Unrequited Toy

I watched a lot of Westerns.  Roy, Rex, Rowdie, Gil Favor, Sky King, Tonto, John Wayne, Little Joe and on and on. I loved them all.   Once I saw one of them—not one of the above mentioned—sunbathing on my mom’s beach.  Leathery but in shape and obviously waiting for his agent’s call.  It wasn’t going to happen.

Sometimes, when these shows were shown at kid viewing time, i.e. Saturdays, there would be commercials that crept into our vulnerable brains.  Tony the Tiger, Bosco, Nestlé’s Quik, Malto-Meal and Ovaltine.

My favorite ad for something that I really, really wanted was from Mattel.  They made a tooled Western belt with a buckle.  The buckle featured a small derringer; the same gun that killed Abraham Lincoln.  The gun was “real”—in that it could fire a small plastic bullet and maybe a cap.  I’m not sure, because I never got one.

The deal was that a kid could load his gun—note that I’m not saying “her” because I was supposed to be wanting Barbie accessories—walk around confidently and then thrust out his stomach muscles to trigger the derringer which would swing out and “fire.”   I had never seen anything cooler in my entire life:  baring Dick Tracy’s watch.

I wanted one.  I never got one.   They are on EBAY.  The prices are going up and the belt wouldn’t fit me.  I do think I could fit the buckle. 

The New Room

Why, where or exactly when, I do not know.  But at some point my parents decided to expand our Angus Street house.  I have pretty much no memory of the porch which was over the garage. I do remember the construction to enclose it into a room and excitement that followed.

Thus was born “the new room.”   A decade later, the space was still called “the new room.”  I’m certain that the people who now live there and paid a heck of a lot more than the $10,000 my mother paid using her widow’s insurance from the death of her first husband, would not be calling that space the “new room.”  Everything about that house is now old. But for my family, it was always the “new room.”

Whether my dad had building permits, which I highly doubt, don’t know.  But what I remember was the new beams and sitting astride them.  Our neighbors, Cece and Bernice, didn’t think it was safe.  But they also didn’t think my dad should be feeding us those yellow hot chilies in a jar.  Neither had lasting a lasting negative impact.

Once the porch was enclosed into a room, the floor was laid.  Cork.  Then my dad built bookshelves and electrical outlets.  On one side of the room the shelves housed the World Book Encyclopedia and all the National Geographics that we’d ever received.  On the other side of the opening, were all of my parents’ record albums.  Pattie Page, Leonard Bernstein, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Smetana, Ferde Grove, Harry Belafonte and more. There was also an album by a woman who specialized in singing off key for humor’s sake.  I was told that this was something that was quite difficult.

 These were the days of Sing Along with Mitch.  Folk music was about to hit its acme.

My father had each album ordered and labeled. This is also where my parents’ guitars and banjo were stored.

Then my parents bought an L-shaped couch.  I guess it was pretty modern for the time.  It had some odd plastic cover that always felt cold. White with colored piping.  The backrest came off, making the seat into a bed.  On the opposite side of the room was a business-like desk and chair. 

To separate the living room from the “new room” my parents put up a sliding, accordion door that we rarely used.  The only time I can remember using it was when a young man came to door.  I had worked with him and we’d gone out on one date.  Smitten, I was not.  He arrived unannounced and upon seeing him coming up the stairs to the front door, I solicited my sister.  Her job was to answer the door and say I wasn’t home.  My job was to escape quickly to the “new room," shut the accordion door and hide.  Unfortunately, he decided to wait a while for me to “come home.”  I was inches away from him and was worried that he could see my feet under the door.  Needless to say, we never went out again.

Many years later, a boyfriend came to stay during the holidays.  My mother didn’t like him—and in the long run neither did I.  But he was put on the cold, white plastic couch.  The only good thing my mother could find to say about him was that he made his bed and returned the backrest to the couch.

I have learned that making the bed is not all that important. 

On Being Kinda Scottish

I was a pretty naïve kid.  Leave it to Beaver was right up my alley. My favorite episode was the one where he climbs into the giant, “steaming”  cup of coffee on a billboard. The most frightening program I ever watched was an episode of Wagon Train.  The crusty cook was buried alive and the shot of his hand clawing through the rocks and rubble of his grave scared me for months. 

