Eccentric Gears

My family moved just before I started high school so I didn't know anyone when classes started. However, I soon discovered a small group of close friends via the class-clown method. They were class clowns and oddballs which, just so happens, matched the exact type of friends I was looking for. Remarkably enough, they had the same types of interests I had too. Photography, astronomy, hiking, travelling, motocross, etc. We became friends then and are still close friends today even though our jobs have taken us physically distant from each other. As a matter of fact, my friend Joe is more than just a friend to me. He is really like a brother. We all used to hang out at his house and his parents were like surrogates to me. I loved his Mom and, since my Dad died when I was nine years old, his Dad was my surrogate. He'd probably be happy to know that I stole some of his mannerisms and used them when I became a parent ...... and they still worked !!! Anyway, together we tortured teachers and administration in school, had many great adventures, and travelled far and wide. It was nice to find another group of close friends. In junior high there was a group of us that were also close friends. We also tortured teachers and administration (stories to follow at some point). We started an underground newspaper to compete with the sanitized school paper, and, as we prepared to graduate eighth grade and move on to high school, the teachers got together and voted on which students would be doctors or lawyers, which would be married or have careers, etc.
I was voted most likely to be arrested for starting campus riots. I liked the ring of that.
Of course, it was all done as a joke and we all loved it. We presented one teacher
with a jar of 'Perlmutter Peanut Butter," another with a booklet entitled "The Fairmont West Virginia Reader," and just generally had fun with several others. Now, teachers can't do anything without being sued. I just read about some whiner kid and his family who were "deeply hurt" and "wounded" when the teachers at his school voted him to be something goofy. Dorks. We used to have fun teasing our teachers and they teased us. Now, if a teacher says anything that is not white bread pure and respectable, some moron will sue them and the school system. This is all fallout from the self absorbed, selfish, "I'm more important than anything in the World," protected jackasses that currently make up most of our country. I'll be ranting about those jerks later because I am digressing badly from the story. So .... I had a wonderful time in junior high and the last part of elementary school because of my close knit group of friends and it was nice to be accepted into a new group just as close in high school.
Thanks my friends. I owe you much more than you know.