In the summer of 1970 I spotted a "help wanted" sign at the Humble (aka Enco) gas station on the southwest corner of West Front and South Bonner in Tyler, Texas. (As of this writing the building is still there but it is now home to Paco's Tire Shop.)
The old fart that owned the station offered me $1 per hour. That was well below the $1.75 minimum wage but it was was "part time" so it was exempt - at least that's what he told me :-) There weren't many opportunities for guys with longish hair in Tyler at the time so I accepted... The deal was that he was supposed to call me when he needed extra help - but that turned out to be every day :-) Yeah - it was effectively full time.
Aside: There were always job openings at the local tire plant. They started you out at $5 per hour (that's around $25 adjusted for inflation) but you had to spend 10 hours a day in a fireproof suit pouring molten rubber out of a cauldron. Guys who had worked there told me the heat was beyond imagination - pure torture. After a couple of years they would let you switch to an easier job but very few people ever lasted that long... So I never applied :-)
The old fart that owned the gas station was quite the tightwad. His only other employee was a middle aged black man with a drinking problem who was the station's mechanic but also helped at the pumps when it got busy... I was amazed that he ever got any mechanical work done what with the constant interruptions... (BTW: I really enjoyed hanging out with him when the owner wasn't around. I don't remember what all we talked about but we had a good time.)
The station was one of the more expensive ones in the area - I think regular was around 22 cents a gallon - but the big selling point was service. If you bought more than 10 gallons we would check the oil, clean the windshield and vacuum the carpets. (There's a story about that later.) That made things really hectic when the station was busy.
BTW: You would be stunned at how many people "accidentally" honk the horn while an attendant is checking the oil. After whacking my head on the hood 2 or 3 times I learned to not flinch so much :-)
OK - this is kind of funny: I only ever pretended to check the oil... The station owner had demonstrated the process of pulling out the dipstick, wiping it off and rechecking it but he didn't explain what the markings meant. I guess he figured it was self-explanatory - and it sort of was - but I wasn't 100% sure and wouldn't ask for confirmation for fear of appearing stupid... So I would just look at the dipstick and say it was fine... My rationale was that the motorist would eventually stop at another station where the attendant knew what he was doing :-)
Now - here's the "vacuuming the front carpets" story. And yes - there was a girl involved:
Most of the customers would step out of the car while you vacuumed the driver side floorboard but some didn't. When women stayed in the car they would usually swing both their legs over to the passenger side... But one day as I was preparing to vacuum the floorboard this lovely young blond in a mini-skirt just spread her knees to either side of the steering wheel and pulled her feet back against the seat... I stopped dead in my tracks (for obvious reasons) and asked her if she wouldn't rather get out of the car. She was clearly amused by my hesitance and assured me it was OK to proceed.
The cleaning attachment was hooked directly to the vacuum hose (no wand) so you had to pretty much get up under the dash to do the job and I went through some incredible contortions to avoid touching her legs. To make matters worse, the carpet was a serious mess - especially around the gas pedal... I spent what seemed like an eternity with my head between her knees repeating "Don't look!!!" to myself over and over... (I didn't look, BTW.)
You know - the main reason I remember the incident so clearly is that I was incredibly shy at the time and having my face so close to ... well - you know ... was something I was not mentally prepared for. I was literally trembling afterwards... I never could understand why so many women in the south enjoyed teasing guys that way. I can only imagine how amused she would have been if she'd known I would still remember it 40 years later :-)
Now - your probably wondering why I quit the job after 3 weeks. That's kind of hard to explain but I'll do my best:
I routinely rang up all my cash and credit card transactions but the owner handled the personal checks because he had a rather baroque system for totaling them in the cash register. He showed me once but apparently didn't expect me to "get it" because - like I said - he always handled them himself...
So one day he left me alone at the station for a few hours and while he was gone I took in something like 5 checks. I understood his system perfectly well so I just went ahead and rang them up and stuck them under the change tray...
