Welcome back my loyal readers. Today our journey moves to the small city of Ripon, Wisconsin. Ripon is the second “largest” city I’ve lived in with a population hovering around seven to eight thousand people. I moved to Ripon at the age of twelve. This move was not totally planned over time, but rather sudden. We moved the summer between me being in sixth grade and seventh grade. I’m going to start these stories with a few tales of what it was like for me to be and outsider in this little berg.
For starters, I had been in little league almost the entire time we lived in Redgranite and would have been going from “B League” to what was called the “A League” that coming year. This would have meant moving from overhand moderate pitch to overhand fast pitch closer to what one would see in High School ball. However, I wasn’t signed up early enough in Ripon to play at that level, so at twelve years of age, I was stuck on a team of nine and maybe ten-year-olds hitting off a tee. The parents of the other teams wanted me kicked out of the league saying they were afraid I would hurt their kids. I was also five nine and a hundred sixty-five pounds at twelve years old, so I kind of understand their concerns, but it wasn’t my fault. It’s just where they stuck me. Needless to say, getting yelled at by opposing parents and occasionally benched for games so as “not to cause issues,” caused me to lose interest in playing baseball.
Then the school year started. If any of you have moved schools in your life, you know its hard to find “where you belong.” Having gone from a school where there were maybe twenty kids in my one classroom to a new school with lockers and constantly changing classrooms was a bit stressful. This was made more tough by not knowing a soul there. As I said, I was a bit big for my age and I inherited the dreaded acne curse as well, so it was fairly easy for people to make fun of me back then. The first “who’s the pizza face?” comment hit before they even unlocked the doors to let us in in day one. This in turn almost immediately drove me into my shell.
It took me almost a full semester to start to make friends. Coming from the tiny town mentality where everyone hung out with everyone, I didn’t fully grasp the “clique” mentality. I learned very quickly though. One of my first and eventually best friends was a guy that was considered a bit of a troublemaker. And I guess to an extent, he was, but it was harmless fun…I mean trouble. He ended up playing a pivotal role in my life, but I’ll discuss that in full later.
I never agreed with this clique separation thing, so I did my best over the next several years to make friends in as many of them as possible to try and blur the lines. I fit in well with the metal heads and gear heads because that’s my bread and butter. But I also shot guns and went fishing with the outdoor sports guys. I played football for a couple years and that got me in a little with one or two of the jocks, but I was primarily on defense, so not the super popular ones. We did have a handful of what I liked to call the “Fringe folks.” These were the people who were better looking and popular but didn’t believe in class lines either. I still talk to a few of those to this day.
Unfortunately for my grades and extra curriculars, seventh grade was also a time when I just stopped caring about school. I would pass the tests, because I picked up on what was being taught, but I wouldn’t do the work. I didn’t make it past a week in band, and left choir after just one year. I tried basketball but wasn’t very good, so I rode the pine the whole time. I wrestled for a little bit, but hated trying to make weight, so I quit that after seventh grade too. Believe it or not, I was a sprinter for a year, but lost interest in that too. Just because I’m on sports, I’ll fast forward a little. I made it through Sophomore year playing football, but then I decided working and earning money was more important. I ended up having to do summer school a few times to be able to advance to the next grade, but I always managed to do just enough to skate by.
Because I wasn’t doing little league anymore, much of my summers were spent working for my Dad with his side work. Growing up, Dad never seemed to have just one job. He had his main nine to five, but always did carpentry and insulating on the side. With me being the only one left in the house, that made me his only employee. I’m not saying I didn’t make good money loading the insulation into the blower and hauling shingles up ladders, but that was tough work for a twelve and thirteen-year-old (who had never lived on a farm and would later become a soft fluffy computer geek) to do.
We first lived in a lower apartment on Liberty street in Ripon. This road is also referred to as “the double drive.” We lived in a corner house and that meant that if you were coming from the West, you had to drive to the end of the block and make a U-turn to come back to the driveway. Let’s just say my Dad tended to ignore that rule all the time. I think he only received two tickets from it though. Being on that end of town, much of my time was spent at Pamida. Perusing their cassette tape selection, flipping through the poster display with posters of Motley Crue, Judas Priest, and of course, Heather Locklear, and dumping quarters into the Donkey Kong 3 and Tapper games out front.
It was strange those first couple years in Ripon because I felt I had more things to do and more places to go when I lived in the small Village than when I was in the significantly larger City. I know this is a pretty short post for me, and there isn’t quite as much fun stuff as usual, but we’re going to call seventh and eighth grade my rebuilding seasons. Next week I’m going to start off with Camp Webb, move to a different street, and head into the High School years. I promise some much better stories from those years.
As always, we’re all in this together. Luv Luv.