Dhahran Diary®

Title: School Stuff

DD14

We were all a little nuts in junior high. Many events occurred in school that were not about class.One student supposedly hypnotized a popular girl from our class. He was a grade or two ahead of us and when classes changed, all he had to do was snap his fingers in her presence and her eyelids dropped like a garage door; she appeared to be in a trance. She looked hypnotized to me and I was only a few feet away. This was pretty heavy stuff for junior high. This idea spread to homes in the community and one Thursday we were at someone's portable behind the movie theater. Two or three of us agreed to be hypnotized and we were shuffled off to separate rooms. I was one. After about twenty minutes of watching this medallion whirl above my forehead, I played hypnotized. I was wide awake but this was a way to get something going. There was a lot of muffled whispering and my controller was whispering for everyone to shut up as the other parties filed into the room. I was stretched out on the bed and my controller started asking me lame questions; I responded with lethargic answers, slow and deliberate. I noticed my controller was puffed up from pulling off a successful trance in front of his friends. There was some hand gesturing from the group as suggestions of what paces they might put me through came forth. Most were signaling for wholesome fun but one kid motioned for me to take my pants down. I bristled at the detrousering suggestion but was locked into this charade, at least for the moment. Good fun prevailed and I was soon barking like a dog, then on hands and knees, still barking, I turned into a mad dog and began to growl. This was a big hit until the controller found he could not control me; I was an out of control mad dog. Spittle was flying. There was concern on his face but this turned to fright; he tried to restrain me but I launched myself at the throat of the detrousering suggestor. He drew back in terror. I will never forget the look on his face -utter fear. Colleagues restrained me and eventually they brought me back to the docile doggie and then to a sleeping spell. I was instructed not to remember any of this and on the count I was to awaken. I came to slowly. It was all I could do to keep from a bursting out with laughter. .

Jane Sealy was a wonderful teacher. I was embarrassed to say I couldn't dance and Ms. Sealy took me to the office for a quick lesson while the rest of the class paired up and pumped their hands to the two-step. I wasn't the only one who couldn't dance but it wasn't the dancing that embarrassed me, it was the holding. We were barely touching, miles apart, but for me it was a gorilla grip. She was gliding around me and I was stuck on the first step of the move. My mind was riveted on my hand at her waist. In this instant, I learned the power of women over men and I was happy to be a male. I was in love. She brought me back to the music room. A few minutes later I went for a drink and walking by the open office door, noticed Ms. Sealy dancing with another student. She was teaching him to dance too! My hopes were dashed. I gained and lost my first love in about ten minutes.

Billy Brown, a neighbor and classmate, was a good student. I still laugh when I recall why his books looked like they had been bulldozed. We were playing outside the school (east) and Billy had put his stack of texts down to join in the fun. As we played, a dump truck drove from behind the pool area and right over his books on the way to H street. In Dhahran, this was such a common occurrence- the mixing of residential and construction activities.

Norman Gray, a friend and classmate, was walking home from school with a friend down H Street. I just came out of the school's rear door to see a huge clod fly over the hedge from the back yard of a seven unit which backed on H. The clod arched and struck Norm in the head, then bounded away to splatter on the street. It looked like a cartoon strip in action. The kids playing in the yard threw the clod over the thick privet without the knowledge that Norm and his friend were on the other side. Norm reeled and held his head. Stitches.

		Several pieces of equipment on the playground were removed after students were injured because there was asphalt near them, or because students misused the equipment (teeter-totter slamming). We had flying rings, chinning bars, and monkey bars. I was playing on these bars one afternoon when several company officials and three or four Arabs- dressed as Bedouins- came to the playground. The Saudis were trackers and the officials were from Security. Someone had damaged equipment and materials at a construction site and the company employed these trackers to
Dhahran School and Playground- Note teeter-totter seats are removed. Pool bathhouse is on the right. To the right were swings and an empty area used for softball and running games.

find the culprits. These men had tracked the offenders to the school playground! It impressed me that someone could track kids across streets and down alleyways in town. The word got out and these types of community crime abated.

