Thomas Starr King Jr. High: Bad Teachers Part One

I have had some memorable, fantastic, caring and inspiring teachers.  And then there was Mr. N. 

Mr. N was very short and his lack of height was exacerbated by the size of his head.  He looked like a bobble doll that rode on a dashboard of a GTO. He lacked any teaching skills whatsoever.

I had the unfortunate luck to have Mr. N for both an English and a history class in two different semesters.  He made no bones about the fact he just didn’t like us.  He was humorless, uninspired, and uninspiring.  And he wasn’t even retirement age.

It was in his class that I perfected my “married woman” signatures; writing “Mrs. Steve Stone”, “Mrs. Kristie Stone” over and over.  It was also in his class that I selected my children’s names: twin boys would be named Kirk and Kyle….or maybe Keir.  Keir Dullea had just made “David and Lisa” and seemed very exotic.  Oddly, I never selected a daughter’s name. Prophetic perhaps.  And thirty years later I named our son Keir.

In his English class Mr. N would write a weekly list of vocabulary words on the side blackboard.  The only one that I remember was “buxom.”  He droned on about Greek gods and goddesses while I stared out at the gym field wishing I could be out in the smog playing softball. 

Once, our 8^th grade class got together and agreed that everyone would shove their books off their desks at an appointed hour.  Deliciously anticipating this prank, we pretended to be interested in whatever it was Mr. N was saying.  When the time came, we slammed our books to the linoleum in unison.  He was not amused.   He just stood there rubbing his giant forehead.  The only words I can ever remember him saying—while he rubbed the dolphin-esque brow were “Take your seat.”

In his history class, from which I remember absolutely nothing except my grade, things were no better.  I missed two weeks of it because of very bad case of poison oak and got a D.  Yep, a D in 8^th grade social studies.  And now I teach it. Granted, I got the grade up to a B by the end of the semester, but it was my first experience of having a grade on the “dark side.”

I hope Mr. N left teaching and got into something he liked. He did go on a bit about martial arts. Maybe he found solace somewhere in that field.

The Gold Chair

In the 1950’s, before my mother and father re-decorated our house, we had a wing chair that sat in the living room next to the fireplace.  It was covered in a gold fabric that was embossed with a pattern.  This became known as “The Gold Chair.”

When I was feeling odd or icky—that feeling where your stomach churns and you just KNOW that things aren’t right with the world—my mother would take me to The Gold Chair.  I would sit in her lap and she would try to make me feel better.

One of these occasions was shortly before she and my father were to go off on a romantic weekend together—obviously, without me.  Even at that young age, I appreciated that my parents needed time to be together and I secretly admired their marriage for that. My mother’s mantra was “your father was here before you were.” BUT, I never relished being left behind for a weekend with one of my mother’s unmarried friends.

That day my mother held me on her lap in The Gold Chair and told me that she was putting a special green vest on me.  It would stay on me while she was gone and I was to think about the green vest whenever I felt sad or lonely. It kind of worked.

As a music teacher in the Burbank School District, my mother collected unmarried women friends like some women collect shoes.   With only one exception, I think all of her female friends were without spouse or children.  In some ways, that gave them an advantage over her.  They had a lot more time and freedom to do whatever it was that they did.  On the other hand, my mother had the advantage of my father.  And that was quite an advantage.

On those getaway weekends, one of unmarried would come to tend my sister and me. And life wouldn’t return to normalcy until my parents walked through the door late Sunday afternoon.  The food wouldn’t be right, bedtimes would be odd and everything was akimbo.

The worst time was when we were left during the school week.  I think this was after my mother retired so she could spend more time with my father who was fifteen years her elder. They must have gone on a business trip together. My sister and I were in high school.  The Gold Chair was long gone. I was far too big to sit in my mother’s lap. And the little green vest story wasn’t cutting it anymore.

The unmarried lady was adamant that we didn’t need to set the morning alarm because she “got up at the same time each day. “That theory works if you are in your own bed, subliminally listening to your own neighborhood’s predictable morning noises and awakening to your own day.  This woman was not doing any of these things. 

Being tardy to school was something we just didn’t do. Had never done. Nor was having a burnt breakfast that suffered from having been broiled rather than baked. 

Wild Things

This has nothing to do with Maurice Sendak or misbehaving.  This is about all the stuff that we ate while walking to and from Ivanhoe Elementary School. Not the stuff we bought at Mike’s little store, but the stuff we culled from the neighborhood.

First, there was the lemon tree.  I now know that it was a Meyer lemon.  We would pick a fruit, peel it and sprinkle the remains of the small Morton’s salt container on it.  Our teeth would lose whatever they lose when you eat pure acid, and our salivary glands would kick into high gear.  The lemons weren’t like the ones my mother bought at Hub Mart. They had a distinctive flavor that was not as sour.

Then there was the wild weed—usually growing in an empty lot that today would be worth at least half a million dollars—that we called the licorice plant.  We’d shake the head and dislodge the seeds and chew them. I now know that it was wild anise.  The last time I tasted it in seed form was at an Indian place that gave a seed mixture as an after dinner palate cleanser.

