Karina's Senior Year

My sister Karina's senior year in high school set the course for the rest of her life... And this post explains what that means...

In late 1967 Karina started getting more involved with the local music scene. Mom bought her a Yamaha A-3 combo organ (on credit, of course) and she started playing keyboard and singing with some local bands... She also started hooking up with her fellow band members, which invariably led to conflicts :-) Yeah - any inhibitions she may have had when she was younger had more or less disappeared by then.

She was also quite involved with activities at school. She was the class vice president, the editor of the school paper and the chairman of the yearbook committee.
Then in April of 1968 she requested permission to publish an article on birth control in the school paper... Yeah - we're talking about birth control at Sacred Heart High - an all girl's private Catholic school - during the 1960s... Although the proposed subject matter was both relevant and timely it did not go over very well with the nuns...
The article was quashed so Karina walked out the door and never looked back... Yes... She dropped out of high school two months shy of graduation over censorship. It was just one of many times in her life when she managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory...

And she landed on her feet. Mom was still working at the theater chain and learned of an opening in the advertising department of one of the top radio stations in Winnipeg - I think it was CKY. Given her brilliant writing skills and limitless creativity Karina got the job despite having just dropped out of high school.
She was amazingly good at it. Within 2 months she was handling 30 accounts - doing all the copy and producing the ads. She even did some of her own voice work. The one that sticks in my mind features her saying "Mommy!! ... Billy broke my glasses!!!" in a little girl's voice :-)

As one might expect, she had issues with some of her clients. I remember when she brought home a tape with two versions of an ad for an upcoming Herb Alpert concert. The first version was hers - mellow and laid back - the sort of thing that would actually appeal to people who like Herb Alpert... The second one was the "hard sell" version the client insisted on - it sounded like an ad for a monster truck race - it was horrid. And you can guess which one the client chose... Karina was seriously unhappy about it :-)

By August of 1968 she had become the station's top copywriter... And one day she wandered in at about 10AM, barefoot and eating a popsicle... One of the managers muttered something about being more "professional" so she walked out the door and never looked back...

That was one of the many things I could never figure out about Karina. Once she proved to herself that she was capable of doing something she could quit with no qualms... Once the finish line was in sight she would invariably turn away without actually crossing it... It drove me nuts :-)

I should also mention that she had gotten engaged to a young English professor at the University of Winnipeg by then. It was a strange relationship... Yeah - there were two kinds of men that Karina could absolutely not stand. Men who would challenge her - and men who would not challenge her... (You see the problem, right?) ... The professor fell into the latter category - Karina totally intimidated and dominated him... I honestly don't know why he put up with the abuse - add another moth to the flame I guess...

Karina's desire to escape that relationship was one of the factors that led us to move back to the states on August 31st of 1968... Hey - what better way to break off a relationship than to leave the country, right? Yeah - I guess everybody wanted to bail on Winnipeg but me :-)

And the rest of that story is yet to come...