We frequently used the school grounds to assemble for excursions. I went to Hofuf and returned the same day to the school yard. As I was heading across the street, Mr. McPherson, ARAMCO president, stopped me as I passed his home (which was directly across from the school- left in the above picture). He saw the beautiful coffee pot I had and asked about it. I told him it cost SR 10. He offered me SR15. I told him it was a Mothers' Day gift and headed home. His interest added value to my gift.

One year we had a kite flying contest on the playground. It was a perfect day, windy as all get out. Trv-lyn and Sher-lyn Cruise entered the biggest kite category. It didn't look like much created from a bed sheet and two cross-lashed palm fronds. Dave Taylor, a handsome kid- big for his age, entered his beauty, crafted from modern materials, clearly bigger too. He was a shoo-in for the top prize. But, the kites had to fly to qualify for this category. They were launched and Dave's vertical support snapped in the wind as it rose a few feet, then folded and plummeted. Cruises' was sluggish as it rose but the naturally pliant fronds withstood the wind's fury. They won the category: girls one, boys zero. Ouch!

School was also used for dance preparations, after school activities, and meetings. Later a portable near the pool was provided for these kinds of activities. I recall making drawings and paintings using the school's opaque projector. One theme was the Orient and several of us including Linda Hawkey and Betsy Ford drew and painted posters for a big dance. During the holiday season, a Christmas tree was always decorated near the front door. Many of us are pictured around one tree and Kenny Lebsock sports a cast from a broken arm. That year Billy Brown made a beautiful linoleum print of a Christmas tree. Henry Dorsey was quite talented and tried hard to show us how to capitalize on his artistic senses. Henry was talented in dance as well. His South American heritage was a big plus as he brought a distinct flavor to shows and the arts.

One December vacation month, we began to assemble at the school ground on bicycles. It was a whim that turned into a cycling derby. We whizzed around each other for a while before retiring to the tennis courts. There we began a circuit of the courts, round and round. It was fun playing tag. One had to touch his or her front tire to the target's rear tire or fender. We spent one whole vacation doing this when other activities were lacking. This was the winter of our escaping youth, as I remember, because the following winter recess, we took up smoking and a few students got motor scooters.

Climbing atop buildings was a thrill. One night after a big beach party, a host of ninth grade boys left the pool in a hurry. The beach party drill was to leave everyone off at the school grounds. We'd swim for a while to get the sand off, shower, and go home before it got too late. The boys ran around the bathhouse to the nook of the 'L' at the school. They turned the bike rack on end and used it as a ladder to get to the roof. I went up the rack after they were on top but was promptly chased down with a threat. I retraced my steps and walked between the bathhouse and the school. They were all standing on the recessed roof, leaning on the wall. I don't think this was a common occurrence. The bike rack was very long and heavy. It probably took maybe five or six kids to maneuver the rack into place.

Confession was heard at school sometimes. It was done quietly. One day I had smarted off to an eighth or ninth grader. When I started out the back door, I saw my adversary standing down the hill with his clique. I went to the front and side doors and there were a lookouts. I went into a teacher and asked if there was anything I could do to help. She put me to work and I figured after a while the clique would forget about me. They stayed on and I eventually hid in the janitors' room for a while and finally went up in the attic where I hid until they left. When I came down, a classmate was coming out of the music room. I asked what he was doing there. Confession , he said.

When I left Dhahran in 1985, the school had been turned into the library. Walls were removed and a wide open spaces look prevailed. The check out desk was situated partly in what used to be the school's main hallway and Mr. O'Conner's office space. Maybe on my last visit to the library, as I hurried out the door, I noticed a handsome, young ARAMCON dressed in the flight togs of ARAMCO's airline. He was of medium height and of stocky build. Something was clicking in the back of my brain but I was in a hurry and left. It must have been several weeks later, back in the states, while going through some papers, that I came across a telephone note that I made a few months before I left Dhahran. I was talking to Dick Wilbanks, a classmate in Dhahran years before, about his coming over to fly for ARAMCO after a successful flying career in the U. S. Army. He flew all over the Arabian peninsula for the US Army. We had chatted about ARAMCO and that his mother was now his dependent since his dad had passed on. We never had a chance to actually get together but I am certain now that that stocky figure checking out books when I zipped by was Dick Wilbanks, another second generation ARAMCON completing the circuit.

Copyright ©1999-2006 Rolf A. Christophersen
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