When he got back he found the checks and started to ring them up again. I was about to tell him that I had already taken care of it when it occurred to me that he might be upset that I had done it without his explicit permission... And after I hesitated I couldn't say anything because then he'd be mad that I didn't tell him right away... By the time he finished ringing them all up I realized that I was completely screwed because at end the of the day (after I left) the totals would be off and he would eventually figure out that I sat there watching him ring up those checks without saying a word knowing full well I had already done it. (And what kind of freaking idiot does that???)
So I spent the rest of the day mulling over my options and decided that there were only two: Tell him before I left and deal with the consequences, or say nothing and never go back.
So I quit :-)
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Summertime Blues
In lot of ways the summer after I graduated from John Tyler High in 1970 was like all the prior summers. But there was one significant difference. The question "What now?" no longer had a clear answer...
In the past it had always been "Have some fun then go back to school in the fall"... But now I needed to get on with my life and I had no idea what that meant... I had no intentions of ever going to college... The school system had left me in a state where holding down a job seemed impossible... My primary career goal was to become a rock star - but then I saw Bugs Henderson play...
Now- most of you are probably going "Who the heck is Bugs Henderson?" And that's exactly the point. That little "podunk" town in the middle of nowhere was home to the greatest rock guitarist I had ever seen... His blistering solos literally made the hair stand up on the back of my neck... I instantly knew that no matter how hard I practiced I would never be that good.
And there he was - struggling to survive despite the fact that he'd had a song on the Billboard charts four years earlier... It was something of a shock to realize that fame and fortune had so little to do with merit. I mean - I'd always suspected as much but listening to Bugs really drove it home.
BTW: As it turns out I was a pretty good judge of talent. Bugs Henderson is widely regarded among guitar cognoscenti as the greatest "unknown" of our time. Guitar Player Magazine said he should be declared a national treasure... But all of that came much later :-)
And a brief digression:
Starting with The Monkees and The Archies - on through Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys - all the way through Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, the music industry has been on a downhill slide ever since they discovered that they can get away with "manufacturing" pop idols... I suspect they have to do that because they wouldn't know real talent if it bit them in the balls... Yes - those ass-clowns at the major labels have managed to take one of mankind's greatest endeavors and turn it into a giant crap-fest... And the worst part is that the music buying public has rewarded them for it... Sigh... End of digression.
Yes - I graduated from high school fat, dumb and unhappy... Luckily, Karina (the master of all eating disorders) did manage to remedy the fat part by putting me on a diet that consisted of a small TV dinner for lunch and a dry hamburger patty for dinner... It was probably a bit on the unhealthy side but I lost 60 lbs in 2 months... I did eventually gain it all back (and then some) but at least I got to live life as a skinny person for a couple of more years :-)
So yeah - that summer was bittersweet. The days were hot and the nights were - well - hot. Wayne and I would head out in his 65 Mustang with the windows down and no particular place to go - our hair blowing in the warm, humid night air. Every once on a while we'd catch the scent of magnolia, honeysuckle or lilac... It was one of those experiences that left an indelible mark. For those few moments life was "real".
Yes - the smell of honeysuckle triggers a lot of fond memories. In Lakeshire (outside of St. Louis) my bedroom window was surrounded by honeysuckle... That aroma put me to sleep on those warm summer nights.
And as fate would have it my room on Chilton Street in Tyler had honeysuckle almost covering one of the windows. If not for that I probably wouldn't have gotten much sleep that summer :-)
In the past it had always been "Have some fun then go back to school in the fall"... But now I needed to get on with my life and I had no idea what that meant... I had no intentions of ever going to college... The school system had left me in a state where holding down a job seemed impossible... My primary career goal was to become a rock star - but then I saw Bugs Henderson play...
Now- most of you are probably going "Who the heck is Bugs Henderson?" And that's exactly the point. That little "podunk" town in the middle of nowhere was home to the greatest rock guitarist I had ever seen... His blistering solos literally made the hair stand up on the back of my neck... I instantly knew that no matter how hard I practiced I would never be that good.
And there he was - struggling to survive despite the fact that he'd had a song on the Billboard charts four years earlier... It was something of a shock to realize that fame and fortune had so little to do with merit. I mean - I'd always suspected as much but listening to Bugs really drove it home.
