a real "trouble maker". I always had to stay in for recesses and stuff like that,
put up with threats to get taken out of TNT, stuff like that. Ms. Jonet incorporated this new thing for me though. A point
system that if I was a good kid, and got enough points, she'd buy me candy bars. Very cool, and it was just for me. I went
on green sheets too for a while. Those were not cool, and you can get ripped on pretty good for being on those. Most kids
that weren't good in school had to have those, to keep their grades in check. Mine was for my behavior. I'd have to carry them
with me when I went to class, and the teacher would write things about my behavior and grades during the class, then my parents
had to sign them each night. Pretty much sucked, and I don't think had too much of an effect, as it just made me be
just good enough to get taken off them, then I'd be a little bastard, and get put on again, constant.
I had a ladyfriend this year. Her name was Lori. A very skinny, nerdy looking girl. The romance started in math class,
and lasted pretty much the whole year. There wasn't any kissing or anything unfortunately. She would call me though, and
she was a Casco girl, which was much better than the Luxemburg girls. After the fiasco my second grade year, I had to
keep the phone calls pretty low key. A kid named Aaron used to be a little bastard on the bus. He was this scrawny guy
that i got along with on and off. A big time trouble maker. He called me one time in a girl voice, and I thought it was
Lori. Fucked with me big time. Funny story.
Jeff Van Lieshout, whom I've known since before I started school was in the same grade as me. We were always pretty
good friends. I was on taking out the garbage duty at the end of the day once, when I'm walking back, he sticks out his
foot, and says "trip" (it was a popular game he started), of course, I'm carrying this huge garbage bin and fall right into
Tammy Waldow's boombox corner. It fucked up my eye big time, and hurt like a bitch. I'm walking back to class, holding off
the tears, waiting for the bell to ring, trying not to make a scene so Jeff doesn't get in trouble. Alex comes up to me
and sees that something is wrong and get's Ms. Jonet. She looks at my eye, "who did this". Of course I'm not going to tell on
my buddy, so I say I just tripped. She wasn't buying it, and of course, I have to tell on Jeff. My eye swells up huge, and
I'm at home that night, Jeff calls me up..."Doug, I'm sorry for tripping you today". "It's not a big deal Jeff", and that
was it. Ahhh.... the good times. Jeff was a good buddy for a long time, as he just lived about a mile away from my
dad's place. (very close in our district). |
I think this is the time I really start losing respect for a lot of things. I really was a jerk and had terrible behavior
by this grade. My teacher was Ms. Neville. There were four teachers, and they all had thier own little nicknames, carried
on from year to year. Ms. Neville 'the devil', Ms. Laroche 'the cockroach', Ms. West 'the pest', and Ms. Shlorf 'the dwarf'.
I think that's right. So I had the devil. She wasn't really that bad, she just seemed it. I was with her most of the day,
but I had math with Ms. Laroche, and reading with Ms. West. Geography too, I don't remember how all those classes were laid out.
About halfway through the year, we got a new student. "Clinton". Ha, that was a funny bastard. He didn't really know how to
handle himself around the ladies though, and always seemed to get caught, "eating his boogers".
I was constantly speaking out in class, against the retards by this point. When someone answered a question wrong, I never hesitated
with a quick "Duh!". However, Ms. Neville being the quick wit that she was, always added the "Ga" sound at the end, completine the "duh",
with G". If you get that. Yeah, she was pretty funny.
My only real ladyfriend this year was around Valentines Day. It wasn't much, no kissing or anything, unfortunately. Her name was
Samantha. Decent looking girl, kind of "athletically built" if I remember correctly. So I made a special Valentine for her and
everything, because I'm real romantic and smooth like. That was pretty much it for that relationship though. |
Fifth Grade was the best year at the elementary before. We got word that we wouldn't be going
to 6th grade at the elementary school. We would be going to the Middle school after. So we were the first kids not to go
to 6th grade in the elementary school. Pretty exciting really.
My teacher was Ms. Seidl. Which is pretty much thought of as the worst 5th grade teacher you could get. Regardless, I wasn't
going to let her bitchy-ness ruin my class clowning around. However, she wasn't there the entire first quarter of the year. I
can't remember exactly what was wrong with her, but I took it as a good thing. Our sub was a pretty decent teacher. She got
a lot out of me too. We had to take all these pre-tests to see how intelligent we were before we really got into the course lessons.
Most of them I did really well in, and with some of them, I didn't even half to attend the class. When we got into the section
that I had tested really well in, I got to go to the library to write up papers on other things. Anything I wanted to. I remember I
wrote up this really good article on mammals. It was beyond excellent. But that was cool. Nothing like getting to leave class
because you did well in a subject. Gives you an air of "I'm better than you", which was pretty much my thought everytime I left class.
