Junior high school can be a time when we are easily embarrassed. We want to be liked, part of the in crowd, and not be ostracized by wearing "party socks" or suspenders or, heaven forbid, have green ears. So this is the story about how I had to walk around the junior high school with green ears for at least two weeks.
I was excited when I entered the 7th grade to discover that there was a journalism class that put out the school newspaper, "Junior Hi Lites". In this class I would learn to write newspaper stories, get published and even visit the Record and the offices of the esteemed newspaper, the New York Times. The first day of class we were told the newspaper had to put on a skit for the assembly program on student clubs available for the new seventh graders. The cute teacher wanted us to do a skit on Junior High Lites.
I can't remember who came up with the idea of having Martians promote the paper. I know I wrote the jingle. Myself and Kate B. were volunteered to play in the skit. We would be Martians who liked to eat the school paper. The jingle, which I wrote, had the lyrics, "We always eat Junior Hi Lites, better by far, so everybody get Junior Hi Lites ----today. "
The cute journalism teacher judiciously applied green dye to our ears, and we did the skit in the auditorium. It was a success. The job of removing the green from our ears was left to our parents.
I came home from school and my mother looked at me and said, "You know we need to get that green off of your ears. We retreated to the bathroom where a variety of cold cream, alcohol and soap could not discharge the green color on my ears.
"Sorry, but I'm sure it will fade away in a few days." The few days turned into a few weeks. I had to march around the junior high school for an extended period of time with green ears. I thank my classmates who never mentioned my ears after the first day or so. They must have gotten bored with my ears and went on to more pressing matters.