BTW: As it turns out I was a pretty good judge of talent. Bugs Henderson is widely regarded among guitar cognoscenti as the greatest "unknown" of our time. Guitar Player Magazine said he should be declared a national treasure... But all of that came much later :-)
And a brief digression:
Starting with The Monkees and The Archies - on through Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys - all the way through Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, the music industry has been on a downhill slide ever since they discovered that they can get away with "manufacturing" pop idols... I suspect they have to do that because they wouldn't know real talent if it bit them in the balls... Yes - those ass-clowns at the major labels have managed to take one of mankind's greatest endeavors and turn it into a giant crap-fest... And the worst part is that the music buying public has rewarded them for it... Sigh... End of digression.
Yes - I graduated from high school fat, dumb and unhappy... Luckily, Karina (the master of all eating disorders) did manage to remedy the fat part by putting me on a diet that consisted of a small TV dinner for lunch and a dry hamburger patty for dinner... It was probably a bit on the unhealthy side but I lost 60 lbs in 2 months... I did eventually gain it all back (and then some) but at least I got to live life as a skinny person for a couple of more years :-)
So yeah - that summer was bittersweet. The days were hot and the nights were - well - hot. Wayne and I would head out in his 65 Mustang with the windows down and no particular place to go - our hair blowing in the warm, humid night air. Every once on a while we'd catch the scent of magnolia, honeysuckle or lilac... It was one of those experiences that left an indelible mark. For those few moments life was "real".
Yes - the smell of honeysuckle triggers a lot of fond memories. In Lakeshire (outside of St. Louis) my bedroom window was surrounded by honeysuckle... That aroma put me to sleep on those warm summer nights.
And as fate would have it my room on Chilton Street in Tyler had honeysuckle almost covering one of the windows. If not for that I probably wouldn't have gotten much sleep that summer :-)
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
The Followers
Sometime after we moved to the rental house on Chilton Street in Tyler Texas in the spring of 1970 we ran across a group of folks who were followers of one of the many Indian gurus who came to the U.S. in the late 1960s.
The group had started out on the east coast and some of them were sent to Tyler to establish a new base of operations... I no longer recall why they picked Tyler, but the "advance guard" bought some acreage north of town with the intent of setting up a commune and in the meanwhile they bought a large old house to restore a couple of blocks from where we lived. (I think it was the N.E. corner of Dobbs and Chilton).
The Tyler contingent was led by a couple in their late 30s. I recall that the husband was a hairstylist and the woman was extremely overbearing... Living with them were a chimpanzee (always in a small cage - seemed cruel to me but apparently it was "enlightened" so it was OK) and 3 young military vets who met while playing in the Navy matching band in Charleston (I think): Denny was of Italian heritage and played tenor sax. Al had red hair and a beard and played trumpet. And Bernie was a brilliant jazz guitarist from outside of Nashville. He had spent most of his Navy career playing at the Officer's Club in Guantanamo Bay but finished his enlistment playing bass drum in the marching band.
I seem to recall that it was Denny who had first become a devotee of the guru (whose name I no longer recall) and had convinced the other two to join the group. When their enlistments were up they all (apparently) had nothing better to do than become full time disciples.
Denny was one of those "blissed out" types. Everything was always beautiful... He later moved to Dallas with his girlfriend Judy when she was attending SMU. Bernie, Karina and I visited them in Dallas once and they were acting all happy but there was something clearly not OK... I ran into Judy at North Texas State a couple of years later and asked her what had happened. She said she got tired of pretending everything was beautiful when it wasn't...
Aside: Judy was an interesting character. Her father was 70 years old when she was born (passed away when she was little) and her mother was in her late 40s. As a result Judy was quite old fashioned. She had absolutely no clue about "modern" culture - it was kind of sweet.
