The beginning of my 8th grade year at Brunswick Junior High bore all the hallmarks of years past. We were, after all, the big kids on campus now and we made sure the new kids from elementary school knew it. Some were carrying on the time-honored tradition of selling pilfered raffle tickets as “elevator passes” while others induced random wedgies upon unwary 6th graders. Things were just where they should be … well, mostly.

The previous year had been cut short by a week when a fire gutted the 8th grade wing of the school and severely damaged the second floor which included the library. Three local kids were implicated in tossing the molotov cocktail into the first floor of the school. Fire quickly spread up the back stairwell and ignited the second floor.

The Times Record the next day featured a front page picture of Brunswick firefighters tossing smoldering books from the library window in attempts to save as many as possible.

One of the kids would later be found innocent due to insufficient evidence. The other two were sent to juvie. Those of us who knew the three knew what really went down, but who’s going to listen to a bunch of 13-year-olds?

As for me, the $2 million in damages was just the tip of the iceberg. I lost my favorite sweatshirt, my track uniform and my WBLM bumper sticker in the fire, and there was no forgiving that.

For this, our final year before becoming little fish in a big pond again at Brunswick High, we were now relegated to squatting in lockers all over the building, messed up lunch schedules and most galling of all, hiking in all weather to the miniature trailer park set up across from Coffin School.

There, creaky steps led up to a bouncing, malodorous, mildew box with strange lighting and the selfcontained acoustics one might expect from being crammed inside a shipping container.

It didn’t feel like school and we really, to our teacher’s growing consternation, didn’t treat it as such. If there was any silver lining in these filthy, dark clouds tucked between the tree line and a parking lot, it was that one had just about enough time between leaving the building and arriving at our dank campers to throw back a soda from the machines in the lobby.

In the passing months, the traverse between the junior high and the mobile units became a noman’s land where the vulnerable were always getting hit up for lunch money, pelted with snow balls, sucker punched or in my poor friend Rob’s case, getting his baggy camo pants yanked down from behind by a girl in our science class.

Create an opportunity for adolescents to create mischief and they’ll rise to the occasion every time.

In time, we grew accustomed to the smell of our scorched building, the dust and debris of renovations and the general cramped conditions of the remainder of the school. Like most kids, we were adaptable and generally resilient. We claimed new seating areas in the cafeteria and swore a little less when having to hike out to the mobile junior high annexes.

But really, I want my sweatshirt and WBLM sticker back — the 107.5 one. If you guys are still out there, you owe me that much.

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Douglas McIntire is a reporter for The Times Record. Email him at [email protected]. Cool sweatshirts and WBLM stickers can be sent to 3 Business Parkway, Suite 1, Brunswick, Maine 04011.