Charmed, I'm Sure

My mother was obsessed with appearances.  I think it was because she had been a fat kid.  In her later years I used to see if I could get through one phone conversation with her that someone’s “looks” weren’t mentioned. But I’ll hand it to her, she always looked good.

By the time I entered high school, this obsession was directed at me. Apparently, I needed a bit of refining and thus started our weekly treks to the Sunset Strip charm school of Mary Webb Davis.  I wasn’t a fat kid, I was a tomboy and I didn’t fit the acceptable mold.

My mother would pick me up after school --and after she had taught all day-- and drive me down Hollywood Boulevard to the Sunset Strip.  She must have really thought I needed improving.

Sometimes these drives were not happy. I’m not a big talker; I’m comfortable with silence.  My mother was not.  I think she found my silence rude and one day, as we drove by Hollywood High School, she lost her temper at my quietness and forced me to “make conversation.”

I suppose today Mary Webb Davis and her crew would be called “life coaches.” The teachers were conventionally beautiful, pointy breasted, well-groomed, stiff haired blonds and apparent experts of everything I didn’t know that I needed to know. I am in no doubt that many brain cells were sacrificed by theses women from decades of breathing in hair spray, polish remover and eyelash glue.  I doubt a single one could name the capital of Canada.  Can you?

I learned valuable skills like how to accept a compliment (not a skill that I have much need for), how to walk down stairs gracefully and, most importantly, how to apply false eyelashes. I learned to drink a large glass of water with freshly squeezed lemon juice first thing in the morning—a sure cure for bad skin and the evils of the world. I mastered the art of using an emery board;  only sand in one direction. This was long before botox—I can only imagine what they might have suggested to a 16 year old—and liposuction.  Breast implants were unheard of. 

Sure enough, I looked better for a while. I wore false eyelashes to school, got a boyfriend and used peroxide to highlight my “dishwater blonde” hair which was in the de rigueur style.  And I’m certain my mother thought she was providing me with a wonderful experience.  I’ve just always wondered why my sister never got the same wonderful experience. 

Ivanhoe Teachers: Part Two

Mr. L, my sixth grade teacher, was rather intimidating.  He was a tall, Asian man who was basically the only source of testosterone in the school.  I have based my teaching—for I am a teacher-- on how to not be like him.

He was well respected by the powers that be—Mrs. Joyner, the principal with her sleeve always stuffed with Kleenex.  We had a  “student teacher” who was a menopausal nun and about as exciting as eating cornflakes without milk.  Between the two of them, my last semester of sixth grade was not a fun one.

Mr. L loved to assign projects that were due the day after a holiday vacation.  That Christmas, my family drove to Yosemite.  On the drive there, before my father put on the chains—a skill that always amazed me—we were almost killed.  We hit a patch of ice on a mountain bend.  My mother summed it all up:  God!  Oh God…Oh, my God—an adjective added as the car slid out of control and neared a cliff.  And when the car stopped just at the edge of the road I think I was probably thinking that death would have been a welcome relief from Mr. L’s looming due date.

Safely ensconced in a cabin in the valley under Half Dome, just below where the “firefall” used to be, I tried to enjoy my Christmas vacation. I skied at Badger’s Pass, skated on an outdoor rink in a Norwegian sweater and ate meals at the festively decorated lodge---all the while worrying about that damned paper I was supposed to write about Rio de Janeiro.  My stomach churned.  And then I realized that I had the stomach flu, and so did my entire family.

Mr. L did something that, to this day, still irks me.  Every Friday he and the student teacher nun would give a math test.  I never finished in the allotted time.  And every Friday he would mark my unfinished questions as wrong.  I never have understood how something not done can be “wrong.”  Then, every Monday, he would divide the class into two halves.  The nun would take one half and he the other. It didn’t take too much to realize that the class was separated into the smart and dumb groups.  I only had to look around and I did not appreciate where I had been placed.

One of the oddest days in Mr. L’s class was the one when all the girls were sent to the auditorium.  There, innocent of what was to come and curious as to why the boys had to stay in class, we were shown a movie in black and white with a pompous British narration that proclaimed we were about to become women.  I was mortified that Mr. L would need to know this, and slightly appalled with the sudden realization that Mr. L. had a penis.

