I spent both seventh and eighth grade in another split class, but with multiple teachers throughout the day. One of the things that our Jr. High class did was go to science camp, so I got to go twice. This was my first two of many experiences at Wolf Mountain. I had a good time, and it was very different from my experiences at Boy Scout camp. From a practical perspective, it was my first opportunity to try climbing ropes course elements, which was very different from rock climbing, which was my only previous legitimate climbing experience. Ironically my highest climbs are still trees I free-climbed as a young kid, with no comprehension of the danger of doing so with no safety gear. But the climbing I have done at Wolf Mountain set me on the course I am currently pursuing.
While Wolf Mountain had a dramatic impact on my social and spiritual life in the years to follow, I can't recall it having much effect on me when I was a camper. But it was good bonding time with the rest of the students in my class, which I probably needed. The second time I went, in eighth grade, my right arm was in a cast, which put a damper on some of my activities, but it was still fun.
Seventh grade was also the year that I was put in CCD classes at church, to prepare for the sacrament of Confirmation. Ironically that ceremony was one of the last times I went to mass at the Catholic church, as my family stopped attending soon after. It wasn't like a definitive choice was made not to go, it just kind of stopped happening. I had always disliked going, but primarily because I didn't like having to get dressed up. I had actually been an alter boy in fourth and fifth grade, but probably not a very good one. Even though I only had fairly basic tasks to perform, I didn't like being in front of the whole congregation for an hour straight.
From that point forward, I didn't regularly attend church anywhere until I arrived at college. Nor was I a part of any Bible study or other church community. But I don't necessarily think that had a negative impact on my relationship with God. I had a constant running dialog in my head with God, for years. And it actually felt like He was listening. While His responses were never verbalized in my thoughts, they were frequently made obvious by events around me.
Eighth grade was also the first time I took a serious interest in a girl. As always for me, it was someone I had known for a while, but hadn't taken much notice of. Unlike every time since then, it didn't happen slowly, and sneak up on me over time, but was like flipping a switch. I remember the exact moment that I "noticed" that I found her attractive, and I was very conscious of that change happening at the time. Eighth grade wasn't a very challenging year, so I could afford the change of focus at school, and probably benefitted from the distraction. Although I never directly addressed that issue with her, (far beyond the scope of anything I could imagine doing at the time) I at least talked with her on occasion and such. Ironically that girl has now been married and divorced already, so our lives have taken very different courses since then.
More than half of the guys in my class had been planning to attend the same high school I would be going to, but over the course of eighth grade, they all moved or changed plans. In the end, I was the only one from my school that actually ended up going to Colfax, so I knew almost no one the first day I showed up to High School.
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