When I wrote Surviving Seventh Grade I wanted to make it a “realistic” look at the roller coaster of emotions that boys go through as they enter puberty and leave the cloistered security of grade school.

It is a scary period. There are lots of different teachers, the subject matter is tougher, kids from other parts of town want to pull your underpants over your head while you’re wearing them, and girls suddenly look a lot different.

It is a strange transition, especially in the attitude towards girls. Before summer vacation they were primarily there to be ignored. Lots of times, if they wore short hair and pants, they seemed almost normal.

But somehow, over the summer, their chests became an area of notice. Now, in retrospect, I know that for many of them, there were lots of foreign objects tucked up there: Kleenex, foam, silly putty, etc. But, at the time, we were clueless and pretty curious about the change.

A female friend is often quoted as wondering what the heck is the real attraction. “Breasts are just a couple of mounds of flesh”.

Well, if that’s the case, why are girls so anxious to keep boys from finding out? They hide whatever it is under bras and slips and blouses and sweaters. Sometimes they won’t even take off their coats when they’re inside.

To a thirteen year old boy, this is like telling him he has to eat kale when there is roast beef on the table.

This is an excruciatingly difficult period for boys. They’re expected to make an assault on Mount Everest without any climbing tools or breathing equipment.

When they finally realize they may need to do some research, the effort may take some surprising turns.

I discuss one of these research efforts in “Second Base” and “Bras” (Surviving Seventh Grade, 2013). This was about a movie date when Billy realized he was never going to get to “second base” unless he learned to unhook a bra with one hand.

I might add that the only bad review I got on this book was by a woman in Alabama who said her thirteen year old son had no business learning about that stuff. I thought that was pretty funny and made sure to enclose that one star review in a lot of ad material. I think it has helped sales significantly.

Glenn K. Currie

Second Base

Billy said he almost got to second base.

He took Irma to the movies.

They snuck up to the balcony

And started kissing and fooling around.

Then the problem developed.

He couldn’t figure out

How to unhook her bra

With only one hand.

Those things are pretty complicated

And they always put the hooks in the back.

Why don’t they put them in front

Where you can get at them?

Billy has an older sister.

He’s going to “borrow” one of her bras

So we can practice unhooking it

With just one hand.

  

Bras

Billy’s sister is seventeen

So he was able to get a bra

That we could practice on.

We put it around the back of a chair.

We put another chair next to it.

It was pretty tricky.

Maybe the chair was too big,

It made a tight fit.

When Billy finally got it undone

It almost put his eye out.

He was leaning in

And it came off fast.

We finally got the hang of it,

But it took a lot of practice.

I hope they don’t make them

With more than two hooks.