Politics: Part One

Politics were not something that my family engaged in.  We talked about school and friends and the news.  I remember sitting at the breakfast table and my mother telling us that a great lady had “passed away”—Eleanor Roosevelt. My mother could never say, “died.”  She was the queen of euphemisms.  And I remember her pain when she explained to us about the bombing of the little girls in a church in Birmingham.  But politics never entered the conversation.

My very first glimpse at “politics” was when I walked by the kindergarten enclosure at Ivanhoe Elementary School.  One of the kids was wearing a large button that said “Elect Pat Brown for Governor” It may have even said “re-e-elect.”   His father was a judge who would go on to mentor another judge who would come to national attention with the O.J. Simpson case.

The next time I became aware of politics was when I was in the fifth grade and in Mr. C’s class.  One of the students was wearing a large VOTE FOR KENNEDY button and it fell off.  Mr. C said  “That’s where he belongs…. on the floor.”   He also told us that in our lifetime a man would walk on the moon.  I thought he was nuts.  And, besides, my parents were voting for Nixon.

Shortly before President Kennedy was assassinated, I asked my mother who she would vote for in the next election.  She was no longer a Nixon fan.

Another political memory were bumper stickers that said “IMPEACH EARL WARREN.”  I thought he must be a very bad person.  And I learned what “impeach,” meant.

I don’t think there is a descriptive title for the group of people who were just a tad bit later than the beatniks and just a tiny bit earlier than the hippies.  But my friend’s parents were in this category.  They slept on a mattress on the floor, dogs were everywhere and the walls were black. Instead of putting butter on their corn they rolled the cobs in the stick of butter.  And they served me ox-tail soup for dinner.  Our families were quite different.

My friend’s cousin had a VW Beetle with a sunroof and we were allowed to stand up in the car and stick our heads through the roof while he drove on the freeway. I never told my mother about this. From this girl I learned the words “atheist” and “agnostic.”   I think we were twelve.

 Later, the cousin and the family acquired a Chinese junk that was berthed in Long Beach.  On a weekend visit, we went to the Pike and took in the rides, cotton candy and oddness—all barefoot.  My mother would have been appalled.  And after, with very filthy feet, lying in the upper bunk on the junk, I listened to Petula Clark singing “I Know A Place” on the radio while the waves rocked me to sleep, This was despite my fear of having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night on a strange junk. 

This friend was the one who informed me about a “proposition.”  It was to make sure that landlords didn’t discriminate against potential renters because of their color.  There was a rally in my junior high auditorium and my parents came.  Things were starting to change.

Ivanhoe Teachers: Part One

After the oddness of Mrs. M, my first grade teacher, I had several teachers who didn’t really register in the memory bank, except for one who told me not to wear lipstick to school. I was in the first grade, after all. That same day I went home, reapplied the color and went back to the school with my mother to register my little sister for kindergarten.  The teacher was in the office and didn’t say a word about my lipstick.

In the second grade Mrs. Bevan became Mrs. Trask (or was it the other was around?) I never thought of people her age getting married. But she, with an adult son that we often heard about, did. I remember three things about her class. She taught us about cows—Guernsey’s, Holsteins and Jerseys. And she was taught us to draw cows using a method completely devoid of any creativity. It was only a matter of connecting circles. How this was at all relevant to a 7 year old growing up in Los Angeles is beyond me.

And she had to deal with Raymond. Raymond had done something very bad.  He had uttered the “f” word and been sent to Mrs. Joyner, the principal, with her Kleenex filled sleeve. I had no clue what the “f word” was but it didn’t take long for another boy in the class to inform the entire class and me.

There was another troublesome boy in the class named Tommy. Between learning about John C. Fremont and the Pueblo de Los Angeles, I was chosen to be his seatmate.  It didn't get past me that I had been chosen for this task because I was considered "a good girl."  Little did she know.  I didn’t think Tommy was so bad.  He even fixed the tilting desk by putting a piece of cardboard under the leg.  I was impressed.

In the third grade all was not well—especially with our teacher who seemed to have completely lost control.  She disappeared shortly after Mark threw a blackboard eraser at her head.  The parents did a lot of whispering during this period.

After a series of substitute teachers, we were introduced to Miss Rasmussen.  She kind of looked like Barbie—the blond one. I called her Miss Razzamatazz.  It was in her class that I first got stitches, was the only kid not allowed to watch Zorro because it was on a half hour after my ridiculously early bedtime, and got diarrhea at school. Academically, I remember nothing.

I guess learning about the cows made more of an impression.

