Being a "Sevie"

A "Sevie" is a derogatory term for a "Seventh Grader."

(Pronounced "Seh-vee")

(At least, it was at Evans Jr. High around 1992-93.)

As a Sevie, your big concerns in life often center around being picked on by 8th graders in the hallways between classes. Still adjusting to the concept of having many teachers (instead of just one main one), you are learning to thrive and avoid conflict. I didn't have too many runs-in as a Sevie; I tried my best to avoid eye-contact with the scariest 8th graders (the ones who had the kinda-sorta moustache, or who were repeating 8th grade for the 2nd or 3rd time), and for the most part that strategy worked very well.

I only remember getting picked on once, and that was when a mean 8th grader knocked my trapper keeper out of my hands and spilled my papers all over the floor*. Unfortunately, this was fairly common, and you usually couldn't go more than a week without seeing it happen to at least one or two of your fellow Sevies.

A well-known way to combat this was to attach a thumb-tack, pointy side up, to your trapper keeper. I did this only once, and on that particular day, no one tried to knock mine out of my hands. However, I did observe this "working" once: a friend** of mine named John Kunert used the thumb tack method once, and an 8th grader hit his trapper keeper from above, and, although he did knock it out of John's hand, he got quite a poke from the tack and said, "Owww! That hurt quite a lot! You stupid Sevie!" (Or, something like that, of course his exact words may have been a bit more crude...)

End of story.

+++

* For my younger/foreign viewers, a "traper keeper" is a large, plastic 3-ring binder that has a flap on one end that covers your trappers and velcros shut. A "trapper" is just a pocket folder with the pockets on the side instead of the bottoms. A great way to keep track of your papers and worksheets is to have one trapper for each subject.

** John Kunert was a "friend" in the sense of a school friend - we spoke at school and on the after-lunch playground, but never hung out outside of school - although he did loan me a "They Might Be Giants" tape*** at some point. I think he was in band. I think he played trombone. He didn't finish high school with us. I wonder what happened to him?

*** A "tape," in this context, refers to an audio cassette. You know, those things before CD's. You know -- CD's - or "Compact Disks" - those things before MP3 players.