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.

Trigger For Sale

I watched Roy Rogers and Dale Evans a lot.  I’ll admit right now that I always thought Dale was a waste of time.

One Christmas, my parents gave my sister and me life like action figures.  I got Roy and my sister got Tonto. No Lone Ranger in sight. Nor much logic in the choice of toys.

 I got the plastic palomino, Trigger, the molded hat that fit onto Roy’s head and Roy’s thighs splayed in a giant U.  I think my sister felt gypped.

This week I heard that the taxidemied Trigger was up for sale.  Of course I knew that he’d been stuffed and was a star attraction in Apple Valley and then, later, in Branson, Missouri.  Roy and Dale are long gone. I think, Roy Jr. must have needed some money and so Trigger went on the market.

They said Trigger was estimated to go for somewhere between $100 and $200 thousand.  I will admit it here that there was a tiny iota of me that wanted to buy him.  How the hell a stuffed horse would fit in my living room and survive the UV rays of the Hawaiian sun, I don’t know.  Sometimes, you just want something that isn’t possible.  I didn’t share this dream with anyone, just tucked it away with my unrequited desire to get the Mattel belt buckle with a derringer that shot caps. 

Trigger went up—stuffed and mounted—for bid at a Christie’s auction.  The selling pricing was $266,500 to someone in Nebraska. I hope they appreciate him. Roy did. And I did.

He MIGHT have fit in the living room. 

A Town That Rhymes with Diarrhea

One summer, on my family’s annual trip to the Northwest, we drove through Arizona and Utah.  Zion and Bryce were on the itinerary.  But my father had a hidden, and more personal, agenda.  As he steered the Chevrolet station wagon off the highway and onto a bumpy, potholed dirt road he told us that we were headed to a ghost town; a town with a name that rhymed with diarrhea.  That was not how he put it, but that was the way that we took it.

Paria was an unsuccessful Mormon settlement alongside the trickle of the Paria River.  This trickle, and a plethora of diseases that came with it, was why the settlement never made a go of it. My great grandfather had been sent by the church elders to settle a town known today as San Bernardino, California.  This task done, he returned to Utah and was ordered to do the same in Paria. The plan didn’t work.

Bouncing around in the back of the seatbelt-less station wagon my sister and I were excited about the prospects of seeing a real ghost town. Years of Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Roy Rogers, The Virginian and Rawhide had whetted our appetite for this Western phenomenon.  Perhaps my father had billed this excursion with a little touch of flair. But we were not prepared for the stark and desolate place that we found.

After several miles on the dirt road, we came to small cemetery.  We got out of the car and my parents looked at the names on the tombstones.  My sister and I weren’t as comfortable wandering around on top of the dead and stayed behind the small, iron fence.

My great grandfather’s grave was there.  And the graves of several children with our last name. And their mothers. These were all members of my dad’s family.

The name “Paria” became a joke in our family for a place no one wanted to go.

Twenty-five years later, my Scottish husband and I were spending our summer driving around the west. We found ourselves on the same dirt road. On this visit, I discovered a new development:  a movie set Western town was built along the road. “The Outlaw Josie Wales” was filmed there.  Our Honda Civic navigated the potholes until I was once again at the little cemetery. We parked the car and forded the river; which was not particularly difficult.

 The remaining structures and the cemetery had more meaning on this visit. I wanted to show my husband where my ancestors had lived and died. 

Eleven years ago, my husband, son and I took a family vacation to Nevada, Arizona and Utah.  And, yes, this time in a four wheel drive rented SUV, we took the dirt road to Paria.  We took pictures of my great grandfather’s grave, forded the “river” and climbed on the vermillion cliffs.  I took a bolt from one of the buildings that had yet to succumb to the elements.

That night, we checked into a small 1950’s style motel in the mostly Mormon town of Panquitch, Utah.  Across the street was a small museum run by one of the faithful.  My son and I took a tour of the relics, the old butter churns and dishes and went back to our air-conditioned room to settle in for the evening. We turned on the TV and went through the program guide by the side of the bed. “The Outlaw Josie Wales” was on.  The three of us watched Clint Eastwood ride through Paria.

The 4th of July at Angus Street

My family always did something special on the 4^th.  We had friends or relatives around, we churned home-made ice cream, I made pickle and potato chip “sandwiches” and we had a very tame fireworks display.  All this was done in our back yard.

Before my mother met and married my father, she had been married to a man who died within one week of contracting polio.  He left her an insurance policy and she was smart enough to use it to buy a house.  3018 Angus Street.

When my father entered the scene, married and moved in, he took the back yard in under his able wing. I have no clue what it looked like before his arrival, but by the time my little memory was at work, it had three distinct levels.