Christmas Eve

 

On the day of Christmas Eve, my father would pack the popcorn balls he and my mother had spent hours making and wrapping-- and his two daughters--- into the Chevrolet and drive to Burbank and Glendale to make his deliveries. While we drove from house to house, I hope my mother was taking the time to nap.  But I suspect she was stuffing the stockings. I know she wasn’t wrapping gifts, because we were told early on that an organized woman is finished with her Christmas shopping—and wrapping--by Thanksgiving.

 

When we arrived home it would be showers in the pink tiled bathroom, special dresses and the arrival of Aunt Cora.  Aunt Cora was my father’s Mormon sister who was divorced and lived in nearby Atwater.  By tradition, she spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day with us.

 

The station wagon was loaded with gifts and we drove to Beverly Hills. My favorite route was along Wilshire Boulevard because of all the Christmas lights and displays in the Cadillac dealership.  As we officially approached Beverly Hills, lighted reindeer draped the street at every block.  The park that bordered our drive had two or three large pine trees—thirty feet at least.  At Christmas, they were always decorated with blue lights.  The “blue light trees” were a sign that we were getting close.  Once the San Diego freeway was built, it was faster to go through the Valley and take the pass over to the house.  It was never as fun as the old route.

 

My grandparents lived with my grandmother’s adult, gay son from an earlier marriage.  Uncle Max drove a red convertible with white leather seats and worked in the book trade. His bedroom was a virtual bookstore. When I was much older, I appreciated his more adult editions.

 

Christmas Eve would include an odd mix of people. Single ladies from the church joined us as well as Uncle Max’s good friend named T.V.,a cross between Ayn Rand and Coco Chanel, who gave us impressive—and sometimes signed—books.  My grandfather always hugged us as we entered and called us “his little lambs.”  He was a prominent minister in Hollywood and must have been glad to be home after a barrage of pageants, nativity plays and having to write meaningful sermons. My mother’s brother and his wife would come as well.  They were the epitome of cool.

 

The dining room was set and ready with candles burning in twisted, silver holders that reflected against the windows and mirror along the wall. Always, while he lived until I was nine, my grandfather put a silver dollar on his granddaughters’ plates.  Mostly we had turkey, and the single church lady always brought Jell-O salad because she couldn’t cook.  Aunt Cora always brought the Cranberry sauce mix that’s on the packages of Ocean Spray.

 

In the living room a fire would be burning in the hearth and the chubby stockings would be waiting until after dinner. Also in the living room, near the tree, was a large, whipped wax candle infused with glitter.  I don’t know how many Christmases this candle lasted, but in my memory it was always there.

 

My grandmother, not my mother’s real mother, always called my mom “Sister.” I thought it was odd. On a few occasions, my grandmother’s real sister would join the Christmas Eve celebration from Bainbridge Island. She and my grandmother both suffered from genetic deafness.  My mother’s voice was usually hoarse after these dinners.

 

When we finally got to open our stockings they contained things we didn’t normally see.  Lollipops from France, tiny hard milled soaps in the shape of a rose—everything smelled exotic.

 

On the day of my all time favorite Christmas Eve, my sister and I were told we could open a gift before going to our grandparents.  This seemed quite decadent.  But later made sense.  The gifts we both opened were life sized baby dolls with eyes that had lids that shut and opened and mouths puckered and ready for a bottle.  We took these with us to our grandparents.  After the dinner and after the stockings we were surprised with wooden cradles for the babies.  Ladies from the church had made us tiny quilts.  We were completely ready to set up parenting shop.

 

On the way home, we drove down little Santa Monica and often saw an indoor skating rink.  Once back at Angus Street we would put on our brand new Lanz flannel nightgowns.  Aunt Cora would be ensconced on the living room sofa turned bed and we would kiss her goodnight.  And then we waited for the dawn.

 

Many, many years later my husband and I flew into Los Angeles from our home in Scotland to get married.  There was an airplane strike and Margaret Thatcher had yet to take things into hand. Our flight from London was delayed one day and we arrived in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve night.  My family had not met my husband-to-be.  My father and sister met us at the airport and whisked us to my grandmother’s.  The fire was still burning, the stockings had disappeared years earlier and the regular guest list had been depleted by deaths.  We sat at card tables and ate homemade clam chowder. 

