What were you like as a kid?

Just so you know, it's not awesome when you confess to wanting to commit suicide and your fellow detention dwellers laugh at you, pair off romantically with each other and then coax you into writing their essays for them.

Having said that, nice job of slapping John Cusack around and bagging Haviland Morris in the previous movie.

 

I am a preacher's kid, so we moved around a lot. Which sucked.

With preacher's kids you get one or the other: the rebel or awkward goodie two-shoes. Well my sisters were the rebels.

I wasn't total Rod or Tod Flanders, but I was respectful and carried a guilty conscience. Why the guilty conscience? I think it goes back to being overly excited as a five or six year old on Christmas morning and being admonished for asking how much a present cost or some shit like that.

I was also a wanna-be jock, so my dad didn't know what to do with me. He wanted book worm brainiacs -- he of course with the Princeton education -- which worked with my sister's until they hit their teens.

My mom was also a teacher, so really I stood no chance.

Each time we moved -- five different communities -- meant ending friendships and trying to make new ones. It was OK until we moved between Grade 4 and 5 to the big city, then everything changed in the attitudes of kids. For the first time in my life I remember kids placing value on things like clothes, talking about how their parents bought them these $100 jeans -- most of mine were second hand. We were lower-middle class and I was going to a school that serviced the upper class.

I got bullied a lot and suffered from a really low self esteem and sense of self worth, still do.

We then moved, again, this time to a village of 600 in time for Grade 7. From there on I was a complete outcast and loner. I had a couple of friends, but my best friend was still someone from two moves ago. This was a community, though while welcoming in many regards, all of the kids had grown up together. I was not one of them, and it was made very clear from the start. Even in hockey, my one outlet in the city, was not a welcoming spot, where our team captain and other teammates took turns cornering me in the locker room and beating on me or cheap shotting me during practice when the coach's back was turned.

How backwards was this place, it was the mid-90s and Grease was still a big movie with the kids. I got the silent treatment for a full week because I said I couldn't stand John Travolta.

It all got worse after my older sister committed suicide when she was 15. I was 13. My dad pretty much shut himself off from everything but work.

At that point, whatever resemblance of a childhood I had ended. When I wasn't at school, I was working -- except for when I was playing hockey and that was a complete mess anyway. I wasn't allowed to rebel, I told myself. I couldn't put my parents through more.

Even moments where I thought I could gain some momentum, I got shot down. Worked my ass off to get honours in Grade 11, didn't even get invited to awards night to get my fucking ribbon or whatever it was. At that point I said "fuck it, I know what I want to do anyway, and the shitty community college I'll be going to." Bare minimum from there on out with my schooling.

Was very awkward with girls, still not very good with women. Still awkward as shit, though I have a very good facade when it comes to my professional life.

I hated my life as kid. The shitty community college I went to was probably the best two years of my life.

 

Love it. Now I know where your strong union loyalty was born.

 

Yeah, I had a bit of a rebellious streak from early on. There was constant friction between me and my teachers. I was the kid always stirring things up.

In grammar school, teachers used to confiscate all the baseball cards I won on the playground before school and during lunch. I excelled at skill games like flipping and "closest to the wall" and steered away from games of chance like "colors" or "positions."

In sixth grade, I was suspended for a week for arranging a snowball ambush of a substitute teacher headed to his car.

By junior high, I was handling the football betting slips in the winter and moving fireworks in the late spring.

My parents moved me to a Catholic school for high school but that didn't work, either.

 

I was a little shy and awkward around girls growing up, but I had a pretty solid group of friends, a few of whom I've stayed in contact with.

I'm the oldest of four, and my dad was overseas in the Navy most of my first year, so my mom and I are really close. I always got along with my siblings, especially my brother who is two years younger. We were thick as thieves from the get-go all the way through college.

I was reading at age 3, but underachieved in school, except for history. I was known throughout school as the history whiz, and it all went back to my grandmother, who taught eighth grade history. She was on the textbook committee for her school district and she'd send me all the books they didn't choose, so I was reading junior high history texts when I was 7 or 8.

Wasn't very coordinated athletically, but I developed an interest in track in junior high, and was on the track and cross country teams in high school.

Not much trauma in my life until I discovered the wonders of alcohol in 10th grade. That's a whole different kettle of fish...

 

Cranberry: Did you score some rare forbidden fruit, aka Catholic teenage pussy?

 

Jesus, Vombatus, do you really think I'm going to start talking about my teenage sex life on SportsJournalists.com?

 

I went to Catholic high school 1983-1987.
It wasn't that rare.

 

If it was well done, then I'm sorry.

 

Coed Catholic School?

 

My eighth grade algebra teacher didn't include homework in our grades because he felt honors students could be trusted. So by the third week, I stopped doing homework entirely. And when we'd go over it, he'd try to embarrass me for it. But then I got an A on literally every test of the year, often one of only two or three in the class. This teacher announced A's, but every time he got to me it eventually became something of a running joke with the entire class.

I got an A for the semester with a report-card note for insubordination. Nothing new.

I actually really liked that teacher, though, and he liked me a lot, outside the classroom. We lived in the same neighborhood and would run into each other at things and talk for a good 10 to 15 minutes.

 

I got an A on just about every Math test I ever took, so I too did not see the purpose of doing math homework.

I wish my teachers saw it the same way.