We also ate the stems of the little purple flowers that grew all over.  They were sour and tart and it is no surprise that my generation grew up with a candy called SWEET TARTS.  Wild sorrel.  I think this may have been a subversive move on the part of dentists who would later advise products to strengthen one’s enamel.

There was also the pomegranate tree that we eyed enviously but waited until Halloween night when it’s owner would bestow us with a fruit or two in lieu of candy.

And lastly, was the magical little drinking fountain on Panorama Drive.  Why it was there, I have no idea.  But I always loved drinking the cold water and wondering about who put it there.

Easter

My grandfather was a minister and a quite prominent one at that.  If you google his name—Cleveland Kleihauer—you’ll see that he is credited with (cough) being a mentor to Ronald Reagan.

So at our house, Easter meant several things.  Both my sister and I expected, and awaited, the arrival of the Easter Bunny and the cellophane wrapped baskets that would be sitting at the ends of our matching twin beds when we awoke on Easter Sunday. Somehow, though, this was nothing like the thrill of Christmas morning. No explanations as to the entire oddity of Jesus dying, bunnies, crucifixion, chocolate and Jesus returning were ever mentioned. But, in return for the Easter Bunny gifts, we were put into the scratchiest, stiff, pastel colored dresses that we’d ever worn.  And, almost worse, were the little hats we had to wear.

At Hollywood Beverly Christian Church we were THE GRANDCHILDREN.

Our church didn’t DO Lent, Ash Wednesday or Shrove Tuesday.  Just Sunday. Women would pinch our cheeks, comment on our dresses and suck up to our mother. My sister and I stood stiffly in white socks and, sometimes white gloves, and smiled. Once home, we were free to explore the chocolate—after my father did the family photographs in the back yard where I could still see the stains from the Fourth of July worms on the bricks.

My mother would switch out of her “church clothes” and begin dinner. Our father would hang up his tie.  My sister and I would eat candy free from the crinoline.

I’m sure this must not have been a good day for my mother. I’ve never liked it, in spite of the candy.  But, I’d rather eat potato chips anyway.

I really don’t like this holiday.

School Lunches

At Ivanhoe Elementary School everyone brought lunch from home. We did not have a cafeteria. Your lunch and what it contained and how it was transported were matters of great importance.

I vacillated between the generic brown bags and the metal lunch box that included a Thermos. The lunch boxes ranged from The Lone Ranger to Barbie to Superman.  It was important to have the right celebrity for each year.  No one wanted to be carrying a Davy Crockett one when they were in the sixth grade. I can still remember the smell of sour milk that could never quite be removed from those Thermoses.

My gastronomic fare in those days ran a fairly routine gamut, but one of my favorite lunch additions was a wax paper bag of cherry tomatoes with a miniature Morton salt container.  I loved those shakers because I always wondered about the little girl with the umbrella on the label and, more so, because I loved pouring the salt into my hand and just eating it.  My mother, who seemingly was unaware of how much salt those baby shakers held would have been appalled.  One container probably equaled the recommended sodium intake for five heavily sweating long distance runners.

For some reason, the PB and J phenomenon was not part of my upbringing. If we had peanut butter sandwiches that was what they were. Peanut butter. With lettuce.  Rarely was there jelly or jam.  The bread was always whole wheat.  Tuna sandwiches were a mainstay, as well as left over chicken, roast lamb or turkey. Sometimes we’d get cold meatloaf sandwiches with yellow mustard.  Those were a favorite.

One day our neighbor from across the street brought over some fresh venison that he’d shot.  My parents informed us, as they served it up for dinner, that we were eating deer. They both seemed quite excited about having this rare treat. BAMBI was the first film I had ever seen and the prospect of eating her did not sit well.  The next day in my school lunch was a sandwich that had dubiously dark meat.   Racked with quilt about all the starving children in China, I chucked it into the garbage bin. My mother later told me that the sandwich was turkey.

As I reached the fifth grade a new invention began to grace our lunches.  Kraft Cheese “N Crackers.  I always felt like a bit of a big shot when I’d pull one out, tear back the plastic and watch the other kids look enviously while I spread the plasticy orange substance onto the crackers.

Every now and then, the PTA mom’s would have “hot dog day” and we could buy a dog and potato chips for 25 cents. The entire school would smell of boiling Oscar Meyer franks. I quickly learned not to call them “weenies” as we did at home.

Going off to junior high school was a frightening experience, especially since I was the family pioneer.  My fears were slightly offset by the fact that Thomas Starr Jr. High had a real cafeteria where students could make their own food selections.

The cafeteria was manned by the ubiquitous lunch ladies in hairnets who stood behind glass and over steaming trays of the day’s entrée.  My favorite was shepherd’s pie. Sometimes I would just buy a couple of bowls of canned spinach.  The Jell-O was topped with spray whipped cream that seduced me into the occasional purchase. Fruit cocktail was another staple of the dessert section. It was in the cafeteria that I discovered roast beef could contain gristle and something that looked like little tubes of vein. These never, ever, showed up when my mother made a roast for Sunday dinner.

