Mark went to public school for a while, then his mom decided to pay to send him to a Catholic High School because she didn’t want him going to school in another district, which would have happened because of a disastrous social experiment around mixing schools in the 70s. Mark got a job to help his mom because she was a single mom and making sacrifices (he thought then) to send him to school.
The children at Mark’s new high school had been going to school together since kindergarten, so he was always going to start as an outsider. But his mom misunderstood the ‘no Levis’ rule in the dress code, and sent him to school in polyester slacks, dress shoes and polyester shirts with big collars (it was the 70s!) People looked at him like he was an asshole until they realised he was super smart and they could copy off his papers and get good grades. It sounds like Mark kept people guessing, because he was doing taekwondo and was a good athlete too. When Mark’s mom offered to get him new clothes, he decided to stick it out because he didn’t want to let anyone pressure him into dressing some other way — there’s the Mark we know and love!
Mark liked his high school experience, but he didn’t fit into any of the cliques. He didn’t fit with the geeks even though he was one. He didn’t fit the athletic world because he was too small. He was against drugs so he didn’t fit with the stoners. So he ended up moving between groups. The jocks could copy off his tests, the stoners left him alone, and the geeks were his friends. Notre Dame (his high school) had been there since 1947 and it gave him a sense of belonging and history he didn’t get through his family. He’d go to basketball games and paint his face blue and gold, like a super fan of the school. Mark looks back on that as a relatively carefree period, not least because his stepdad was out of his life, but knows how damaging a bad high school experience can be.
Video: Superonceupona Wholock