So it was that I was not as literate as I might have been.  The fact that I grew up in a neighborhood laden with Scottish names and references went right over my head. The main thoroughfares of youth were Hyperion and Rowena.  I lived on Angus Street and went to Ivanhoe Elementary.  I just decided these were rather odd names and gave them no further thought.  I was too busy practicing the flute, watching Lon Chaney Jr. slog through fake fog as the Wolfman and wondering why Jane bothered to wear a dress in the jungle while she was with Tarzan.

Then one day my family went on a trip.  Where we were going, I don’t know.  But on the way we stopped in Carmel, California.  I vividly remember a street sloping towards the sea that had interesting shops on either side.  One of those stores specialized in things Scottish.  Without realizing it, I was hooked.

Why I was attracted to the shop, I have no idea, nor do I know why I was fascinated by a broach that I can still picture.  It was the claw of a bird—a real one--, a purple stone encased in silver and a feather.  Pretty disgusting.  But I wanted it.  I think I was 10 or 11.

Whodathunkit that many years later I would live in Scotland and walk regularly past Sir Walter Scott’s house on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.  And whodathunkit that I would fall in love with a Scotsman who knew that Hyperion and Rowena and Ivanhoe were not just odd names in Silverlake.

The next step was the tartan.  I couldn’t be involved with someone who had one of those orange and yellow plaids that look like the floor of a pub after the last call.   My man had a great one.  It is green and navy, a thin stripe of red and another of yellow. Very close to Hunting Stuart.

The coup de gras came when marriage was on the horizon.  I could “keep my name” as was the fashion or I could “take my husband’s name.”  He didn’t care.  But I did.

My “maiden” name was hellacious for anyone with a lisp.  You try it:  Kristie Smithson.  See.

The chance to have a “Mc” name was too hard to resist. No disrespect to my parents, but my new name just sounds better.

Tiny Dancer

My mother’s mother died when she was twelve.  Even a long train trip from Seattle to the Mayo Clinic, halfway across the country, did not result in finding a cure for my elegant grandmother. 

Back in Seattle, her grandmother told my mother that the frail woman she loved had passed away in an upstairs bedroom.  The year was 1929; an all around horrible year for the entire country, not just my mother.

Her father, my grandfather, chose to lose himself in his work as the minister of the new church in the university district.  My mother’s brother, seven years older, dealt with the death in a way that was of no help to a twelve year old.  Philipino houseboys were hired to take care of the house, and the grandmother and her elderly friends tended to my mother. 

Fast forward to 1960 in Los Angeles, California.  My mother was now raising two daughters, and doing so without the benefit of maternal advice and care.  As a result, my mother opted to become Super mom.

Thus it was that I, being the eldest, was presented with a variety of mostly unwanted lessons.   Swimming lessons were fine.  I loved them and I am a damned good swimmer. But every other lesson given with the intention of making me into a well-rounded and successful woman went down the proverbial drain.  Ballet was an utter bust. “ First position, second…” To be honest, my only memory of those ballet lessons taught by the side of Echo Lake was a dead pigeon hanging from a palm tree  that we saw on the way to the car.

There followed piano lessons.  I was informed that these lessons would make me popular at parties.  Even as a kid I didn’t buy it.  Long gone were the Bing Crosby movies where everyone stood around a piano and crooned.  The 60’s weren’t about crooning, but my mother didn’t know that.

Then came probably the most ill gotten of all lessons:  cotillion dancing.  Somewhere near the golf course and horse stables that abutted Griffith Park on Loz Feliz Blvd was a hall that became the personal hell of many a Silverlake pre-teen.

One woman played the piano, one woman gave directions.   And a slew of Silverlakites were suddenly thrust into a dance hall.  Sweaty, pimply boys in suits and ties and girls in frou-frou dresses were ordered to move their feet to the rhythm of the fox trot and the cha cha cha.  This had absolutely no relevance to our real life…and never would have. 

