One of my first friends in St. Theresa in Grade 7 was a Native boy. His name was John. I have no clue what his last name was. I can’t even say that I knew him well. I didn’t know him that long. He was a quiet young man, not terribly scholastic. Maybe that was what drew me to him, his unpresuming quiet. He seemed out of place in all the bluster and activity that surrounded him. If you've ever known a North American Native, you'll know what I mean.
As to his less than scholastic nature, he was not stupid. He was just quiet. That said, he was not particularly interested in his studies. I cannot comment on what is schooling was, or where he went to school before I met him, or even how long he had lived in Timmins. But I remember seeing how he struggled. I wanted to help him. He was kind to me, after all. I lent him the notes he was missing once (he'd been away, and had fallen even further behind than he'd already been), he tried to hand them back, but I insisted. John was too shy to insist I take them back. He had reason to; he was moving back to Moosonee, and I would never see him again.
I had to borrow Garry Martin's notes to copy when I discovered that John had left. Needless to say, I studied how my straight-A friend took notes. They weren’t that different from the notes I took. He just retained the information therein better than I did.
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