Pictures and Art

I just found a photo I had intended to post when I blogged about Lakeshire. Here it is. (click to enlarge):


This was the day of my sister's Confirmation (it's a Catholic thing). Most churches don't do confirmations until around the age of 13 but Seven Holy Founders did them early - I'm guessing my sister was around 8.
There's something odd about my dad's facial expression - that's not how he usually smiled... He was probably amused by my mom's posing :-)
And isn't that furniture the coolest?? Quintessential 1950s...

I really wish I knew what became of that painting on the wall - it was one of my mom's... I know she got her paintings back after the divorce but some of them couldn't be found when she passed away...
That one always mesmerized me. You can see a storm brewing in the background and the wind is starting to blow. There's a lone sheet hanging from a clothesline at the top of the hill... It's a shame the photo isn't in color. Mom made very interesting use of yellows...

Next:

The following is one of the two "class pictures" I still have. The first was 2nd grade C-track at Seven Holy Founders - I posted it earlier. This is my 6th grade homeroom at Chatham Park Elementary - 1964/1965 (click to enlarge):

Note that this isn't the entire 6th grade. There were other homerooms - we had lunch, recess and PhysEd together... I may have been the only Catholic in the picture - most of "my kind" went to the local parochial schools. The rest of the class was split between Protestant and Jewish - so the holiday 'program' was a combined Christmas/Hanukkah thing...

Our teacher (top center) had moved to Philadelphia from Anchorage after the 9.2 earthquake earlier that year. She was in her kitchen fixing dinner when it hit. Her first impulse was to hold the cupboards closed so her dishes wouldn't fall out. Then she had the "What am I doing? My life is more important than my dishes" epiphany and ran out of the building :-)

BTW - One of the other homeroom teachers was a "model pretty" blue-eyed blond ... totally stunning. We had her for Social Studies. She was constantly berating me about my lack of effort and shoddy work... I was trying - I just found the assignments vague and confusing and thought if I asked for clarification she would think I was stupid. :-)

Back to the class picture. I've added some labels for commentary... I did not label the boy who used to "pull it out" and "play with it" during class. You'll just have to guess who that was:

A... That's me - a bit pudgy for the first (but not the last) time in my life...
B... Class clown - he repeated the 5th grade and got teased a lot.
C... Ruth - requires a bit of explanation (see below)
D... Susan? - one of the Safety Patrol kids I ate lunch with - probably the nicest, sweetest girl I've ever known - i..e. not my type :-)
E... There is no E - I'm apparently alphabet-impaired...
F... Pam - the most popular girl in school. Yes - that's a girl. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail... She was actually rather pretty - and aware of it...
G... Glenn - also a Safety Patrol member. My only friend :-)
H... I don't remember her name but she was the only girl the class I thought was really pretty - I guess her hair did have a little red in it... She was one of the popular kids - and she ignored me.

The red-haired girl I had the crush on was in a different homeroom so she's not in this picture.

Now... about Ruth:
She was painfully shy - mostly kept to herself...
I sucked at art... Ruth was quite good but hardly anybody noticed because she was so unassuming... So during art class I would occasionally wander over to admire her work and tell her how much I liked it. She rarely said anything but "Thanks."
My mom, sis and I left for Germany before the end of the school year and I got a letter from dad saying that my "girlfriend Ruth" had been calling for weeks asking where I was. She simply would not accept that I had moved away...
I remember thinking "Ruth? Who the heck is Ruth???" Then it hit me. It was a bit of a shock because she never hinted that she liked me... And that's part of the "tragic comedy" that is adolescence. Almost everyone is attracted to someone who's not attracted to them :-)

One more quick story:
One day during art class we had to draw a 'single panel' cartoon. Mine was a man encountering Frankenstein on the street saying "Hey. You look familiar! Have I seen you on TV?"
I thought it was absolutely hilarious. Nobody else thought it was the least bit funny...

You see - the guy didn't recognize Frankenstein ... yeah ... sooo ... ok ... never mind :-)