The stress of not being picked to dance was equaled with the angst of dealing with the odors and damp fluids emitted by teenaged boys. The closest this came to having any meaning was when I watched the Sound of Music and knew that, if the odd happenstance occurred and  I would need to do the waltz surrounded by my seven children—I would be able to do it.   This is not something most people pay for.

I know parents do things with the best of intentions, but cotillion dancing was not something that I have ever used.   Once, when my son was at an un-named school, they asked parents to come in and talk.  I was sorely tempted to come in and tell the kids that algebra was of utterly no use.   But I have a few friends who are math teachers and thought the better of it.  Cotillion is right up there with algebra.

Things I Learned From Teachers That They Never Intended to Teach

Telling a class that if you had a daughter you would name her “Inertia” doesn’t ingratiate yourself to 13 year olds.

Remarks uttered “sotto voce” are much more threatening than outright defiance.

If you ask, you will be told “no.”  Just do it and don’t ask.  Half the time they won’t even notice.

If you are called on in class, just don’t answer.  The teacher will quickly move on to another kid.

When your teacher claims that he is going to read everyone’s essay in class AND if there are any errors after having done it a second time, demerits will be given—he will not have time to complete the task.  If your last name starts with an “S” you will scoot through the test of fire knowing you won’t be caught. And knowing that you didn’t bother to re-write the paper. It’s his fault for making you sit in alphabetical order.

Wearing high heels is only to impress other teachers.

Teachers who scream and yell “shut up” only look weak.

It’s not a good idea to have kids deliver your love notes to another teacher.

Teachers with interesting rooms teach in many ways.

One of the worst incentives to coerce honesty from a class is to make them sit there waiting for someone to own up.

Referring to your wife as Mrs. (teacher’s last name) makes you sound stiff and weird.

When you are told something is going in your “permanent record” they really can’t be bothered to do it.

There are teachers who should not be teaching.

When a teacher says to you “How dare you question my authority…” YOU SHOULD.

Sharing your stories about doing LSD is not a good idea.

Don’t try to befriend students, phone them or meet them off campus.  It’s needy and gross.

John Marshall High School--Part One

I remember far more from elementary school than I do from high school.  Perhaps it’s because at Ivanhoe we were with the teachers all day long.  Perhaps it was the hormonal shifts that would later change my body. Or perhaps it was because Ivanhoe only had about a dozen teachers.  John Marshall High School was much different.

First of all, Marshall was one of the most beautiful public high schools in the city.  It still is. Its twin, L.A. High, had the architecture, but not the setting.  Marshall could have been the campus of a private and posh East coast college or prep school.  But, it was in Silverlake. It is such a good looking school that I see it frequently in car ads and remember the pride I felt when it was used in television’s “Mr. Novak” with James Franciscus and the movie “Grease.”

I think that at Ivanhoe I felt everyone was pretty much equal.  Except, that is, for Jesus who didn’t speak English and Keith Shepherd from England who had un-manly rosy cheeks, wore his pants too high and fainted in the sun.

By high school, this notion of egalitarianism was long gone.  Everything mattered in one way or another.  Your hairstyle—and how you parted your hair, your clothes, your car—if you had one, your skin, the way you carried your books, the music you liked; all defined you.  And that was just the beginning.  There were cliques and elite social clubs who would commandeer select parts of the campus at lunch. There were kids who had “gone all the way” and others who hadn’t. Confident, fast track students used words like “liaise” and wore ties to school and joined student government.  Judge Lance Ito was one of them…though I never heard him utter “liaise.”

Then there were the budding hippies, the cheerleaders who ended up pregnant or gay, and the jock guys (but not girls—this was WAY before Title IX).  Other sub-cultures consisted of the Jewish American Princesses who always had the latest clothes from trendy stores at Century City or the WASPs who read Glamour, Mademoiselle and Seventeen for every possible fashion and beauty tip. One group was into souped up Camaros, Cougars and Corvettes and raced on Riverside Drive on Saturday nights. Another did the school plays or played in bands. There were the druggies, the Nisei perfectionist kids who never talked and got straight A’s, the Hispanics and the Lebanese, Doves and Hawks and boys with pimples who ran the AV equipment.  I didn’t fit into any of these groups.  And I didn’t stand out in class either.

