Though it is not uncommon for me to walk into a room and forget why I entered, I remember well my first day of junior high school.

I was sporting my new school clothing that my mother bought a size too large to account for my inevitable growth. After being given our books by our various teachers, we filed into the gym to have our vital statistics (height and weight) recorded by the school nurse and Mr. Rossi, our ape-like gym teacher. 

We lined up on each side of the gym, boys on one side and girls on the other. Our names were called in alphabetical order, and we went to the center circle to be measured and weighed.

I pranced up to the scale as if I were receiving an Oscar. I remember standing ramrod straight to increase my height and had school supplies stuffed in my pockets in order to register as heavy as possible — most of us boys wanted to be big.

But for those who were already big — especially the girls — that day was traumatic.     

Janice Mahoney’s brother, Paul, was a friend of mine. He was a few years older and we played on some of the same teams from Little League through high school. Janice was a rawboned Irish girl with black hair, green eyes and hands like a blacksmith. She would go on to play college field hockey. But at the age of 13, she was almost 5 feet, 7 inches tall, and weighed accordingly. Her whole family was large: her mother was almost 6 feet tall, her father loaded trucks for Bourne Trucking and her brother Paul eventually played football at Holy Cross.

Janice had it better than most big girls — she was smart, had a pretty face and a brother who was frightening. But Paul couldn’t be there all the time, and he certainly couldn’t beat up the girls who were unkind to his sister.     

Children back then, and maybe now, could be as mean as vipers and just as insensitive. Adults, on the other hand, should have known better. I’m often amazed at  the number of adults who still carry around the baggage from childhood as a gift from those who cared for them. 

Janice Mahoney stood across from me in the gym. She was a head taller than those around her and stood out all the more in the bright-red jumper her mother had bought her for the first day of school. I had already been weighed and measured, topping the scales at around 125 pounds (most of those pounds coming from acne and cowlicks). When Mr. Rossi called Janice’s name, his voice seemed to echo off the walls. 

She walked toward the scale with the slouch of a big person attempting to look smaller. 

She stepped on the scale and looked at the gym teacher with imploring eyes. Even at the age of 13 I knew she was asking with that look, “Please, don’t say my weight out loud.”
If that gym teacher had the brains of a fish, he would have discreetly murmured Janice’s height and weight to the school nurse. 
Instead he roared out, in his best baritone,  “Five feet, seven inches, 147 pounds.” (Disclaimer: I actually don’t remember Janice’s exact stats, I just know she was way bigger than me.)

The gym got very quiet as Janice walked back to the girl’s side. She was almost back in line when Danny Fackler — whom got in a fistfight with a week later over an unrelated incident — let out a cow sound effect: “Moooo.” I saw Mr. Rossi laugh, and I could see Janice’s tears from across the gym.

Janice Mahoney is now married, has children and is retired from  a successful career. By anyone’s standards, she could have been been described as an attractive woman, and now a distinguished older lady. 

I had not seen her in person since we both left our hometown — her for college, me for Breckenridge. 

About 10 years ago we ran into each other back on the south shore of Boston in a Dunkin Donuts. I was there to attend a funeral, and she was there for a wedding.

We caught up on mutual friends and family, both alive and not. We complimented each other on how well we both have aged — I wasn’t lying. She told me she sent her three girls to parochial schools. Without my asking, she said it wasn’t because of the religious doctrine, as she herself was a recovering Catholic. 

I did not ask if she remembers that first day in junior high school as clearly as I do. But, I’d bet you dollars to a Dunkin donut she does.

Jeffrey Bergeron’s column “Biff America” publishes Mondays in the Summit Daily News. Bergeron has worked in TV and radio for more than 30 years, and his column can be read in several newspapers and magazines. He is the author of “Mind, Body, Soul.” Bergeron arrived in Breckenridge when there was plenty of parking and no stoplights. Contact him at biffbreck@yahoo.com.