She was always talking about what an amazing cook her mother was and one day she invited a bunch of us went over there for lunch. It was meat, corn and mashed potatoes with almost no seasoning - the most bland and ordinary meal I've ever eaten. And all the while Judy was raving about how incredible it was. We had a good laugh afterwards :-)
Yeah - I should probably admit I did have a bit of a crush on her - long strawberry blond hair and blue eyes... Quite cute.
Al and I used to play tennis at Bergfeld Park on a regular basis. It was (is) a really nice park. It even has a little amphitheater. That was the first place I saw the band "Gladstone" play. (Their 1972 song "Piece of Paper" made it to #45 on the Billboard 100.) But I digress.
Al was one of those people who had all the answers to everything and shared them freely. Always giving advice about everything... I actually did appreciate it. I was somewhat lost after I graduated from high school and his positive affirmations did help quite a bit :-)
Then there was Bernie. He will probably be mentioned quite a bit in future posts. He was my brother-in-law for a few weeks in 1971 :-) A couple of years later he came to Oregon with us and for the past 30+ years has owned a music store called Bernie's Guitar Shop in Redding California. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Aside: I recall this one time when the 3 former Navy musicians got hold of some Kazoos and were playing Sousa marches on them... It was really quite amazing :-)
I guess I'll close with favorite story about the group:
They had a number of mantras that they were constantly repeating and one of them was "If someone steals something from you it wasn't really yours to begin with".
So one day Karina and I went over there to hang out and the woman in charge was quite upset because they had been on their way to Dallas the previous day when their VW van broke down. They blessed it and hitched a ride to the next exit to get a tow truck but when they got back the van had been stripped...
At that point Karina interjected with "Well, I guess it wasn't really yours then, was it?". I couldn't help but laugh. Watching someone get "smacked in the face" with their own hypocrisy can be quite amusing :-)
The group had started out on the east coast and some of them were sent to Tyler to establish a new base of operations... I no longer recall why they picked Tyler, but the "advance guard" bought some acreage north of town with the intent of setting up a commune and in the meanwhile they bought a large old house to restore a couple of blocks from where we lived. (I think it was the N.E. corner of Dobbs and Chilton).
The Tyler contingent was led by a couple in their late 30s. I recall that the husband was a hairstylist and the woman was extremely overbearing... Living with them were a chimpanzee (always in a small cage - seemed cruel to me but apparently it was "enlightened" so it was OK) and 3 young military vets who met while playing in the Navy matching band in Charleston (I think): Denny was of Italian heritage and played tenor sax. Al had red hair and a beard and played trumpet. And Bernie was a brilliant jazz guitarist from outside of Nashville. He had spent most of his Navy career playing at the Officer's Club in Guantanamo Bay but finished his enlistment playing bass drum in the marching band.
I seem to recall that it was Denny who had first become a devotee of the guru (whose name I no longer recall) and had convinced the other two to join the group. When their enlistments were up they all (apparently) had nothing better to do than become full time disciples.
Denny was one of those "blissed out" types. Everything was always beautiful... He later moved to Dallas with his girlfriend Judy when she was attending SMU. Bernie, Karina and I visited them in Dallas once and they were acting all happy but there was something clearly not OK... I ran into Judy at North Texas State a couple of years later and asked her what had happened. She said she got tired of pretending everything was beautiful when it wasn't...
Aside: Judy was an interesting character. Her father was 70 years old when she was born (passed away when she was little) and her mother was in her late 40s. As a result Judy was quite old fashioned. She had absolutely no clue about "modern" culture - it was kind of sweet.
She was always talking about what an amazing cook her mother was and one day she invited a bunch of us went over there for lunch. It was meat, corn and mashed potatoes with almost no seasoning - the most bland and ordinary meal I've ever eaten. And all the while Judy was raving about how incredible it was. We had a good laugh afterwards :-)
Yeah - I should probably admit I did have a bit of a crush on her - long strawberry blond hair and blue eyes... Quite cute.
Al and I used to play tennis at Bergfeld Park on a regular basis. It was (is) a really nice park. It even has a little amphitheater. That was the first place I saw the band "Gladstone" play. (Their 1972 song "Piece of Paper" made it to #45 on the Billboard 100.) But I digress.
