Revenge of the Nerds

In the spring of '81, when I was still in grade school, I was invited to go to summer school. No, not that kind. It was actually for kids who were "high potential". I wasn't interested, however. What kid wants to go to school during the summer after having already attended classes from September to May? My mom tried to talk me into it, but I wasn't having it. Hmmm. But there was something I had been interested in getting and didn't have the moolah for. It was the 2-record soundtrack to "Star Wars". I told my mom that if she bought this for me, I would go to this hypertential class. She agreed and bought me the album.

The class took place in the Senior High school building and would last 2-3 weeks. As I recall, the class mainly dealt with computers. We were told that computers would be the wave of the future (yeah, right). Four long tables were set up in a square so that all the students could see each other and to make for a less formal learning environment. Kevin, the kid who sat next to me, liked to call me Thomas Magnum since my first name was Thomas and Magnum P.I. was a very popular show at the time. For fun, we were able to play a new computer game. It was called Oregon Trail.



The graphics were entirely green on the computers we used (not unusual for that time). It was quite a fun game, I have to say.

On the last day, parents were invited to come. Both my parents sat in for part of the class. They were quite proud of me (firstborn son makes good). They asked the teacher if they could take me out for breakfast. She said that was fine, so they took me to Mr. Donut for a bite and all was well.