At some point during your lifetime, a friend or co-worker will ask you, "if you could go back to any point in time, knowing everything you know now, where would you go?". For me that answer has always been simple and has never changed, the first day of sixth grade in the fall of 1983. You see, everything i ever needed to know, i learned during that school year. If i had been marooned on a uncharted island the following year, i would have become king of all the natives, because i held the knowledge of the shadoof .

The funny thing is, even if i could go back with full knowledge, i probably wouldn't change much of anything, except maybe the outfit i wore that day. When your 11 years old, parachute pants, chams two tone shirt with mesh sleeves, spiked belt and bracelet,members only jacket and high top pony sneakers seems like a good idea, and in 1983 it probably was, however i should have kept the michael jackson glove at home, or burned it.

As i sit here on the roller coaster of life, about to go over the hill careening towards middle age, i think back to a time when i was pretty outgoing, and not the increasingly curmudgeoning fellow i have become. Maybe thats a bit of an overstatement, but back then i loved meeting new people and making new friends, not so much today. The reason i mention this, is because this was the first day in a new school, in an entirely new school district. All of my friends from elementary school had moved on together, i forged a new path alone.

At Cecelia Snyder Middle School, it didn't take long to make new friends, i made two that very first day. I grew up in a predominantly catholic neighborhood, and at the time, never really thought much about other religions, or cultures, but i would soon learn that jewish girls are very complicated. As an 11 year old, all i really cared about was star wars, halloween, my birthday and christmas. Now i was in a different world, with new and exotic people to meet. It sounds strange calling Bensalem, PA exotic, but again I WAS 11 YEARS OLD.

So it's the first day of school and all of the students are gathered in the lunchroom, being sorted into their home room groups and at the same table as me, is Amy H. She would become my muse, and my source of frustration that year, but more importantly, my life long friend. I also met Mike D. that day, he was tall and lankey and had glasses, but shared my warped sense of humor. We would become best buddies during 6th grade, but there was one 800 lb gorilla in the room, we both had the hots for Amy, how could we not, she looked like a young version of Annabella Sciorra.

So with rapt attention, Mike and I chatted up Amy and tried to gauge her interest level in either us, and maybe decipher that piece of information that would give one of us the upper hand in the epic struggle that awaited us the rest of the year. We noticed all of the other groups of students were being introduced to their new homeroom teachers, except for our band of brigands. It was as short while later that we learned some illness of unknown origin had befell our assigned educator and that we would be getting a substitute, that would not only be our homeroom advisor, but our math teacher as well, Miss Goldstein. She was about 24 or 25 years old, fresh out of college on her first teaching assignment as she told us, and she was stunning to say the least. It was almost like i was transported from normal earth to the valley of the jewish dolls, and I would never in my entire life pay more attention in math class than i did that year.

Every time she entered the room, every male in the class would have the faint sound of porno music playing in their head. What's the square root of 16? (bow chikka wow wow). She was only supposed to be with us for a few weeks, but another lesson i learned is the power of prayer, because every kid in that class, even Myron the atheist prayed she wouldn't leave us, and our prayers were answered. Did i mention she looked like the foreign exhange student from better off dead?

I knew that day, this was going to be a special year, I just didn't know how special until we met our english teacher, Mrs Jaquette. She would change our lives in a way we could have never fathomed, but thats a story for next time.