Al was one of those people who had all the answers to everything and shared them freely. Always giving advice about everything... I actually did appreciate it. I was somewhat lost after I graduated from high school and his positive affirmations did help quite a bit :-)
Then there was Bernie. He will probably be mentioned quite a bit in future posts. He was my brother-in-law for a few weeks in 1971 :-) A couple of years later he came to Oregon with us and for the past 30+ years has owned a music store called Bernie's Guitar Shop in Redding California. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Aside: I recall this one time when the 3 former Navy musicians got hold of some Kazoos and were playing Sousa marches on them... It was really quite amazing :-)
I guess I'll close with favorite story about the group:
They had a number of mantras that they were constantly repeating and one of them was "If someone steals something from you it wasn't really yours to begin with".
So one day Karina and I went over there to hang out and the woman in charge was quite upset because they had been on their way to Dallas the previous day when their VW van broke down. They blessed it and hitched a ride to the next exit to get a tow truck but when they got back the van had been stripped...
At that point Karina interjected with "Well, I guess it wasn't really yours then, was it?". I couldn't help but laugh. Watching someone get "smacked in the face" with their own hypocrisy can be quite amusing :-)
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Guns and Stuff
Another common pastime in Tyler Texas back in 1970 was heading out into the woods with some guns and shooting at stuff.
Now -I've never owned a gun - or ever had the urge to kill anything (well - except for the occasional redneck)... As a matter of fact, I've often said that if society collapsed and we had to hunt for food I'd be the first one to starve to death :-) But I was usually bored enough that when any of Karina's boyfriends got the urge to ventilate some beer cans I didn't mind tagging along.
It was kind of funny - the gun owners would typically give me a lecture on safety and then proceed to ignore everything they just told me. This one guy (Hans) nicked the heel of my shoe with an "inadvertent discharge" when I was walking in front of him one day. He said "Ooops" and I refused to walk in front of him when he was holding a gun ever again :-)
I almost got even though: Hans had just bought a new semi-automatic rifle with a shell deflector and we headed out to a back road to try it out... Now - in those days I used to shoot left-handed because I had not yet realized that I was right eye dominant. I didn't figure that out until my son was in Boy Scouts and I discovered I was actually a pretty good shot when sighting with my good eye. But that's not the point... The point is that because of my left-handed stance the ejected shells were being directed toward my right foot, which would not have been a problem except I wasn't wearing socks and one of the shells dropped into my shoe... Yeah - freshly ejected rifle shells are rather "toasty" and when the burning sensation hit me I screamed and swung the rifle to my left (with my finger still on the trigger). Hans had been standing there but when he saw the muzzle of the rifle coming his direction he screamed and bailed into the ditch next to the road... Luckily, the gun didn't discharge - but I got to say "Ooops"...
That was just one of many "questionable" incidents:
One time we were on the bank of a small lake shooting at some fish. After a while we became aware that the fishermen in a boat about 1/8 of a mile out were screaming at us. Apparently we'd been skipping the occasional shot off the surface of the water and the bullets had been zinging past them... No harm no foul, I guess :-)
Then another time Hans was playing "secret agent" with a revolver and had his free hand on the cylinder while squeezing off a shot from behind a tree... That is an exceedingly bad idea because hot gases and tiny fragments of lead escape from around the front of the cylinder when the bullet is fired. He was lucky that he only got a deep gash in the palm of his hand. People have lost bits of finger that way... The funny (tragic?) thing is that he did it again about a month later :-)
Next: The first time I fired a 12 gauge shotgun one of Karina's boyfriends convinced me it was OK to shoot from the hip... Yes - there are people who can do that but I have no idea how. Those things kick like a mule - darn near broke my thumb... The guy thought it was pretty funny... I didn't :-) BTW: Karina only fired the shotgun once. She didn't have it braced hard enough against her shoulder when it went off. That was enough for her...
