Did you run around paranoid your first year of high school ala Mitch Kramer..?

  First couple of months I did, then it settled down.  The seniors wouldn't paddle our butts but would make us do humiliating things like "frog", "dead cockroach", pushing a penny up the hall with our noses.  The secret, I found, is to just lay low and do what they say.  If you did, they'd forget about you.  If you didn't, they'd be on you most of the year...

  Sometimes "scrubs" (freshmen in my school) would get "pants'd"...

Where'd you go to school?  Was this an initiation for a fraternity or something? This is typical of college frat/sorority initiations but not something that is done just because you were there.  It is something I could never understand, this kind of debasement to get into some of these clubs.

You bet...although so many of my sister's friends were already there, I had nothing to worry about. the first day of school my cousin was attacked with Jello and was all strawberry- y all day..  gross.  We couldn't wait till we were a year older so  we  could get freshman with water balloons and the like.

In my school it was mostly a boy thing.  Swirlies and stuffed into garbage cans, nothing dangerous.  I was impressed by a Freshman when I was a Senior.  A couple of guys grabbed him and tried to take him into the bathroom.  They weren't going to do anything but they wanted him to think it was swirly time, that's was their MO.  They got to the door and it seemed like he grew a couple of extra arms all spread out so they couldn't get him in there. ;D

Must be my age, but "this didn't happen in my day" as a random thing.  There has always been bullying, some kids picking on someone for whatever stupid reason.  But as a thing that was done to freshman by seniors just to do, no.

Must be my age, but "this didn't happen in my day" as a random thing.  There has always been bullying, some kids picking on someone for whatever stupid reason.  But as a thing that was done to freshman by seniors just to do, no.


I think "your day"  was "my day"....but it could be regional or that you were just better behaved. :)

Where'd you go to school?  Was this an initiation for a fraternity or something? This is typical of college frat/sorority initiations but not something that is done just because you were there.  It is something I could never understand, this kind of debasement to get into some of these clubs.


  I attended my first couple of months of high school in southern Illinois.  The kids were quite serious about the initiations there.  A kid coming out of the 8th grade just kinda expected it, like night follows day...

  Dazed & Confused is accurate in that if you were the younger sibling of a high school student or a known character (e.g. higher profile student) you tended to attract more attention from malevolent seniors.  It was pretty organized, too.  All seniors could haze.  Juniors could, but had to have permission from a senior.  Sophomores could not...

  After arriving back in California and starting high school I noticed the attitude wasn't as pervasive as in Illinois...

you were just better behaved. :)


I think you probably hit the nail on the head with this.  Our class was notorious for being little sh*ts. ;D

Must be my age, but "this didn't happen in my day" as a random thing.  There has always been bullying, some kids picking on someone for whatever stupid reason.  But as a thing that was done to freshman by seniors just to do, no.


I'm with you on this, we had no issues like that in my high school either. Nothing that was tradition at least, just the typical bullying and pestering, but nothing more than words or the occasional knock-the-books-out-of-your-arm.

I never really worried about anything like hazing...even when I was a sophomore I was often confused for a senior.  ;D

Upperclassmen did a benign form of hazing on Freshmen, such as bum steers in the halls (eg. "Room 206 is on the fourth floor by the pool") or telling Freshmen it's a tradition to come to school in costume on Halloween.  Lame stuff.

The mean stuff had no "hazing" intention behind it, it was just bullying.

There were always jerks of some sort at our high school...but we didn't have this sort of thing there.

  Judging by the replies, this was not as common as I thought...

I hope not.

This didn't happen in my day (70's) at school in Australia either.......just bullies!

I'm surprised I'm the first person to mention the old elevator pass racket.  (For those not familiar with the elevator pass racket, it's where a senior tries to sell a freshman a pass which is required to use the elevator.  The racket is the fact that there is no elevator anywhere on the campus.)

I'm surprised I'm the first person to mention the old elevator pass racket.  (For those not familiar with the elevator pass racket, it's where a senior tries to sell a freshman a pass which is required to use the elevator.  The racket is the fact that there is no elevator anywhere on the campus.)


We had elevators even though out HS was just two floors.  Handicapped access requirements.  Rumor had it I used to shoot dope in there.  Well, the rumor started that I was a junkie, so it followed I must shoot up somewhere, so how about the elevators? 

:D