Welcome to Grade 8

Grade 8 was a huge year for me. I was the top of the pecking order, the king shit if you will. My parents were finally letting me grow my hair and I had a sweet mullet in training. In the past I was more open to all types of metal, now I found myself weaning out the poisons and cinderellas in search of more motorheads and venoms. 

BMX had been a big fad in the past, but now skateboarding was coming back. I had a banana board in the 70's but this was completely different, and I loved it! I didn't care that I had a k-mart brand skateboard, it was em blazed with what looked like one of the four horsemen. 

I was also into wrestling more than ever and spent the majority of class talking about it and the majority of my lunches partaking in it with my friends. We even started our own fed, the BWF (Brampton Wrestling Federation) One of my new skating buddies had a trampoline in his backyard so we started having matches there after school and dubbed our events "Tramplemania" I was also collecting wrestling magazines religiously as well as videotaping matches each week and even making my own comics. 

Miami Vice was a big hit on television and all the kids started rocking the Don Johnson look at the school dances and parties. I was invited to all the popular kids parties which I found strange as I didn't really hang out with them. I think they found me wild, unpredictable and entertaining, which in turn made me either a like able person or some form of novelty or party trick, unknowingly performing for their amusement. 

Rocking the Miami Vice suit & mullet, circa 1986.

I got in quite a lot of trouble that year as well, it seemed like I was in the office once a week on average. Every time I heard the p.a. system come on I would slink in my seat with dread, fearing that I would hear my name beckoned down to impending doom. 

I was really big into the commodore 64 as well by this point and when I wasn't pile driving kids on lunch I would be in the computer room playing video games with my secret alliance of nerd friends who gained my protection in exchange for floppy disks with the newest games. 

Another lunchtime activity was going to friends houses who lived close to the school so we could watch porno movies they had found in their father's closets. It seemed each day the group got bigger as word spread of our activity. A few times some girls even came over and watched them with us, which was awkward yet exciting. 

There were a lot of influential factors going on at this point on my life and I was embracing them all, but the biggest one was right under my nose...