Yeah - it seemed like everyone in Tyler owned a bunch of guns. All the pickup trucks had fully loaded gun racks... And it also seemed like every time we were out shooting we'd encounter some drunken yahoos doing the same thing... It's a wonder there weren't more fatalities :-)
So I became familiar with all manner of shotguns, revolvers, pistols and rifles, and I have to admit that I understand why some people are so enamored with those things. They are mechanical marvels and some are actually quite lovely (the guns - not the owners)...
Regardless - I've never really wanted to own one... I just can't get past what they were designed for...
Now -I've never owned a gun - or ever had the urge to kill anything (well - except for the occasional redneck)... As a matter of fact, I've often said that if society collapsed and we had to hunt for food I'd be the first one to starve to death :-) But I was usually bored enough that when any of Karina's boyfriends got the urge to ventilate some beer cans I didn't mind tagging along.
It was kind of funny - the gun owners would typically give me a lecture on safety and then proceed to ignore everything they just told me. This one guy (Hans) nicked the heel of my shoe with an "inadvertent discharge" when I was walking in front of him one day. He said "Ooops" and I refused to walk in front of him when he was holding a gun ever again :-)
I almost got even though: Hans had just bought a new semi-automatic rifle with a shell deflector and we headed out to a back road to try it out... Now - in those days I used to shoot left-handed because I had not yet realized that I was right eye dominant. I didn't figure that out until my son was in Boy Scouts and I discovered I was actually a pretty good shot when sighting with my good eye. But that's not the point... The point is that because of my left-handed stance the ejected shells were being directed toward my right foot, which would not have been a problem except I wasn't wearing socks and one of the shells dropped into my shoe... Yeah - freshly ejected rifle shells are rather "toasty" and when the burning sensation hit me I screamed and swung the rifle to my left (with my finger still on the trigger). Hans had been standing there but when he saw the muzzle of the rifle coming his direction he screamed and bailed into the ditch next to the road... Luckily, the gun didn't discharge - but I got to say "Ooops"...
That was just one of many "questionable" incidents:
One time we were on the bank of a small lake shooting at some fish. After a while we became aware that the fishermen in a boat about 1/8 of a mile out were screaming at us. Apparently we'd been skipping the occasional shot off the surface of the water and the bullets had been zinging past them... No harm no foul, I guess :-)
Then another time Hans was playing "secret agent" with a revolver and had his free hand on the cylinder while squeezing off a shot from behind a tree... That is an exceedingly bad idea because hot gases and tiny fragments of lead escape from around the front of the cylinder when the bullet is fired. He was lucky that he only got a deep gash in the palm of his hand. People have lost bits of finger that way... The funny (tragic?) thing is that he did it again about a month later :-)
Next: The first time I fired a 12 gauge shotgun one of Karina's boyfriends convinced me it was OK to shoot from the hip... Yes - there are people who can do that but I have no idea how. Those things kick like a mule - darn near broke my thumb... The guy thought it was pretty funny... I didn't :-) BTW: Karina only fired the shotgun once. She didn't have it braced hard enough against her shoulder when it went off. That was enough for her...
Yeah - it seemed like everyone in Tyler owned a bunch of guns. All the pickup trucks had fully loaded gun racks... And it also seemed like every time we were out shooting we'd encounter some drunken yahoos doing the same thing... It's a wonder there weren't more fatalities :-)
So I became familiar with all manner of shotguns, revolvers, pistols and rifles, and I have to admit that I understand why some people are so enamored with those things. They are mechanical marvels and some are actually quite lovely (the guns - not the owners)...
Regardless - I've never really wanted to own one... I just can't get past what they were designed for...
Sunday, May 1, 2011
That's How it Ended
A strange and unexpected thing happened during my last 2 months at John Tyler High in 1970... I actually went to school every day. Yes - once I realized it was about to end it somehow became tolerable :-)
Aside - another thing happened during that last semester of school: I gained 30 pounds... It was the first time in my life I hadn't been taking a P.E. class or playing sports and I kind of ballooned. I honestly wasn't eating that much... I know - everyone who is overweight says that - but I really do have an unusually efficient metabolism. I've spent most of my life fighting "the battle of the bulge" :-) But I digress...