Sometimes I liked to hang out in the library during lunch.  It was cool, as in temperature, and the librarian was a nice lady who the mother of my sister’s best friend.  I remember Mrs. Fitzpatrick being impressed when I checked out a book about Indira Gandhi.

At one point, I decided that I would befriend the blind girl who ate lunch just outside the main hallway.  I will never forget my utter embarrassment when I concluded one of our conversations with the words:  “See you later.”

The school’s administration was made up of a trio of oddballs.  The principal wore his hair in the shortest of short buzz cuts in an era when everyone else was growing hair on head and face—and sometimes legs.  He was a humorless man who today would probably be a neo-Nazi.  He was totally unprepared for the generation that would neither respect him nor listen to him.  He saw the peace sign as a personal threat. Mr. R could have been a poster child for the term “Generation Gap.”

The “Girl’s Vice Principal” was someone who, even I, at the age of 15, could tell lacked “life experience.” She was staid, double-chinned, single and out of touch with her charges.  I have no memories of the “Boy’s Vice Principal,” other than his Italian name and bad suits.

Geriatric women who wore eyeglasses on chains and beaded cardigan sweaters staffed the main office. Off the main office were smaller cubicles for the counselors. My college counselor had a large wart protruding through his thinning hair and counseled not. It would have been nice to know that one could practice for the SAT or take it multiple times. 

As a teacher, I am well aware graduating seniors depart taking mostly memories of their recent teachers. Their elementary and middle school teachers are long gone relics of a past they pretend no longer matters. So it seems that the higher the grade level taught by a teacher, the more they are remembered.

Ah…but this is not the case for me.  I can remember only two or three teachers—okay, maybe four—from my three years at John Marshall High.  Actually, I just remembered a few more.  But not clearly, and not in a way that implies they made any impact on my life or education.

As for John Marshall teachers, they were an odd lot.  They ran the gamut of age, style and popularity.

 There were the de rigueur lesbian P.E. teachers, one who informed us that she always bought her socks at Sears because if they wore out, Sears would replace them free. Another wore green contact lenses. A third taught health as well as PE, showed us “Reefer Madness” and advised lemon juice as a salad dressing. And a fourth was supposed to have been in the Marines.

The math department was completely forgettable.  My only memory is a sad joke about a polygon being a dead parrot and a teacher who wore the same suit everyday for a semester and then switched to a second suit that he wore everyday from then on. He always reminded me of Barney Fife.

There was a teacher who called me “Kathy Simpson” instead of Kristie Smithson and gave a test to determine the careers to which we would be best suited. Because I was naïve in the ways tests can be skewed, I answered that I wouldn’t mind working outdoors.  The test concluded that I was aptly qualified to pursue work as a deckhand on a ship. A life as a longshoreman was something I had not contemplated.  That teacher’s daughter went to the school and I instinctively felt sorry for her.

The teachers were part-time actors, a former professional football player, a Czech, a German, a Brit and a music teacher who was rumored to keep a bottle of Scotch in her desk. There was a nameless/faceless science teacher that made us de-frost fetal pigs in the girl’s bathroom before we could dissect them. My run of French teachers was made up of a grouchy old man with a thick Eastern European accent and a demeanor that made no attempt to hide his boredom, an interesting Eurpopean woman that made me wonder why she was there, and finally, a young woman with ties to Greece who spent a lot of time in French class informing us about the overthrow of King Constantine and the new socialist government.  At least she prepared me well for seeing the movie “Z’ with my aunt and uncle at a Westwood theater.

In my 12^th grade physiology class, a personal favorite, we were allowed the unusual privilege to do “take home” tests.  It was in this class that I learned, prompted by A.S.’s question, the meaning of the word “sodomy.”  Clearly A.S. was the teacher’s favorite, so much so that she would lend him her Volvo to drive two blocks to the Duncan Do-Nut store and bring back supplies.  Mrs. Sesma came to our 20th reunion. 

But I think the teacher that made the most impact on me was a young English teacher.  That’s another story.