So, although Lance wasn't a flamer, it was obvious that he was 'as queer as a three dollar bill', that being one of the catchier descriptions of the day. He was also already a black belt, so it wouldn't do to make a smart comment about it.
The Miyagi Dojo didn't teach karate, but taught aikido. When I heard that I thought it was pretty cool. Dad had never heard of it but at the time nobody had ever heard of Steven Seagal. He became a movie star much later. I remember seeing him in a bunch of movies, and he was a for real 7th degree black belt in aikido. He didn't chop you or kick you, but he could toss you all over the place. That looked infinitely cooler, so I signed up. It wasn't terribly expensive, but it would all come out of my pocket, and I would need to ride my bike there after school. The only way I would get my parents to take me was if it was raining or snowing.
Aikido is not one of the more glamorous martial arts, in that nobody is breaking any boards or concrete blocks. Those are all 'hitting' arts, like karate or kick boxing. Aikido is a 'grappling' art, like judo. In a perfect match, your opponent tries to attack you, and then you avoid the attack, and use his momentum to make him do something he doesn't want to do. So, for instance, if he punches you, you can duck inside and then throw him over your shoulder, or maybe duck him from the outside and grab his arm, to twist it and flip him on his ass.
You also need to learn how to avoid this sort of thing happening to you. Bouts can be quite physical and quick. A premium is placed on speed and agility, not so much on strength and power. You have to be in good shape, and have some stamina as well. If I hadn't been running and working out with bricks and (after Christmas) barbells, it would have been very painful. As it was, although Mr. Miyagi considered me hopelessly slow, I learned and advanced.
School in the spring semester went about as I figured. I had finished the semester at Christmas with straight As, which mollified my mother somewhat. Mind you, I still wasn't living up to my potential, whatever the fuck she thought that was, but it was a lot better that the B-/C+ which had been my previous grades. In addition to Algebra 2, I signed up for typing class, which got me a serious ration of shit from just about everyone on the planet.
If you ever saw the television show Mad Men, then you know that in that day and age, secretaries were women and only women. Only secretaries used typewriters. If a boss needed to write a letter, either he hand wrote it and handed it to a secretary to type, or he gave it to her by dictation, personally or by tape recorder. Guys didn't type - end of story! This was one of the reasons Missy Talmadge was such a standout at the brokerage. She wasn't a secretary, but a broker, which was for men only.
Curiously, my father had actually sent me to summer school on my original run, between my eighth and ninth grade years, to learn typing. I was the only guy in the class. I have no idea why he wanted me to learn, and it may well have been as a punishment for some now long forgotten misdeed, but it was one damn useful skill. From then on I typed all my reports; considering my handwriting, this was a vast improvement.
Maybe Dad liked secretaries. When he met Mom, she was his boss' secretary. He went fishing in the secretarial pool!
Anyway, I signed up for typing class, and was rejected immediately by the teacher. I wasn't a girl. I was supposed to take shop class, which was for boys. Shop class was actually three classes in one. You started out in the fall with drafting, moved into wood shop over the winter, and finished with metal shop in the spring. We did this for two years, and then when we got to high school were required to specialize, so some guys took all drafting and some took all wood shop. Girls took secretarial classes and home economics. There was to be no mixing of the species, since no good would ever come of such a thing. It was sort of like miscegenation, which was also considered unnatural.
By the time I got to high school, the rules began to break down. My junior year, the last I had to take shop, I took a second full year of drafting, and we actually had two girls in the class. The teacher, an old style geezer, simply couldn't deal with them. He was simply stunned when they showed up. He compensated by ignoring them the entire year. He graded their projects and tests, but nothing else. He wouldn't even talk to them.
Drafting had always proved useful to me. I had worked in several jobs where the ability to read blueprints and do design work proved quite helpful. I learned enough in wood shop to make a crappy wooden stool and know which end of the hammer was which. Metal shop was a disaster, since everything we used was either blistering hot or razor sharp, or both, and the only projects we made were totally useless. Of course, a lot of the guys ended up making high school versions of prison shivs, which for some of them would prove good training for the future.
When the typing teacher refused to let me in, I simply went down to the office and saw Mr. Butterfield. He also refused to let me in, with the same argument. I very calmly asked what the legal reason was. As soon as he heard the word 'legal' his ears pricked up and he stared at me.
"It's the rules!", he sputtered.
I set the paper back down on his desk and marked a big X where he was supposed to sign. "Mr. Butterfield, please, just sign here."
He turned bright red and spluttered some more, than grabbed a pen and scrawled his name angrily. I left quickly, not wanting to push my luck. I marched right back to the typing class and handed Mrs. Wakerman the paper. She stared at it and wordlessly pointed me towards an empty desk to the side. The typewriter was a decrepit and ancient manual Royal model, but it worked, mostly. I managed to get some time on some of the IBM electrics as well during the course.
This class was a little tougher. Typing on a keyboard is a snap compared to using a typewriter. Make a mistake and you have to go over it with a correcting ribbon. There's only one font. No spell checker or grammar checker. No automatic centering. No automatic line return. And you have to do it all blind, because your eyes aren't on the screen, but to the side, reading what you are trying to type. They call this touch typing, probably because afterwards you're touched in the head.
Still, I got a decent enough grade the first time, and while Mrs. Wakerman wasn't happy, she was fair. I got a decent grade this time, too. Even better, I got to hang out with a bunch of pretty girls, and didn't have to make prison shivs with a bunch of ugly guys. I promised Mrs. Wakerman I would sign up for Home Economics next year, which made her apoplectic and the girls giggly.
I didn't have much grief from my male classmates, though. For one thing, after the fight on the bus, I got a wide berth from anybody interested in bullying me. For another thing, well, like I said, I got to hang out with some awfully pretty girls in class, which was a pretty big deal at 13 or 14. I wasn't anywhere near as nervous about girls this time around. If the girls weren't interested in me, and let's face it, they weren't, they often told me which guy they were interested in, and I could drop subtle hints ( 'Asshole, I am telling you, she'd like to go to the dance with you! Get with the program!') in the proper direction. I had a rather subtle power over my compatriots.
Okay, I had my fair share of hormones rampaging as well, but as a midget 13 year old, I couldn't buy a handjob from a hooker, let alone a dance invitation with a girl. The first time, I didn't get anywhere until I was 14, next year. This time looked to be the same. I jerked off in the bathroom at home occasionally. Oh well.
I managed to make it to First Class in Boy Scouts as well. I liked Scouting, and was involved from Cub Scouts, up through Boy Scouts, and then transferred over to the Explorers. Later, when Parker was old enough, I registered him as a Cub Scout and I became a Scout Leader. He actually made Eagle, and I had just about every rank in the book, ending as an Assistant Scoutmaster.