School Daze, Part 2

Picking up from where we left off….

This next character was a guy I went from grade school thru high school with. And not one of those days did we ever get along. Even in sixth grade, he thought he was God’s gift to sports. He was incredibly arrogant. He was also one of those guys who got to do anything he wanted, take part in any school function, even have him and his buddies form a surf band, and have the school center an entire assembly around their one and only performance. At the junior high, he took part in several sports. In high school, he concentrated on basketball. He figured that his height, about 6-2, would help him to athletic fame and fortune. He had all his games filmed by a friend. He sent 8mm films of himself, and newspaper clippings to major college coaches all over, but was especially hoping to hear from John Wooden at UCLA. All he got was a form letter that began “Thank you for your interest in playing for UCLA, but at this time…”.

He must have gotten a lot of those form letters. He “starred” on three losing teams. Most major college coaches want to know what a player’s team record was while he compiled his stellar numbers. The league the team played in was not considered a strong league. He didn’t even make the junior college team.

I guess he found out the hard way that he wasn’t so special. I saw him at the 15-year reunion, and for the first time ever, he was civil to me. He was even cordial, and had something I had never seen in him before: humility. I sat down with him & his wife for a while at their table, and we caught up with each other. He told me that he had heard me on the radio and that he was glad that I made my goal. I was tempted to ask him “And your goal was….??” but I didn’t. I guess I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his wife. But I was sure tempted. I have a long memory.

Next is this football player who was beyond arrogant. He was so unpleasant to be around that I’ll try not to stay on this too long. He was a large lineman, made every all-this-and-that team, and was the type to push smaller guys around. He had previously gone to Catholic schools, and he was certain that he was Notre Dame-bound. Unless you were a teacher, a pretty girl, or one of his pals, you couldn’t get any word out of him other than “F–K You!” or “F–K Off!” What a swell guy he was.

After I had graduated from Coronado High, I came back to San Bernardino that summer to both visit and attend my first broadcasting classes at the junior college there. In the summer, it is not uncommon for temperatures in San Bernardino to top 100. One day, I went to a neighborhood pizza parlor, and when I came out, guess who was coming in? Yep, our football hero. It was sweltering, and there he was – in his letterman’s jacket. I guess I wouldn’t have recognized him without it. He always had it on. Maybe he still wears it.

One person I hadn’t planned on mentioning, but I think I will, was the young lady who eventually became the school’s head cheerleader. She was also someone I had known since grade school, and even then her ego was out of control. That was because her mother was the head of both the local PTA and the local Republican Party. That, of course made her better than everyone else. Even back then, she was a polarizing figure, intolerant of different views to the point of calling the Democratic Party “unpatriotic” and “Communistic” in an assignment that had to be read in front of class. Remember, I have a long memory. At assemblies, she would get indignant if people didn’t put their hands in front of their hearts for the flag.

It was long suspected by other students that the school had strict orders to just give her good grades no matter what, because of who her mother was. We all know that school districts wouldn’t do that, don’t we? Right. At any rate, she who thought war protesters should be deported to the USSR became Homecoming Queen her senior year. When I heard about it from friends via letters to Coronado, I couldn’t believe it. She was NOT a raving beauty by any stretch of the imagination. It had to be who her mother was. I just shook my head and went on with my coastal life in San Diego County.

Later on, I also heard something else regarding Our Queen. It turns out that she had ditched school, something she supposedly did a lot of, and was caught with one of the school’s younger and more popular teachers, who was very married. And worse, she got pregnant from that fine day. She wound up being an embarrassment to the school and her mother. She was kicked out of school, and the teacher was fired. I imagine he lost his marriage also. She has not turned up at any reunion I’ve been to, and no former classmates I’ve talked to, even her friends, had any knowledge of her whereabouts.

Ah, the sweet bird of youth…

If I could turn back time, I would NOT want to go back to my teenage years. Too many embarrassing people to deal with.

School Daze, Part 1

I am facing the prospects of not one, but two 40-year high school reunions this year. I attended two high schools, one in San Bernardino up to the end of my junior year, and my senior year was spent at Coronado, in San Diego County. It was a night-and-day difference.

The truth is I probably won’t be attending either gathering. Not this time around, anyway. I have plans to be out of the area when these respective events take place. Plans have been in place for some time, so juggling schedules isn’t even an option. I’ll try to catch the 45th or 50th. I try to be optimistic.

Without taxing my memory too hard, I was able to come up with a few characters that I think are worth writing about. They’re all from San Bernardino, and they’re all sports-related. Maybe someone reading this knew similar-type people. I just wish I could use their names. All are still living, and boy, would they be embarrassed….

In those halcyon days, high school was 3 years, starting with 10th grade. This first guy I met in 9th grade, our last year of junior high. He had moved from Texas, and he was hell-bent on not only playing football, but starring in it. Back then, the 8 junior highs of San Bernardino played tackle football against each other. It helped the high schools in lieu of a freshman football program. Well, this guy starred all right. He was a pretty good running back. In fact, he wound up being the star of both the junior high AND the high school team. Trouble was, he knew it. His head became about the size of Texas. He was telling everybody that he would one day be an NFL star. I still have a copy of the junior high newspaper where he said it. When asked what he wanted to be when he got older, he would tell people “an All-Pro running back in the NFL.”

Needless to say, he didn’t quite get there. After high school, nary a hide nor hair was heard about the guy. He collected a lot of splinters on the bench at the area junior college for one year, then that was it. I don’t know what he wound up doing for a living. I do know that the Sunday following the 10-year reunion dinner/dance, he hosted classmates at his home for a barbecue. Very gracious of him. At 28 however, he was morbidly obese, bald, and hardly recognizable. You would have sworn it was two different people. I wonder if he even still watches the game.

Next up, a coach from that same junior high who had visions of grandeur. He was a social studies teacher, and quite unpopular. We all suffered through his eternal classes. He was a coach for some of the school’s sports teams. Not football, though. He did do public-address announcing for the home football games though, and when a game got lopsided, and they started emptying the benches, he would joke about some of the less-athletically-inclined students on his school’s team right over the PA system in front of everybody. I guess this made him feel better about himself. This teacher also would call on certain students in his class to step out front and center, bend over, and he would swat them for no given reasons. He would also isolate students by making them sit by themselves at a table meant to hold boxes and supplies, and they’d have to sit backwards to be able to see the chalkboard.

Later on, when the complexion of the neighborhood changed, he apparently started having problems with African-American students. Several parents complained about him, but thanks probably to his union, he was always able to keep his job. And speaking of his job, he always wanted to be transferred to a high school and coach at that level. It always frustrated him that the district would not grant him a high school coaching job. And he seemed to find creative ways to channel his anger. A few years ago, he retired as a career-long junior high teacher. One of his last acts was defending himself against a parent’s complaint about the treatment of her son. An African-American parent. He had been accused of grabbing her son by the collar and throwing him through a door. Corporal punishment had been banned in California public schools for many years by the time of this incident.

To be continued. Stay tuned….