For the very first time in those early days of the 7^th grade, we no longer spent our entire school day a short walk from our homes and in the shelter and comfort of a single classroom in a relatively small and familiar building, with only one teacher and a handful of other kids our own age. Suddenly, most of us had to ride busses to school, and we all had to move about from class to class, with about six different teachers every day, interacting with hundreds of other kids of different ages, in a huge building, pushing and shoving (or more likely being pushed and shoved by bigger kids) through the halls and up or down the one-way staircases to get to our classes in the precious little time they gave us.  

Our 7^th grade year was doubly scary; that was because that was the only year the school building (which was originally opened  in 1936 as a high school) was doing dual duty as Oceanside Junior-Senior High School, and it was particularly crowded. We were the first and only 7^th graders who had to contend with those really big, post-pubescent high school kids who really didn't like having us little kids around. (OHS opened its new, separate building on Skillman and Brower Avenues in 1955 when we were in the 8th grade.)

Nevertheless, in our early adolescent years, here at OJHS, we began learning to socialize and interact with the opposite sex. Our jr. high school helped us overcome this formidable hurdle of coming of age by offering us a plethora of extra-curricular activities and by holding "teen nights" every Friday alternating each week between our first awkward school dances and (remember?) roller-skating. Although you could sustain serious humiliation from being seen falling on roller skates, from a social point of view, the potential for embarrassment was a great deal less and, therefore less stressful, than at those early dances. 

Below are two photos of a typical class – Miss Cowin's 7^th or 8^th grade Social Studies class – taken the same day (it must have been "take a camera to school day" or something), circa spring or early fall, 1955.  How many of our classmates can you name?