Hazing the Scrubs

The time was 1960 and it was my graduation day from 6th Grade(7th Grade started Junior High School there) from Horace Mann Grade School in Glendale, California. Horace Mann was a feeder grade school into Roosevelt Junior High.

All us Grads knew we were in for it. Some of the girls were shaking when we left the school grounds for the last time from Horace Mann Grade School. We were met across the street by about 100 boys who were 7th to 9th grade. They wore switchblades in their black boots but they weren't there to use them that day. No. That day they were there to haze the scrubs, us graduating 6th graders. Hazing meant being thrown to the ground, boy or girl and having lipstick smeared on ones arms and face if one were a boy, or if one were a girl having it smeared on arms, legs up to the panties and face. So, for a girl it was a little like being raped and for a boy it was the same humiliation as being beat up.

Some boys fought back and were knocked to the ground bloody. Some girls screamed and cried but no one came to our aid. I was always very pragmatic about these kinds of things. I thought about fighting but saw how bad it turned out for other boys. I was thrown to the ground next to the prettiest girl in school and I watched why all the boys wanted to lipstick her. I felt dishonored that I couldn't save her from this humiliation and I hoped one day this kind of thing would permanently end because it had already been going on for years as a yearly kind of event. I knew the boys here doing this were here because it had been done to them. They were only passing the suffering the hazing on that they had experienced. There were no girls doing this. They knew better even then.

However, for me good came from this event. My parents were so horrified by this that we moved to another area more upper middle class where this kind of thing didn't happen. However, at least at Horace Mann one could fight with other boys and gain respect and become friends but at my new school if your parents didn't have enough money there was no way to break through the social barriers. So my parents move might have saved me from having to join a gang to survive but it didn't save me from the social barriers of trying to move into the upper middle class and upper class. Though I eventually made it financially, I have never felt socially comfortable there. I guess I always felt the upper class just hasn't suffered enough to understand people like myself.