The Boss

My father worked a small company based in Elgin, Illinois that made “variable speed drives.” My dad would show these to me when we went to a carwash.  His office was in a very boring part of Los Angeles that was made up of warehouses and railroad tracks.  The office had two rooms, a front office and a back storage area that smelled of lubricating grease. The best part about the whole thing was that the desk chair was on wheels and could spin around.

About once a year my dad’s boss would fly out from the Chicago area. He was very different from my parents and therefore seemed slightly glamorous.  He smoked heavily and drank heavily and a stroke had left one side of his face droopy. We had been warned not to stare.  He wore hats like Frank Sinatra and shiny sharkskin suits, and took my parents to fancy restaurants on the Sunset Strip.  He was Catholic, had seven children, one of whom was deaf, and never brought his wife along on these trips.

There was a drawer in one of the living room side tables where my father saved all the little free cigarettes packs he’d gotten on his business flights.  These were to offer when the boss showed up.  Some type of liquor would be purchased, the house completely cleaned and my mother would be her most charming. Once I caught her in the kitchen adding water to the boss’ drink.  She told me that he already had enough and he wouldn’t know the difference.

Sometimes a fellow distributor, an Armenian, would arrive from Fresno to meet the boss. My mother’s close friend would be called upon for double date duty and the five would enjoy a night on the town.  I remember my mother’s excitement when they dined a few tables away from Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra.

On one visit we drove The Boss up to Santa Barbara for a Sunday outing. We pulled into a large seafood restaurant in Ventura for lunch and the boss insisted that I order lobster.  It was my first time.  I’m rather embarrassed to say that it reminded me of popcorn because of the clarified butter.

The summer that I was eleven my father had been invited to Elgin on business. He invited me to join him.  It was to be my first flight.  In preparation, my mother took me to I. Magnin’s on Wilshire and bought me a red suit trimmed with white—sort of a pre-teen Chanel knock off.  I felt very sophisticated, in spite of my white socks.

I remember that we flew American Airlines, that the dinner tray contained the familiar five pack of cigarettes and that Lon Chaney Jr. aka The Wolfman, was sitting just across the aisle. Against my wishes, my father forced me to get his autograph.

At home my mother was buying my sister a new Barbie to make up for the fact that she didn’t get to come.

We stayed at the boss’ house—but I would call it a mansion.  It was large, brick, has a circular driveway and a pool.  Dad and I were put up together in a downstairs bedroom.

I had four firsts while staying there.  I fell in love with the boss’ oldest and best-looking son who told me I was beautiful. (I imagine he has a guide dog now.) I got hay fever and sneezed to the extent that the boss’ wife got me medication.  I attended a Catholic mass—still in Latin—and contemplated converting because the service was so short.  And I got my period for the first time. I dealt with the later by hiding my underwear and praying it would go away. It did—for a year. 

Christmas: The Tree, Kit and Caboodle

In the 1950’s Christmas was not “Xmas” and it did not follow Halloween. A tasteful week after Thanksgiving was the usual time that Christmas carols started playing on the radio, poinsettias were everywhere and the Christmas cards started rolling in.

I loved collecting the Christmas cards from the mailbox and delighted that during this period we got two mail deliveries a day. The “rich people” had gold or silver foil lining in their envelopes. And their names were printed onto the card in a matching metallic font.  Sometimes after the printed names would be a one sentence handwritten greeting that smelled of insincerity and laziness. My family never had our name printed on our cards and actually wrote sincere messages.

We got our fair share of mimeographed newsletters that contained only the most positive updates. There were cards that contained photos, die cut ornaments and the one special card, each year that was a hand done mini -masterpiece.  If I had saved those particular cards, there would be a coffee table book in the offing.

My generation has Ben and Jerry’s.  Our parents had Harry and David. Maybe it was because I was from California, but getting a box of pears or apples—no matter how polished--didn’t seem like much of a gift to me.

It was roughly around this time that Hickory Farms opened and Christmas gifts and goodies began to contain smoked rectangular cheese with a brown rind, salami style sausage and those miniature ceramic pots of spreadable cheeses.

Nuts were another popular item.  The nut tray and accompanying cracker appeared on the table in front of our fireplace.  My father taught us how to crack walnuts without using anything but another walnut.

I am grateful that the Chex Mix fad lasted only one Christmas season at our home.

