Band Class in the 7th Grade

Written By:  Andrew Eide

I entered Junior High School in September 1966. Junior High School at that time was Grades 7 to 9.

One reason I was excited was Junior High School had Band which we didn’t have in Elementary School. I wanted to learn to play the Trumpet. I was so excited when I signed up for Band and I was accepted.

Our instructor was Mister Ono. He went around the classroom and asked each student what instrument they were interested in. Although I told him I was interested in the Trumpet he didn’t seem interested. You know I’ve mentioned before when teachers or sports coaches don’t care what you are interested in it causes you to lose interest.

 

Mister Ono separated our class up into major groups such as Brass, Woodwinds, Strings, and Percussion. He then had each of us in the Brass section to come up to the podium. He had numerous mouthpieces of various sizes and he asked us to blow into each of them to try to make a sound. When I did that Mister Ono decided that I should play the French Horn instead of the Trumpet.

 

I protested telling Mister Ono that my desire was to play the Trumpet. He told me you cannot have a Band or an Orchestra that consists of only Trumpets, or only Violins, or only Drums.

I was disappointed I couldn’t play the Trumpet so I told Mister Ono to let me play drums instead. He told me we already had 8 to 10 students who are in the Percussion section and he will not add me to that group.

I spent that entire school year hating Band and hating playing the French Horn. I’m not saying Mister Ono was wrong in what he did as he was the Music Teacher. What I’m saying is if a student is strongly interested in something they should be encouraged and not discouraged.

Due to the treatment I received from Mister Ono I never took Band class again and I never learned to play any musical instrument.

What Is Cancer and Is There a Cure

Written By:  Andrew Eide

You continue hearing inspiring and hopeful stories in the news all the time that scientists and doctors are trying to come up with a “cure” for cancer. I’ve heard so many claims they found a way to inject someone with a substance that attacks the cancer tumor and destroys it.

However there is a major flaw in their logic.

The only way you can eradicate something is to eliminate the cause. For the Flu you eliminate, or vaccinate again, the Flu virus. For Malaria you eliminate the cause of the item that causes Malaria. Same with Chicken Pox, Measles, Mumps, etc., as each of them has a specific cause, usually a virus or infection.

But cancer has only one cause and it is not a virus and it is not an infection. Let me explain so there is no misunderstanding.

The cells in our bodies reproduce constantly. The usual process is a cell divides into two. Then each of those two divide again, and again, and again, so you have various types of size of organs, etc., in the body. When a cell divides it sends the information to the body and the human body does a “quality” check on that dividing cell. If the cell is dividing correctly the body gives is the go-ahead to continue reproducing. But if the cell is determined to be reproducing incorrectly the body sends a message to the immune system to destroy that abnormally-reproducing cell so it cannot mutate.

Yes it is that simple. Since a cancer tumor is nothing more than an abnormally reproducing human cell that was allowed to continue reproducing, even though it was reproducing incorrectly, you finally end up with a mass, or tumor, which is a clump of those abnormally reproducing cells.

The only way to prevent cancer, or to turn it around, is to keep your immune system healthy. There are no medications that can attack anything in a cancer cell to make it stop growing, or reproducing, then turning in a tumor. They cannot find one specific cause, such as a virus or infection, so there is no way to vaccinate you against it.

So please keep your immune system healthy as that is the only thing that can destroy cancer cells and eliminate the current ones in your body.

Things I Regret From My Childhood

Written By:  Andrew Eide

From Elementary School and through Junior High School and High School I was always known as one of the fastest runners, one of the most athletic in various sports, and I could jump so well I was called super-human.

During Elementary School I was always the fastest runner in the school. I could beat anyone in the 50 yards, 100 yards, and 220 yards runs. After that I was not able to compete well as I was a short-distance runner not a long-distance runner.

I was also the fastest runner in Junior High up to 220 yards. I was also an excellent jumper. We had one event called the Standing Broad Jump where you stand on a line and you have to jump as far as you can on measurements painted on the concrete in the play yard. I jumped a school record of 6 feet 11 inches and everyone couldn’t believe what I did. I repeated that record jump many times.

The other event was a Vertical Jump where you stand next to the wall with the measurements on the wall. You held a piece of chalk in your fingers and reached up and made a chalk mark. You would then take a few steps back, run toward the wall, and leap into the air placing a mark on the wall where you jumped the highest. The distance between the original mark and your jump mark was your distance in the Vertical Jump. In several attempts I jumped over 5 feet high and at one point I gave it all I had and jumped 6 feet 6 inches.

Both the 6 feet 11 inches in the Standing Broad Jump and the 6 feet 6 inches in the Vertical Jump were school records. My name was supposed to be placed on the Record Board in the school gymnasium but they refused to do that for me. I was extremely disappointed.

Since I was a little boy I could play baseball well and with football rarely could anyone catch me when I ran the ball and I could catch nearly every pass thrown to me.

When in Skyline High School I told the coaches I wanted to try out for Track events in the long jump and running up to 220 Yards, and to try out for Baseball and Football. Nobody paid any attention to me. The reason wasn’t that I didn’t have talent as I was more talented than 9 out of 10 people on those sports teams at my High School. The reason was that I wasn’t “friends” with anyone on the Track, Baseball, or Football teams. You got on these teams for being friends with someone not because you were talented.

That explains why our school teams sucked and rarely got into playoffs. It also explains why I gave up on sports and took drugs instead. It broke my heart, and my spirit, to have so much talent in those areas and nobody cared.