Back in 84' parents had to sleep out on the street to get into this public school. Which meant that…read morethe school attracted kids with parents who cared and teachers that wanted to teach the kids of parents that cared. This was a time when public school in Stockton was in high demand. Pops slept out there for 4 days to get me in. Somehow in 1985, sleeping on the street was deemed "unfair" and the school became a traditional public school, opened to any kid with a pulse. Now, I've seen people sleep on the street before. Waiting for concert tickets, homeless, just plain tired. Whatever the reason I have never thought to myself " That looks nice, I'd like to sleep on the street but I can't. Hey you there...yeah you..... sleeping on the street. That's "unfair" of you for being miserable and not getting a good nights sleep and although I'm unwilling to do the same I do have the time to petition the schoolboard and prevent this "unfair" practice of waiting in line for 4 days via "street sleeping" to get my kid in school." Side note: Prior to 1984 you didn't have to sleep on the street if you were a close friend of Principle Coffee who let in the his friends kids automatically. We weren't. (Fucker) After enrollment I began my first day of school. Terrible experience. Especially when Stacey Carter told me at lunch that tuna fish smelled and that I was gross. It took me 15 yrs to get back on the horse and eat some albacore. Since I wouldn't wear shoes with laces or pants that weren't sweats mom tried to compensate by putting me in a izod shirt with a collar. Which only made me look homeless. You know how homeless people sometimes have one piece of clothing thats just too nice and looks out of place when compared to the rest of their clothes. i.e. Drunken man in an unbuttoned ripped windbreaker, filthy tight jeans and bandana but has brand new polished Sperry deck shoes w/ tassels. My homeless style continued through grammer school until highschool where uniforms were mandatory. No joke. Ask Ben: http://smartestmanalive.yelp.com There are two kinds of white kids at public schools in Stockton. Those with ethnic last names and those without. Even if you were albino but had a last name like "Ramirez" you were free from beatings, harassment, name-calling and the usual rough housing. Because of course no one with an ethnic last name was considered white. (Ask Ben) http://smartestmanalive.yelp.com I was the other type of white guy. Especially during recess. Ah recess. Time for a little physical activity...outdoors...fresh air. More like a time to let all the crack babies out all at once and let them kill each other. Seriously there were skirmishes or for sake of a better word brawls everyday. Why ? Cause none of the kids brought food and the school lunch provided was so gross that I wouldn't feed it to a dog. Nothing crazier than 250 kids hungrey for food and fighting. (This was also back when public schools had dedicated smoke lounges so all the teachers would smoke a pack and half in a effort to try and kill themselves before lunch ended and we returned to class) 1990 was the best year of all due to a teachers strike. It was the usual bullshit about more money, more benefits, larger smoking lounges, free cigarettes.... blah, blah, blah. Luckily neither side could agree for 3 weeks so we got a huge jump start on summer. Yes !!! (Who else has been to the waterslides in the Costco parking lot 10 days in a row? Me.) In 4th grade we met Webster Slaugher a wide reciever for the Browns. I had absolutley no idea who he was. Turns out he not only had an awesome last name but, was a 2 time pro-bowler and and related to Ms. Wyatt, our 4th grade teacher. Then in 5th grade we had to donate out clothes for the 2nd time to Armando's family cause his dumb fuck dad burned the house down (again). This time he left hot coals in a paper bag on the carpet and went to the store. Future Darwin Award Winner huh? In sixth grade we went to Science camp. The highlight had next to nothing to do with Science. Seeing what would happen if a close friend of mine could keep a bet to not shit for the entire week was far more compeling. Turns out he kept the bet and nothing that cool happened. Seventh and eight grade was spent hoping that the glue and staples we jammed into the door locks would postpone class for at least a half hour.

I was one of the lucky kids who's parents cared enough about them to sleep outside to get my name…read moreon the attendance list of this premier Stockton public school. In it's heyday CSSS was unsurpassed in teacher dedication, classroom participation, and parent participation. Kindergarten was fun, until I saw Stacy Carter throw up white stuff (my first cognitive vomit memory), and someone stole my Dukes of Hazzard lunch box (still painful). The next year the admission rules had changed and the influx of crack babies began. (See Joe's comments about unfair ground sleeping practices: http://burritoeater.yelp.com) Still the great teachers were there, for quite a few years after that. I continued to receive the best education that Stockton had to offer. The various crack babies taught me street smarts and the value of diplomacy.(Muhammad was 6'4" with a mustache in 4th grade, there was no way I was going to take him on.) The teachers taught me all about science, and social studies. As the years passed on, being white in a predominantly crack-baby school wasn't the easiest thing, I did have an "ethnic" last name so some people didn't mess with me as much. (ask Joe: http://burritoeater.yelp.com) Recess was like "Rise of the Crack Babies". Aside from Edmund punching the teatherball poles straight-on as hard as he could...kids were running rampant, destroying everything in their wake. Throwing rocks at passing cars, shoving pebbles into the locks, etc. A sight to behold for sure. I would stick to the "white kid games" such as teatherball, and four square, but some fucker always came in and got really good so we couldn't play any more. There was also a time when Regan shut down all mental institutions and released all the psyhcos into the world. It just so happened that there was a mental institution across the street from our school. How convenient! Shortly thereafter, a rule was imposed to stay away from the fence on that side of the street and not talk to anyone walking or loitering nearby. Then Bart Simpson shirts were banned and all hell broke loose. I was also the "artist" at school so I would sell drawings of low-riders, cholas, pot leaves, and "tag" peoples names for them. My first business venture. The drawings more than paid for my supplies (Hershey's chocolate scented pencils, porsche pencil sharpener). This school was such a huge part of my childhood, maybe because I went there for 9 years in a row (Ask Joe: http://burritoeater.yelp.com). Or maybe because the teachers really cared about my education, talked to my parents regularly, and helped me in any way they could. There was no way I was growing up to be an ignorant dumb-ass like many other kids who came in later through my elementary career. We were the core group of kids who were there from the beginning, we were the smart ones.