The bottom tier was grass and raised flowerbeds with roses and agapanthus, and a small grapefruit tree.  In years to come it was transformed into “golf driving range”.  The next level was grass surrounded by flowerbeds, a concrete wishing well and a latticed love seat alcove. There was a plum tree with very scratchy bark and an apricot tree. When my father finally retired, he felt compelled to use every single piece of fruit from his land. We had apricot jam, plum jam, apricot “leather” until my mother could no longer stand coming home from work to a kitchen filled with sickly sweet smelling pots and pans.

Adjoining this lawn was a slate covered area with a built in bar-b–que, large redwood picnic table with benches and a bed of fuchsias.  In later years it would also be home to a wood rat that would appear during party dinners, much to the utter embarrassment of my mother.

The top level of the yard was where I spent most of my time.  It backed, for many years, onto an open lot. When the “open lot” was in the process of being built upon, my mother was horrified at the language of the workmen.  She complained to the boss.  I was enchanted by the forbidden words.

Along this upper level, my father made a small trail to a play area. At the opposite side was a large white peach tree.  The Babcock tree was later axed to make room for a playhouse constructed from our neighbor’s garage door. I have always thought of that tree. The play area changed over the years and saw a swing set swapped out for a ping-pong table.  And then, with my adolescence, the area fell into disuse.

But on the 4^th of July, the backyard always came to life. 

Sparklers were always a big hit.  And once we discovered that you could “spell” with them in the night air, their lure grew stronger.  Hearts, initials, circles lasted just that few seconds longer than they should, and made them magical. We were never a family for the high-flyer type fireworks.  We kept everything close to the ground, always wary of fires and lawsuits, I suppose.  Nothing ever went higher than a foot. This may explain why my favorite “firework” of all time is THE WORM. 

The Worm was a slate gray pellet the size of a thumbnail.  We would put them on the bricks that lined the lawn:  the same bricks that my father had carefully laid when he took over the back yard of Angus Street and made it into a three tiered oasis.  When a match was put next to the worm it would start to grow and an ashen “worm” would grow into a curling, snaking shape.  It left permanent marks on the brick that would be a reminder of 4^th of July for years to come.  I’ll bet they are still there.  

 

Thomas Starr King Junior High Here I Come

When it came time to “graduate” from Ivanhoe Elementary School, things quickly began to change.  The assembly celebrating our passing was made up of our class singing the Doris Day hit “High Hopes.”  I guess I should have taken that as a harbinger of things to come.

Thomas Starr King Junior High pulled from a much wider and diverse catchment area than Ivanhoe. Frankly, I was nervous to be starting this new adventure and very jealous of my friends who were twins who could face the new challenges together, and my friends who had older brothers and sisters who had gone before.  I felt a bit like an explorer without an expeditionary force.

I think it’s ironic that I spent three years at a school named for someone I had never heard of and never was educated about. 

At King, life changed.  No longer was it important to kick a home run at recess or beat someone at handball.  Calluses earned from doing turns on the rings counted for naught. New words quickly joined my vocabulary:  Vato, Saint Christopher medal, Pendleton shirts, rat comb and scrub. It was now important how you held your blue notebook binder.  Girls to their chests and boys down at their side.  If this was not done correctly, one’s sexuality might be in question.

Wearing socks with your shoes made you a dork, hair spray was a must and suddenly deodorant became important.  The smell of Rite Guard Spray permeated the girl’s locker room as if it were the finest French perfume.

A year earlier, I had made a plea to the gods of bodily functions to PLEASE DON’T LET ME GET MY PERIOD IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.  This prayer was answered, but the onset was made no easier by the horrible contraptions designed to deal with our “curse” and the hall monitors who patrolled the bathrooms during break and lunch.  “Recess” was a long gone bittersweet memory.

I think one of the things that junior high, and the entire educational system, teaches is that LIFE lets you get to the top--just every now and then (6th grade, 12^th grade for instance) and puts a most addicting and tiny taste of omnipotence onto your tongue. Then it pulls out the rug with a twisted twinkle of the eye and makes you start climbing the ladder all over again.

At King, we had to start at the bottom, and not with just our “Leave it To Beaver” Silverlakers.

 

When I first started to ask for a St. Christopher medal my very Protestant mother was a bit at a loss.  She was not to know that a shiny blue medal hanging from your neck made you a “Surfer” and not a “Vato.”  The Vatos were a group whose females wore their hair in huge beehives that had enough hairspray to support a skyscraper.  It was rumored that inside of those intricately backcombed styles were razor blades and cigarettes.

On my family summer travels we had passed through Pendleton, Oregon and I was well aware of the fame of its woolen blankets and shirts. At King, I was to learn that a Pendleton was also a badge that said you were a “surfer.”  Those pseudo tartans were worn by boys who cultivated long, blond—often bleached-- bangs hanging just over their eyes. A Pendleton and a St. Christopher medal was all it took to be a “surfer.”  Think Beachboys.