By the time I moved on to John Marshall High, a cafeteria didn’t hold the same allure. It was a noisy room with a long line at lunch and would be transformed into a table less floor space for evening dances. I cannot remember one meal that I ate there.  I do remember the big, doughy cinnamon rolls that were sold for “nutrition” break.  There was a little campus store that sold school supplies; pencils, folders, paper and Luden’s Cherry Cough Drops.  I could down a box in one class period with no cough symptoms to be had.

Confessions from the Closet

I have a confession to make.  I have kept something in the closet for quite a while and I am ready to let it out.  I have always wanted to be a cowboy.

 

CowGIRL never quite cut the mustard.  Fringed skirts and white holsters were not my to my liking.  I wanted the real thing.  As a child I was satisfied with a couple of hours with Roy Rogers.  But no one, meaning me, ever wanted to be Dale Evans. Many years later, after Roy was long gone and Trigger was stuffed in a museum, she became an evangelist and I felt vindicated.

I wanted the smell of leather, horseshit and gunpowder.  I wanted to hear the creak of the saddle, the taste of dust in my mouth and the vista of Monument Valley. My fingers ached for the reins and the saddle horn. But I was in Silverlake.

 I’d never get a pony, a horse or even an old nag.  My best hope was one of those life-sized plastic horses that stood outside of camping stores. I knew nothing of guns, but, to me, the smell of caps exploding was like a connoisseur wafting the finest brandy in front of his nose.

When I was 15 and spending the summer in Mesa, Arizona with relatives while my parents went to Europe, I bought my first pair of cowboy boots. I think at J.C.Penney’s.  I kept those boots for years and actually rode a few horses wearing them—albeit in Griffith Park..

 As for the de rigueur belt with the large silver buckle, I was set.  When I was in the sixth grade my father went on a business trip. Where or why, I do not know.  But when he returned, he brought me a tooled leather belt with a large “silver” buckle with boots on it.  I remember it was size 28.  That meant I could use it until I was in my mid twenties.

So with the boots and the belt—holsters were no longer a viable possibility—I had half the kit.

Hats ran the gamut from the red ones with the white stitching around the sides—which—even as I child I disliked for their inauthenticity--to the stiff pressed felt of the “real” thing. One summer when I was in college, my mother sent me a Fourth of July gift.  Besides the See’s suckers in a firecracker, there was a check.  I used that money to buy a cowboy hat.

To be continued.

Winter Sports a la Silverlake

Growing up in Silverlake, within view of the Hollywood sign, did not offer a lot of winter sport experience.  I think the coldest it ever got was around 40 degrees and the big thrill was being able to see your breath….but not smell it.

There WAS the one time that it hailed and I ran down to the garage to find a pair of wooden skis that my father must have used in Alaska before he met my mother.  By the time I ran back up to the ice covered lawn and put on the ill-fitting skis, my “powder snow” looked like a melting lemonade slushy.  So it was on Saturday afternoons spent watching ABC’s WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS that I became an aficionado of ski racing. 

At that time in the sport, the French were dominant.  This coincided with my French 3 class taught by a very cranky Czech with a thick accent that resembled nothing one would hear in Paris.  He kept a stack of Paris Match magazines on a table conveniently located behind my desk.  Mr. L. was obviously bored stiff and teaching until his Social Security would kick in.  Kids cheated like mad, passed notes and had appalling pronunciations. He didn’t seem to care.  I spent the time in class “reading” Match.  I was proficient enough to get the gist of the captions.

The oversized magazines were filled with stories and large glossy pictures of Jean Claude Killy, who was movie star handsome.  And with whom I was madly in love.  There were also articles about sister racers Marielle and Christine Goitschel. Between WIDE WORLD OF SPORTSS and the Match magazines, I became quite the expert on the French ski team.  I could pronounce their names with nasal accuracy, knew who was fastest, and learned about ski wax.  Of course, some of this valuable knowledge was gained while ignoring the drone of Mr. L’s Czech accent trying to get verb conjugations into our adolescent brains. I paid the price. 

I don’t want to sound like a goody goody, but I was one of the few who didn’t cheat in the class.  Trust me, Mr. L was either ignorant or apathetic to notes written on hands, papers and desks.  Cheating wasn’t a challenge and it just wasn’t for me.  I preferred my covert sessions with the Match magazines.  That Mr. L even noticed that I reading these rather than listening to his diabolically boring lessons on how to say what we had eaten for breakfast, is something I greatly doubt.  He didn’t want to be in the class any more than any of us did.

In later years, when I had a slightly wider view of the world, I thought of Mr. L and wondered if he had fled the Nazis or survived war horrors that were beyond our 9^th grade ken. He may have experienced a hell that none of us baby boomers would ever be able to comprehend. For this, his reward was teaching a bunch of kids who thought he was a boring old fool. 

I got a D in French 3, had to go to summer school, but still remember with fondness those wonderful foreign magazines that took me to a different place.

The last time I was in Paris, on three different occasions, I was stopped by a French person asking me for directions.  I was able to help---in hopefully non Czech-accented French.