Ha. That's the same with gifted and talented, which I was in as well. So I got to miss part of reading class too, every year I was in
elementary school. There was only about 15 kids out of about the 100 that was in the same grade that was in Gifted and Talented. With
5th grade, we got to do a lot better projects in that class too. In fifth grade, I felt pretty superior to most of my fellow students.
There was a part of class where we always got to write stories too. Creative writing. Every 2 weeks or so, we would get up in class and
read the story that we had written. There was never a set topic, and everyone had pretty much lame stories, so I decided to spice things
up a bit. My first story was relatively tame, just testing out the crowd a bit. It sort of had everything in it. A love story, violence,
action, suspense. Everyone like the violence though, so my next story, and the ones to follow, were going to be shockers. I got up
to read my story, and it was all gore and violence. Major action, with a hero, a damsel in distress, and all of that. The crowd went
absolutely crazy. The ladies loved me, the guys were all jealous, and I was king of 5th grade. However, when you become a
pioneer in a field, and everyone wants more, the pressure to come up with the next great story was always nearly unbearable. Also,
all the other guys in class started copying my ideas, and I would see themes and character types that were in my stories, appear in
some of my male classmates stories. However, I'm sure the class always liked to hear the original Doug stories anyone, rather than a
re-hashed B-version my male counterparts would tell. That was my favorite part of 5th grade.
When Ms. Seidl came back, I think all of the students were a little on edge. Even I was well behaved, well, for a few days. My name would
soon dominate the chalkboard with recesses that I would lose. See, everytime you did something back, you'd get another mark on the
board about a recess that you lost. I think I was over 10 a couple of times, but some of the other students, basically didn't have
recess priveledges at all. See, I wasn't very well behaved, but I always was pretty decent at making sure the teacher still liked me.
Actually, I think Ms. Seidl added more numbers to my name, just so that she could spend a recess with my glowing 5th grade
personality. Or not. Parent Teacher conferences came one time, and I had 17 numbers on the board before my parents were coming.
I really couldn't sleep, I didn't want to deal with that. Fortunately, the teacher had erased the numbers before they came. Seriously
though, I couldn't eat before my parents went to the conference. Mainly, I was afraid of my dad, he liked to beat me up for stuff like
that when I was younger. Also, I got put back on "green sheets" again, because of my "misbehavior". There wasn't many on green sheets
for misbehavior, mainly it was the dumb kids, or the ones that never did their homework. It was definitely a blow to the confidence
to be stuck on those. After every class, we had to go and have the teacher write up a little bit of stuff on the sheet, and everynight,
I had to take it home and get it signed by my mom or dad, whoever's place I was at. Man was that demeaning too. Everything that
I did wrong was put on that sheet, and I had to get the parent to sign up. Ugh, that was death too. There were times that'd I screw up
too, because a 5th grader can't be perfect all the time, esp. a guy like me, who always has an audience to perform. Expectations
always have to be met, and my fellow classmates won't take "green sheets" as an excuse. "He used to be funny, but then they put him
on green sheets, and know look at him". I wasn't going to let comments like that be made in my direction.
I had two ladyfriends of note this year. The first, was Janet. It never amounted to anything, and mainly it revolved around
reading class. Whenever we had to read something, you would read a few paragraphs, then call on someone else to continue. This quickly
becamse a good opportunity to meet the ladies, and a couple of them called on me a few times. I took a liking to Janet, and almost
always called on her. Then it got to a point where no one else would raise their hand, becuase they knew I'd call on Janet, and she'd
call on me. However, things started to materialize outside of reading class with another girl.
Gina, my first 'real' girlfriend. It sort of started around lunch. She and one of her friends would always start to sit by me and
one of my friends. Since she was obviously taking an attraction to me, I decided that it would be a good idea for me to pursue this. This
created a lot of problems during reading though, when I had to make the transistion from calling on Janet, to calling on Gina. For months
after I started being with Gina, I felt guilty when I didn't call on Janet. Actually, I still sort of feel guilty to this day.
Gina and I had a lot of good times. 5th grade was a time when a lot of us started doing the kissing thing. It was always talked about
too... who kissed who. Gina and I, through the pressure of a few of our pals, decided on a time and place. The last recess of the day,
which, was also the recess that I rarely attended because my name was always on the board. However, I finally got the opportunity.
