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| BBHS Echo 1976 |
"Yo Weeds" scowls a tall blondish guy waving me over from the back row of room 301 in the first period of the first day of our senior year, "back here in the cheap seats."
"Hey Mazurk" I whisper, dropping into an old wooden seat in the back alcove of a large classroom on the third and top floor of Bound Brook High School. "What're you doing in French I?"
"Hot new teacher" laughs Leo Mazurkewicz as he passes me a thick 75rpm record from a pile on the floor of the little closet beside him. "This is going to be a great year."
__________
This exchange takes me back to my very first day of school. I was supposed to have followed my big sisters Beulah and Beatrice along the half mile route to the old stucco building, but got waylaid by the Park.
"Did you know this park is named for Thomas Codrington?" asked a big kid sitting in the middle of the merry-go-round.
"Huh?" I replied, pushing off and hopping on as Beat and Beulah headed down the sidewalk.
"He bought the land from the Lenne Lenape and built the first house on an Indian mound" he continued as we creaked to a slow spin.
"Indians?" I marveled, barely verbal as the youngest in a big competitive family.
"The tribe moved west to join the Shawnee, but a few stragglers swindled the British gentry" he concluded as a sixth grader ran up and starting running around the rusty iron wheel.
There was nothing to do but hang on so the girls were gone by the time it slowed enough to jump off and let my head stop spinning.
Two big black birds flapping over the baseball field caught my eye and there they were, walking up Evergreen Avenue.
"That mound is under Old Ladies Hill" called the big kid as I took off across the outfield.
The first running step onto the mushy infield claimed my right sneaker, but I was able to grab it by balancing on the left foot and reaching into the orange muck. Forging on, I managed to keep both shoes on by slowly lifting them straight up with each sucking step, falling only once more. My sisters were halfway past the creepy old mansion by the time I caught up.
"I declare, if it ain't Wiley the mud monster come to scare off them haints" teased 10-year-old Beat in her not yet abandoned Appalachian accent.
"Aw, whyncha roll in the grass to wipe it off" offered Beulah with her jet black hair and deep blue eyes, looking out for her freckled faced little brother.
"Wiley Weed" I lisped into the silence of the kindergarten classroom.
"Well Mr. Riley Reed, get out of those muddy clothes and into this" greeted the teacher, handing me a clown costume and pointing to the closet at the back of the room.
"Not Wiley, I'm Wiley Weed" I tried to explain to giggles echoing around the wooden floored room, unable to enunciate the R of my last name.
"I don't care if you're Lyndon Baines Johnson" she laughed, "there's still no filth in my class."
"Much better Riley" assured the teacher as I tried to sneak into a little desk at the back of the room.
"Some getup Weeds" hissed a tall lanky blond kid at the next desk.
"Bound Brook gets hit by a hurricane once every twelve years" whispered that chunky guy from the playground who's now sitting right in front of me.
"That why they call you Newsy?" mumbled the tall kid, christening Enzo Januzzi with his nickname.
"Leo Mazurkewicz" scolded the teacher, "there will be no private conversations at the back of my classroom."
__________
"Parlez vous Francais?" smiles a long haired heavyset guy squeezing into a seat in front of the screenless back window of the hot classroom. "This class is appropriate for the bicentennial year, what with the French alliance during the Revolutionary War."
"Shut up asshole" hisses Mazurk, handing Newsy a record and nodding toward the open window, "and toss it when she's writing."
"These old records might be worth something someday" Newsy replies, slipping it into his gym bag.
"Buttwipe" scowls Mazurk. "Your turn Weeds."
Just then the teacher turns to scrawl her name on the blackboard and I whip the makeshift Frisbee out the window, quickly twisting back and looking down at my French book.
"Weeds, you're one tough nut" whispers Mazurk. "Come to practice after school, we need a linebacker."
"No" I exclaim, surprising myself with how loud it comes out in the echoing room.
"Monsieur in the back" chimes the teacher, "comment vous appelez vous?"
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