In the fall I started 10th grade at Gainesville High School (GHS).  With the Yawns now living one street over from us, Brenda and Janice were at GHS in 11th grade,  Karen and David went to Westwood in eighth grade, and Timmy was at Littlewood.  To get to GHS I rode my to Littlewood where the bus picked me up which then took me to GHS.  Several of my friends lived nearby and we rode the same bus giving us time in the morning and afternoon to talk.  While Westwood was a small Whirlwind, GHS was a much larger Purple Hurricane and once again I went from being among the older kids at school to being amongst the youngest and then add three times the number of kids at the school.  While there were several junior high schools in Gainesville, there was only one high school, GHS. Note: technically there was P.K. Young high school that was run by the University of Florida, but it was very small as only children of university faculty could attend.   Or so I thought at the time, it never entered my mind that there were only white kids at school as it had been at Littlewood and Westwood. I did not even know there were black kids in Gainesville, you don’t miss what you don’t see but that would soon all change.

 10th grade was an easier adjustment then when I started 7th being familiar with having different teachers and classrooms for each subject.  GHS had three two-story wings of classrooms simply named A, B and C. Each wing had eight classrooms on each level which were not air conditioned at the time.  There was the newer octagon shaped “TA” building that had air conditioning, but I never had any classes in it.   Instead of hallways like schools up north, one side of each wing had a sidewalk that ran the length of the wing, open to the outside on one side and with rows of upper and lower lockers between the  classroom doors on the other side.  Incoming 10th graders were assigned the lower lockers while 11th and 12th graders assigned the much preferred upper lockers.  Now I had dreams not only about not remembering my locker combination, but which wing it was in.  For classes I signed up for the required English, World Cultures and Physical Ed then selecting Chemistry Study and Geometry. 

Another subject I took one six week period was part two of Driver’s Ed in which we actually drove cars.  The class would go out to the empty parking lot where there were four brand new small cars.  The class was divided up, three students to a car with the instructor in the lead car. Red cones were set up around the parking lot in various positions.  The instructor gave instructions which we heard on the car’s AM radio, start your engines, put your foot on the brake, put the car in gear, and the cars would start moving with the instructor giving instructions like stop at cone three, turn right at cone five and so on.  With three in each car the exercise we would repeat each exercise with each of us getting a turn.  With a late birthday in December, I was only 14 at the time so it would be over a year before I would get my Learner’s permit.

Updated: 09-28-2022

10th Grade