By Patrick Timothy Mullikin

Since time immemorial, and for students of all ages, returning to school after summer vacation will forever be a mixed school bag of emotions.

For males, boyhood ends abruptly at the end sixth grade, and the transition to manhood begins, sheepishly and gingerly, on the first day of seventh grade. My own transition began 41 years ago in the fall of 1965, swathed in swinging Carnaby Street couture, weighing 100 pounds and standing 5 feet tall.

At El Roble (The Oak) Junior High School in Claremont, Calif., it was the first time innocent little kids from different elementary schools would be brought together and allowed to mutate into those horrible little cliques that follow and haunt you wherever you go in your adult life.

Most important, for us boys, the first day of seventh grade was also our introduction to the world of girls. In just three short, warm California summer months, goofy girls we'd known since kindergarten had morphed into miniature women. In response, oversized Adam's apples popped from our scrawny necks.

During those first weeks and months of junior high, we boys were torn between playing grab-ass with our buddies and trying to act suave and worldly around girls our own age, 11 or 12, but who towered inches or feet over us like Amazons. We were pygmies - mentally and physically.

In 1965, boys - cool California boys that is - had two fashion paths to follow: the mod look or the surfer look. Since I had dark hair and wore glasses, the blond surfer look was out. So I opted for the swinging mod look, imported to the United States by British rock groups.

El Roble's mod uniform consisted of a long-sleeve shirt with a paisley, polka dot or floral pattern. The added touch of elegance: a white collar and white cuffs. Very worldly and very cool. For pants: flared-bottom, pinwhale corduroy or tight, straight-legged pants with stripes or checks. The most important accessory to this outfit was a wide leather belt with a large oval or square brass buckle, worn slightly askew, never centered. The following year, the Monkees gave this look their simian stamp of approval and wore their belts askew on their TV show.

Cool hair was vital. My own style was a poor approximation of the Beatle haircut, complete with pretend sideburns. (Steve Mecca, at 12, was 6 feet tall, shaved daily, weighed 200 pounds and had real Elvis Presley-type sideburns. I befriended him immediately; he was a great bodyguard. More on him.) The one piece missing from my ensemble: Beatle boots. These were available at Sears and the Thom McCann shoe store chain, but my mother forbade Beatle boots. "Hood shoes," she called them, the kind Mexican gangs wore in East Los Angeles, where she was raised.

The surefire way to win the heart of an Amazon and/or earn the respect of your fellow mod or surfer dude was to be in a rock band. Or pretend to be in a band. Or at least talk about forming one.

I had played guitar for two years, and knew most of the chords necessary to play current hits such as "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones and "For Your Love" by the Yardbirds. And thus the Spyders were hatched one afternoon in the spring of 1966. Rock historians note: The Byrds - with their exotic spelling - were a huge influence on the Spyders, whose lineup included the aforementioned and hirsute Steve Mecca on bass, David Holmes, who had a real Beatle haircut and Ludwig drums just like Ringo's, Bill Woodward on keyboards, Jeff Carroll and Patrick Mullikin on guitar. We practiced for about four hours in David Holmes' home in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

We never played together again.

The path to becoming a respectable seventh-grader - from my parents' perspective - included formal dance instruction. Lessons were held one evening a week in the cafeteria of our former elementary school and taught, mercilessly, by a Mrs. Putnam who surely taught Adam how to lead Eve in a rousing foxtrot. My friend and I wore the same matching jacket each week: collarless affairs made famous by the Beatles. Ours were beige and made of corduroy, the king's cloth and came from Sears; we also wore white shirts and skinny black ties that accentuated our Adams apples

Mrs. Putnam tried to show how us how to do the box step, the waltz and the polka, none of which I could fathom. She also preached to us about the importance of practicing good social skills. "Don't begin a conversation with 'I,'" she warned us each week. "Always ask your date compelling questions." We were supposed to follow these simple rules during our punch break as we sat in small circles of 10 or so. We, the cool boys, sat around in stony silence for the most part, our thoughts drifting to the after-school dances held each Friday at El Roble's Auditorium.

It was there that we boys - with wobbly heads nestled against the chest of the Amazon of our dreams - could slow dance the way we liked, forget about asking our dates compelling questions, and begin our sentences with I.

Forty-one years later my thoughts still drift to those after-school dances.



Patrick Timothy Mullikin is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to Vermont Sunday Magazine.