Literary challenge du jour

It's always a good idea to challenge yourself by reading things that are difficult to understand, such as Russian literature and the Letters to the Editor section of the Montgomery Advertiser. See if you can guess which one this is:

Unruly student learned anyway
I have been watching news report about Sidney Lanier with nostalgia and sympathy. In two years my class, the class of 1957, will have a 50th reunion. I did not graduate. I did not walk. I was not a hood or, as is current, a thug. I was just a bad boy.

I lacked four credits for graduation and, much to the chagrin of my parents, they signed for me to enter the Marine Corps. I was the first and probably the only student ever suspended for wearing Bermuda shorts to school. I accidentally broke a door glass as I was running to class, bled profusely and was suspended. My parents paid for the pane.

I talked a lot. Some of us wore our Levis ($4.94 a pair at the Serum Co.) down low. I peroxided my hair, and did not go to Panama City for spring break. Somewhere between Forest Avenue Elementary, Bellinger Hill, Bellingrath, (the first year it opened), Baldwin Junior High and Lanier from 1954-57, I actually absorbed a lot more than I thought. It is a shame I didn't do more.

The teachers certainly did. We were all white. There was a new white school opening across town and we lost friends to a rival district.

I'm lucky. I eventually saw the error of most of my ways, got a degree on the GI Bill, taught for 33 years and retired without going to jail.
How times have changed.
West Marcus
Montgomery

Don't . . . understand . . . brain . . . hurts.