A couple of months before graduation the principal announced that they would be enforcing the school's hair regulations for the graduation ceremony meaning it could not be over the ears or touching the collar... Now - my hair was already in violation when we got to Tyler and I hadn't had a haircut that whole semester so it was way out of bounds by the time May rolled around... That was when Squats (the vice principal) took me aside and gave me the spiel about protecting the school's public image. I said I fully understood and would therefore not be participating in the graduation ceremony. He was taken aback by that response and asked how my family felt about it. I told him they would support whatever I decided... And that was that.
Now - my buddy Wayne's hair was longer than mine and he had initially agreed to "boycott" the ceremony also but he caved in to parental pressure and got a haircut. I was really bummed.
In the end I was the only one in the school who chose his hair over pomp and circumstance :-)
That reminds me - around that time I came up with a wonderfully discordant version of "Pomp and Circumstance". Everyone who heard it laughed (including myself)... Unfortunately - I haven't played it in decades and probably don't even remember how... But I digress (again).
Shortly before graduation they held an assembly to give out the awards. I remember it because one of the black students took top honors in the regional "shop class" competition and as he was being presented with the certificate he got this weird little grin on his face and proceeded to"scratch himself" in a greatly exaggerated manner.
This caused the entire student body (all ~1800 of them) to gasp simultaneously - it was as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room... The principal didn't know what to do so he just went on with the presentation while the student scratched and smiled :-)
Personally - I thought it was freaking brilliant! He had (metaphorically) flipped off the entire school without getting into trouble for it... I think you had to see the expressions on the white students' faces to appreciate just how funny it was :-)
And sometime during those final weeks the school arranged for the senior class to go to a movie theater to see Hamlet (the 1969 British version). They told us it was OK to invite juniors along but under no circumstances were we to bring sophomores because "all they do is run up and down the aisles anyway" :-) Rather than taking the bus into town I managed to hitch a ride with a classmate who had a brand new 1970 SS-396 Chevelle. It was cool.
I only remember a couple of things from the movie (other than it was about some messed up Danish dude - and a bunch of people died at the end):
There was a bit of a ruckus when one of the guys in the front row of the balcony dumped a cup of ice water onto the students below and then ran like hell. (Some of the "victims" were pretty upset.) He did it by placing the cup near the edge of the railing and nudging it forward a fraction of an inch at a time over a period of many minutes until it finally toppled... It was excruciating to watch :-)
Then there was the point where Ophelia appeared on the screen in a low cut gown and a another guy in the front row of the balcony reflexively stood up to try and look down her top. Yeah - that doesn't work with a 2 dimensional image... Everyone laughed :-)
The final thing I want to mention is what happened on May 4th, 1970 (22 days before graduation). That was the day a group of National Guardsmen shot 9 unarmed students at Kent State University killing 4 of them... I won't go into details other than to say it was a complete tragedy for everyone involved and there's more than enough blame to go around... But what really disturbed me was that most people felt the protesters deserved it. (Some went as far as to say they should all be killed...)
Indeed - a Gallup poll taken immediately afterward showed that 58% of Americans placed the blame on the students... Personally, I have a problem with the concept that exercising one's first amendments rights should be punishable by death without due process but most Americans at the time apparently felt otherwise... And it seems like we (as a society) have learned absolutely nothing in the 41 years since...
So I didn't go to the graduation (or any of the related events)... BTW: They let all the seniors go through the ceremony - even the ones who didn't actually graduate. They just handed them a diploma cover containing a blank piece of paper... I thought that was weird. Kind of "cheapened" the whole thing...
And the day after graduation Wayne drove me to school to pick up my diploma in the office. I went in barefoot to emphasize (to myself) that I wasn't governed by their rules anymore. Then Wayne and I wandered the halls for a while harassing the poor juniors and sophomores (who still had a few days of school to go) before leaving the building...
And that's how it ended.