At school we were busy making ornaments for our parents and practicing our Christmas songs for the school concert.  Unless you were in Mrs. Steiner’s class and then it was all about dreidels. We soaked string in starch and wrapped it around soon to be deflated balloons, we pressed fingers and shapes into flat clay circles and we posed for our silhouettes to be traced. 

But the best of the best was the day—always the last day of school before the holidays—when we would get our Christmas tree.  My father was not one to mince around Glendale tree lots.  We drove right down to the railroad station where the trees were unloaded from the Pacific Northwest. My dad would bargain and haggle—point out unseemly branches—and always get a good deal.  One year we went in the pouring rain and my dad traded his plastic raincoat for a tree.

Once home, my father would examine the tree and make it right. He cut branches, drilled holes and inserted them here and there to make up for nature’s errors. Then we would decorate.  Boxes of ornaments would be pulled out of storage. Some would be broken and some would cut your fingers.  I quickly learned the dangers of “spun glass.” 

Christmas Part One: The Lead Up

Christmas—Part One: The Lead Up

We knew Christmas was coming when my mother put a sparkly German advent calendar on the mantle of the fireplace, just under her favorite Gauguin knock off of Tahiti. The calendars over the years varied little.  They were either a manger scene or a candle lit village covered in the snow that we never got to see in Los Angeles.

Each day before school my sister and I alternated opening the little paper windows and it was fortuitous that the calendar ended on the 24^th so we both got the same number of windows to open. The window for the 24^th was always the most coveted, largest and had the best picture.

There were no chocolates or toys behind the windows, just sweet little pictures. A trumpet, a candle or a toy car.  By the time my son was old enough for an advent calendar there seemed the commercial need to put actual goodies and chocolate in each window.   I continued the tradition of the simple glitter shedding German ones.

The next sign of Christmas was the smell of popcorn, Karo syrup and food coloring being conjured into Christmas gifts.  My parents would spend evening after evening busy in the kitchen popping corn and stirring large pots of sugary goo. My father formed the cooling mixture into popcorn balls.  Sometimes they added red cinnamon candies.  Once cooled completely, we would cut brightly colored cellophane on the dining room table, wrap each ball and tie it with a ribbon.  These would be distributed to friends later. When you bit into the stiff balls, the corn would cut into your gums.

The next harbinger of Christmas was the annual Group Six carol sing at our home.  Our church, Hollywood Beverly Christian Church, divided women into like-minded groups in an attempt to stimulate socializing and friendship. It was pretty obvious that my mother had been put in the “career woman” group—Group Six.

Being the only married member of the group, and the only one with a husband, young children and a welcoming hearth and home, my mother invited Group Six every Christmas to come share a buffet of Christmas cookies and sing carols in front of the fire, no matter what the temperature.

One member of G6 arrived early every single year.  I imagine she didn’t want to drive home and then back to our house. And I know that she had no idea how much she irked my mother, because she never entertained and had no idea of the work that went into it. She would park and read a book.  This drove my mother nuts.  Irritated because she felt like she should invite her in and annoyed because her last half hour of getting ready time would be stolen, she bemoaned this woman’s arrival every year.  And every year, after some good old complaining, my mother would go out to her car and ask her in.  The woman’s name was Betty and she always brought those round, rich cookies that have powdered sugar on them.

The ladies would fill our living room and my mother or someone else with musical skill would play the piano. Sometimes there would be the Autoharp or guitar.  My sister and I would join in and feel slightly awkward around these women who sometimes seemed a little desperate for our companionship. My father loved to play practical jokes on them, but not in an unkind way.  Group Six was just something we had to do before the fun stuff happened.

Another Christmas lead up was the Hollywood Christmas Parade. The parade route was a block from our church and we would go to the Friday night church dinner beforehand.  The food was truly atrocious—green jello encasing celery with stiff dollops of yellowing mayonnaise on top, fried chicken and brown gravy over lumpy potatoes.  The evening I remember the most was when my uncle, who lived just below the Hollywood sign, had gone off on a freighter and left my mother in charge of his house.  The Hollywood Hills caught on fire.  Aldous Huxley’s home, a few blocks below my uncle’s, was burned to the ground. We could see the fire from the parade.  My uncle’s house was spared.

Music Lessons

Music was a big part of our lives.  My father played the guitar and had a beautiful deep singing voice. My mother was an elementary school music teacher for the Burbank School District and played the piano, Autoharp and guitar.

My parents loved to sing. And in harmony. Every Sunday at church they would harmonize the Doxology and whatever hymns were on the menu for that day.  My sister and I would cringe and slink down into the pew in embarrassment.

