But what I remember most, and realize more the significance of now, was health classes in 6th grade where the football coach took the boys in one room, the sole female coach took the girls into another, and she began with “This is not sex education. Do not go home and tell your parents you had sex education. Now we’re going to discuss pregnancy and childbirth.”

I didn’t know then, but I do now, how unusual that was – and how outright brave our school district was to do that in hyper-conservative, Catholic-down-to-the-ground SW Louisiana. I don’t recall if there was any talk of birth control (I sincerely doubt it, considering.), but I do remember that disastrous myths like “You can’t get pregnant the first time” were dealt with.