I join the Publications Committee at school.
I read H Rider Haggard's She and Ayesha: The Return of She and become interested in romantic adventure stories.
JUNE
I pass Grade 9 at Lorraine Senior High School.
A note from my teacher, Mr Pinch, says: “Michael will have to work very hard in Science next year”.
To be honest, I always found science, physics, chemistry, algebra, mathematics, history, and geography hard classes. I just didn’t find them interesting. The subjects that did interest me, for some reason I wasn’t, or couldn’t be, enrolled in those classes, particularly art and music. A couple of years later, however, I would at least find some outlet for my creativity in Drama classes and other extracurricular programs.
The scout troop goes on a weekend trip to Kandersteg, Switzerland. I find the country to be a beautiful, clean, and serene place. Icicles hang off the edges of the tents in the early morning. Later, we enjoy a meal of miniature French Fries [possibly a forerunner of today’s shoestring fries].
I come home from school one day to announce I have a girlfriend—Elaine. Dad takes me aside after supper and asks if I know where babies come from. I tell him, of course I do. Then I must make a solemn vow to him ‘never to get a girl in trouble’.
Making this vow shook me up so much [probably because I knew I might not be able to keep it] that I broke up with Elaine and shied away from girls altogether for a very short while for fear that just touching a girl would get her into trouble [even though I so badly wanted to be with them, or even change my sex to be one of them]. I wished I could wear beautiful clothes like women did, and not the usual shirt-pants-tie or casual ensembles that men normally wore. Consequently, I retreated more into my music, art, and reading interests. And my sexual fantasies, of course, now fueled by the occasional Playboy magazine that I found while babysitting for the neighbours. Until a very short time later, when the rebellious side of me ignored my vow to Dad and I yielded to my desire to be with a girl.
FALL
Elaine and I get back together, and we go to a Saturday afternoon matinée. Following the movie, I take her back to her family’s apartment and, as we stand chatting quietly outside the door, she lets me put my hands up in her sweater and feel her breasts through her brassiere. Just as she’s about to stroke my penis, we hear someone coming up the apartment complex stairwell. I quickly remove my hands, and then say goodbye, passing the newcomer on the way down the stairs, and feeling frustrated because I didn’t get to feel Elaine’s hand on my penis. A short time later, we break up again.
SEPTEMBER
I enter Grade 10x at Lorraine Senior High School.
One teacher in Grade 10 triggers an interest in languages in me—my Latin teacher, David Stanley-Porter.
Somehow a story got around that he made every girl in the class cry at least once, but that sounds a little far-fetched to me. But he was quite strict.
Apple Day (3rd Saturday in September) with dad and the scouts (I'm not in this picture)
20 - 21 OCTOBER
Saturday - Sunday
We attend a Boy Scout Jamboree-On-the-Air display by short-wave radio aficionados.
31 OCTOBER
Wednesday
For Hallowe’en, I dress up as ‘The Mummy’ wrapped with numerous bandages that dad brings home from the hospital where he works.