When I was about 10 years old, my mother conned me into taking piano lessons.  She assured me that this skill would make me popular at parties later in my life. I think she’d seen too many Bing Crosby movies and certainly couldn’t predict that by the time I was old enough to attend parties, playing the piano would not be able to compete with The Doors, The Stones and The Beatles.

She would come home from teaching all day, pick me up and drive me to Glendale. Like the swimming lessons, she would sit waiting for me to finish the lesson, inevitably hearing me being told that I needed to practice more.  Then she would drive home and make dinner. 

When I was in the sixth grade, it was announced at school that we were going to have an orchestra.  Mrs. Cobb would come weekly to teach us how to play a variety of instruments.  To be in the orchestra was a no-brainer.  The choice of instrument was a little more difficult.  I wanted to learn the trumpet.  My mother insisted that the noise would bother the neighbors and that the trumpet was a boy’s instrument.  We settled on the flute.  Later, as I walked home with my neat little case watching the saxophone and tuba players struggling, I realized the flute was okay.

I can still remember the smell of the Artley silver flute with its padded stops. I enjoyed twisting it to tune and polishing it with a purple felt cloth. I also liked that in the music we played, the flute parts were pretty much the main tune, not like the parts for the triangle.

During rehearsals, I was appalled by the other wind instrument players who had to vent their spit valves onto the wooden floor of the auditorium.  By the end of the session, little pools of saliva surrounded them. The flute was looking better and better.

When I graduated from Ivanhoe Elementary School Mrs. Cobb left my life. My mother hired a flute instructor, who like all music teachers seemed to, lived in Glendale.

By this time, the lure of a Dunkin Imperial yo-yo or the promise of popularity was not enough to keep me interested in playing the piano. I did it out of guilt to please my mother.  On the occasions when she would sit on the bench next to me I remember staring at her hands and their boniness and feeling even more guilt. In spite of the fact that my sister had now been roped into the lessons and the teacher moved a mere block from our house, I was desperate to quit.

 Frankly, I only remember two things about those lessons—other than the horrors and stress of the recitals.

One day I arrived a bit early for my lesson and Mrs. Gwendolyn Brain Lund was busy in the next room with a student.  She had a waiting room set up just like a dentist’s or doctors with magazines.  Except the magazines weren’t boring.  She had LIFE.  On that day I opened the large magazine and found an article about sharks.  There was a very realistic underwater picture looking up at a man floating on an inflatable raft with his feet dangling in the water.  Below him a variety of sharks were circling.  I had an inflatable beach raft.  One side was blue and one was red.  After that I always surfed with the red side up in case a shark might think it was blood.

The other thing I remember was my very last day of lessons. My mother came in and asked me to wait outside. I heard her tell Mrs. GBL that I would no longer be her student.  Without missing a beat, Mrs. Lund told my mother that that was just as well because I had horrible hands.

Now free of the piano, I was bitten by a new musical bug. The British had invaded and every rock and roll group had guitars.  Every group I listened to on my clock radio had guitars…and drums.  I would have preferred to play the drums but I figured if the trumpet was too noisy for the neighbors, drums would definitely be out. So, I was allowed to quit the flute (and I think my mother was secretly relieved that she didn’t have to drive me to Glendale once a week) on the condition that I would learn to play the guitar.

The teacher was Russian and named Serge—pronounced Ser-gay. And he didn’t live in Glendale. I was allowed to use my mother’s guitar for the lessons.

Things went along quite nicely.  I could strum a few tunes, enough so that my best friend would come over and sing with me.  We fantasized that one of the cars driving up Angus Street would hear us, stop in wonderment and present us with a contract. I think we actually believed it a bit.

Then the day came that the seventh grade class of Thomas Starr King Jr. High announced that they were having a talent show. My friend and I signed up.  We practiced the song over and over while sitting on my twin bed.  On the day of the performance, we walked out onto the large stage of the auditorium.  I started playing the introduction and then we both began to sing. I suddenly forgot the chords and stopped.  My friend forgot the lyrics.  We walked off the stage in shame.  I never played that guitar again and Serge lost a student.  The hit of the talent show was John Friesen on the drums playing “Wipeout.”  He went on to be in the 1970’s band Player that had a hit with the song “Baby Come Back.”  The last time I heard it was on a Swiffer commercial..