In my childhood, Salt Lake County was slower, simpler, and more understandable than it is now. A neighborhood was defined by its Mormon ward boundaries and its characteristics could be determined by the address of the ward house. Urbanization was inversely proportional to the distance from South Temple and median income increased from the scrubby center of the valley east to the benches and canyons of the Wasatch mountains. School boundaries followed ward and stake lines strictly.

But with my adolescence came the Times of Trouble. The population skyrocketed outside the city limits, expanding small wards into large, new stakes. The ecclesiastical powers could not realign school boundaries instantly, and, as a result, a small segment of the old Winder Ward -- those living along Thirteenth East -- found themselves going to Central Junior High, two miles north of the ward house and three long miles west. To me, it seemed like another country.

Outlawry at Central was then at its peak. The year before, the ninth grade boys caught the principal during one lunch

period, pantsed him, and sat him on a water fountain. He was then mercifully transferred to a placid grade school in the southeast part of the district where he spent the long years waiting for retirement locked in his office, hiding from the then-docile children of the upper middle class.

The Winder Ward contingent wisely kept a low profile, concentrating on staying in one piece for the three years until, if the boundaries stayed stable, we could rejoin the rest of our old William Penn Elementary friends at Olympus High. We stuck together as best we could and commenced an insular existence. Then, for me, a breakthrough came in gym class.

Our gym teacher was getting his M.A. at the University of Utah and was filled with the mildly left-liberal dogma that then passed for educational psychology. As a consequence, he decided to form the class into "balanced" teams for the school year. The Thirteenth East group was completely split up and I found myself in an as varied a gang as ever went on patrol in a World War II army movie.