The entire 5th grade class knew about it however, and we had a major audience. I was feeling a lot of pressure, and really didn't
like having such an audience for a romantic event as this was. So I kept stalling. Gina wanted it too, you should have seen her, kept
licking her lips the whole time. A girl named Carly Long came over with her boyfriend, and tried to ease the process. They went at it
"with tounges", which was pretty incredible for us small town kids to see. The bell rang, and things looked bleak. You could bet my name
would be on the board again tomorrow. I knew there wasn't much of a chance, so I went for it when everyone was walking away,
disappointed that they wasted their recess trying to get a look at our kiss. It was romantic and sweet, and from that day
on, I would be a different person. |
Well, we were the first class of 6th graders in the new middle school. Exciting for most, but it all started off pretty strange for me. You see, my mother
was the secretary at this middle school, she had been working there for years, so all the teachers new her well, and also new me from numerous trips to
the junior high when I was younger. However, they never had the chance to experience me as a student, and relate everything about me back to my mother. I knew
it was going to be a long, stressful three years ahead of me.
It was all our first experience with lockers, not having only one teacher for most of the day, and the chance to pick some of our classes for the day. I choose band, and
gifted and talented as my choices. G/T sucked though. It was no longer the exclusive crowd we were accostombed to in the elementary. Now our class size more than
doubled, the teacher wasn't as good, and the projects pretty much sucked. Honestly, while I can remember most of the stuff that we did during elementary school, I can
remember barely anything from this year.
Band was fun as hell though. I played the tenor saxophone, and loved doing it. Now that we had a class and not the summer lessons, we really all started to learn the
instruments. Plus, all of my best friends had the class too, so not only did we get to make loud music, but we got to fuck off too. The teacher was one of my favorites I've
ever had in my life, though he did have discipline problems with me, as pretty much all the teachers in the middle school were soon to experience.
It didn't take long to get the nervousness about my mom being able to watch over me to subside. I was soon back to my old rantics, keeping the class entertained and
the teacher on edge. However, 6th grade passed by relatively uneventful. Much like first grade, it was mainly spent getting used to the new school and comfortable with
our new lifestyle.
I was in forensics for the first extra curricular event I had. My mom was the head of that, so she set me up well. She's got just an amazing gift with putting together
pieces for students to do. I'm sure that our school always performed the best at all the events, but they never monitored that. It was basically about me being a kid, and
having do stuff that a little kid had to do. I had to go to a doctor, get a shot, and other stuff. Perfect for me at that age. I didn't have outstanding scores at our first
event, but I still qualified for the second round. At the second round, I really unleashed. I don't know what made me so good at that stuff. Maybe because forensics is
just story telling, and it's alwyas something I like to do. For whatever reason, I performed better than anyone else in my school, and everyone at the meet. The praises were
just jumping off of my score sheet, and everyone always wanted me to do it. On the bus, at lunch, whatever. It was a pretty big deal, and I definitely had chances to get good
at it. The teachers always let students practice after class was over before the bell would ring, so a lot of people saw my performance. I also entered the school variety show with this piece, and won that too. Beating out the 7th and 8th graders as well. At the end of the year, all the teachers voted me to perform the piece for the entire school. So that was pretty fun, I was pumped up for that. Nothing like having about 400 people laughing at you when you are in
front of them. It was pretty cool.
No ladyfriends really of note. Like I said, 6th grade was all pretty hazy to me. I might have had some little flings here and there, but no drama worth mentioning.
However, this was the first year that I met Nicole, who was to become a mainstay in my life all the way through college. I had gone on a rollerskating trip with two friends. We
were traveling to the big city of Green Bay, and of course, it was on a school bus. Some kids from the catholic schools around our area were attending as well, and Nicole happened to be one of these ladies. We didn't hang out too much at the rollerskating place, being this was the first time we met, but after I think we made quite an impression on
each other at "hardee's". I remember thinking, "this girls is pretty cool, and decent looking".
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What a terrifically fun year for me. My good friends and I started getting closer to each other. Mainly because we were starting to get to know each other better, hang out
outside of school. Every class just seemd to be more fun. Plus, we weren't the new kids in school anymore, and we didnt' have the stress of worrying about going to the big bad
high school next year. 7th grade was perfect.
Had some interesting teachers too. Mr. Schmiling comes to mind. Everyone was terrified of him. He ran a pretty tight ship. No one ever talked out of turn in his class, even the
worst misbehaving kids. He gave us a project to do about halfway through the year. Building a birdhouse. Fortunately, my mom was just married to Rick now, and his father
had a friend that had a woodshop, so I had by far the best birdhouse. I picked out the most difficult one to build, and built it better than it should have been. It was amazing.