Aside - another thing happened during that last semester of school: I gained 30 pounds... It was the first time in my life I hadn't been taking a P.E. class or playing sports and I kind of ballooned. I honestly wasn't eating that much... I know - everyone who is overweight says that - but I really do have an unusually efficient metabolism. I've spent most of my life fighting "the battle of the bulge" :-) But I digress...
A couple of months before graduation the principal announced that they would be enforcing the school's hair regulations for the graduation ceremony meaning it could not be over the ears or touching the collar... Now - my hair was already in violation when we got to Tyler and I hadn't had a haircut that whole semester so it was way out of bounds by the time May rolled around... That was when Squats (the vice principal) took me aside and gave me the spiel about protecting the school's public image. I said I fully understood and would therefore not be participating in the graduation ceremony. He was taken aback by that response and asked how my family felt about it. I told him they would support whatever I decided... And that was that.
Now - my buddy Wayne's hair was longer than mine and he had initially agreed to "boycott" the ceremony also but he caved in to parental pressure and got a haircut. I was really bummed.
In the end I was the only one in the school who chose his hair over pomp and circumstance :-)
That reminds me - around that time I came up with a wonderfully discordant version of "Pomp and Circumstance". Everyone who heard it laughed (including myself)... Unfortunately - I haven't played it in decades and probably don't even remember how... But I digress (again).
Shortly before graduation they held an assembly to give out the awards. I remember it because one of the black students took top honors in the regional "shop class" competition and as he was being presented with the certificate he got this weird little grin on his face and proceeded to"scratch himself" in a greatly exaggerated manner.
This caused the entire student body (all ~1800 of them) to gasp simultaneously - it was as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room... The principal didn't know what to do so he just went on with the presentation while the student scratched and smiled :-)
Personally - I thought it was freaking brilliant! He had (metaphorically) flipped off the entire school without getting into trouble for it... I think you had to see the expressions on the white students' faces to appreciate just how funny it was :-)
And sometime during those final weeks the school arranged for the senior class to go to a movie theater to see Hamlet (the 1969 British version). They told us it was OK to invite juniors along but under no circumstances were we to bring sophomores because "all they do is run up and down the aisles anyway" :-) Rather than taking the bus into town I managed to hitch a ride with a classmate who had a brand new 1970 SS-396 Chevelle. It was cool.
I only remember a couple of things from the movie (other than it was about some messed up Danish dude - and a bunch of people died at the end):
There was a bit of a ruckus when one of the guys in the front row of the balcony dumped a cup of ice water onto the students below and then ran like hell. (Some of the "victims" were pretty upset.) He did it by placing the cup near the edge of the railing and nudging it forward a fraction of an inch at a time over a period of many minutes until it finally toppled... It was excruciating to watch :-)
Then there was the point where Ophelia appeared on the screen in a low cut gown and a another guy in the front row of the balcony reflexively stood up to try and look down her top. Yeah - that doesn't work with a 2 dimensional image... Everyone laughed :-)
The final thing I want to mention is what happened on May 4th, 1970 (22 days before graduation). That was the day a group of National Guardsmen shot 9 unarmed students at Kent State University killing 4 of them... I won't go into details other than to say it was a complete tragedy for everyone involved and there's more than enough blame to go around... But what really disturbed me was that most people felt the protesters deserved it. (Some went as far as to say they should all be killed...)
Indeed - a Gallup poll taken immediately afterward showed that 58% of Americans placed the blame on the students... Personally, I have a problem with the concept that exercising one's first amendments rights should be punishable by death without due process but most Americans at the time apparently felt otherwise... And it seems like we (as a society) have learned absolutely nothing in the 41 years since...
So I didn't go to the graduation (or any of the related events)... BTW: They let all the seniors go through the ceremony - even the ones who didn't actually graduate. They just handed them a diploma cover containing a blank piece of paper... I thought that was weird. Kind of "cheapened" the whole thing...
And the day after graduation Wayne drove me to school to pick up my diploma in the office. I went in barefoot to emphasize (to myself) that I wasn't governed by their rules anymore. Then Wayne and I wandered the halls for a while harassing the poor juniors and sophomores (who still had a few days of school to go) before leaving the building...
And that's how it ended.
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