I hardly did any of the work though. I went one time to go and help them build it, and they guy was an ex-vietnam vet. He was sniper, and told stories about being on one side of a tree, and knowing that someone else was on the other. He didn't know who it was, but he knew that it was either kill him, or get killed. He said he actually killed a couple US soldiers in the war. And it messed him up pretty good. Anyhow, he takes out this gun, and we start doing some target practicing. He's shooting at this cap ontop of a milk carton, and tells me to try shooting it. First shot, I hit it. So he said it was too easy, and backs it off about 20 feet. He shoots, and hits it, then comments on that it's a pretty tough target. So I shoot, and hit it. He sets it up again, and I hit it again. He starts talking about how I should go into the military, that my hands and eyes are made to shoot, and all that. Tells me he is going to personally bring me to a recruiter if I hit it again, so I missed. Not on purpose, but maybe the pressure was too great. Anyhow, it was nice to have a good
looking birdhouse.
In forensics as well this year. My mom thought I was all great actor and stuff now, so she made something that was more difficult. She said that if I could pull it off, I'd
be one of the best. It was based on the "outsiders" book, which happened to be one of my favorites at the time. I was Ponyboy, obviously, and I had to do three different
scenes that she had pieced together. So I practiced a lot. I always memorized my lines right away, that was easy, but I trying to really sound sincere. That, and I had to
come up with four different voices. Which was very difficult, being only in 7th grade as I was, and never very good at impresonating anything. The voices were definitely
each unique, and different from my own, but probably too far off from each other. Anyhow, I remember performing for teachers at the school, and they would break into
tears at the end of it. That was pretty wierd. I think it was strange for all my classmates to see me acting all serious, when I was such a fuck off all the time. It was a
definite change for me, however, the judges at the competition freaked out about it. My mom thought I was a God of an actor, and all that fun stuff.
Matt and I entered the Variety show doing Falco's, "Rock Me Amadeus". If you've never heard that song, you are missing out. It's absolutely great. We did a really good
job in the show too. But we got ripped off big time by the judges. I mean, big time. Although it was mainly screwing around the whole time, it was really good. The people
that we lost to, sat on chairs playing instruments. Rather, pretending to play instruments. The lead singer character was the only one that showed any life out of all of them
whatsoever. He's big move was when he dipped down during one part of the song. Everyone went crazy, and they beat us. Man, I was so pissed off about that. I mean, those
fuckers, no reason whatsoever to beat us, and I don't know what was wrong with the judges that they picked them. I'm pretty humble person too when it comes to stuff like that. I mean, I know what I'm good at, what I'm not. I know when I do something poorly, and I know when I do something good. For us to lose that contest was a fucking hoax. It
was absolute bullshit, and I'll never forget getting ripped off like that for the rest of my life. If the judges felt sympathy because they were 8th graders, and we still had another year to win or what. It just doesn't make sense, and I'm goddamned bitter.
I had slews of ladyfriends drama's this year. First off was a girl named Cindy. She was a big time Doug fan, and I always blew her off. She played saxophone too, so we
got to see each other a lot. Anyhow, i think she really liked getting rejected by me, and I really liked rejecting her, but we eventually ended up together. I won't go into the details about it, yeah, maybe I will. I told her that if she agreed to have sex with me, that she could be my girlfriend. First it was a joke, and we both treated it like that, but it
becamse my main excuse. I went from telling her things like, "You are too good for me, I don't deserve you", to "if you have sex with me, we're golden." She lied to me and
told me she'd go for it. So I set up the time and the place. She sort of showed up, but I had to go find her. Of course, nothing ever happened, we didn't even kiss. She sort of
chickened out about the whole thing, which was good, because I really wasn't sure what to do anything. The dictionaries and encyclopedia's don't have information on how to
perform these acts, and unfortunatly, there was no internet for me to go looking stuff up.
I dated a girl named Renee too, but nothing happened during this time of our relationship. It got definitely interesting the following year in 8th grade.
Ending the year, I was with Nicole. Which was cool, because we were terrific pals. 7th grade was the first time that all the catholic school kids finally became public school kids. The schools only taught to sixth grade, so we got to meet a whole bunch of new people we'd be spending the rest of our years with. Nicole was one of these kids. I always made
fun of her in chorus class because her voice was so low. Ha, I was such an asshole most of the time to women, it's amazing any of them even liked me at all. We always reconcilled our differences though, because we got along so well. Finally, like one of the last days of school, she comes up to me, "are you going to ask me out or what". That was
our term for boyfriend/ladyfriend. "Going Out". So I made the move and we were together. Not like we'd be hanging out a lot. we lived about 30 miles away from each other, and no car. But we stayed together for a long time, and talked on the phone. Mainly when my dad wasn't home, he didn't like that stuff.
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© Doug Malcore 2002
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