Rocket: The Lost Years, Part 2

Besides finally earning the right to drive, the only other high points from my high school career came from playing sports. I made the freshman baseball team, and JV and varsity soccer teams.

 

Don’t get me wrong though- I’ll never be confused with as athlete. I still don’t know how I made the baseball team. Coach liked me, I guess, and thought I had spunk. But there weren’t a lot of other bodies from try-outs to round out his roster, either. I think Coach took my out of pity because as a baseball player, I frankly sucked. And soccer? That wouldn’t have been my first, second or even last choice as a sport of interest. Hardly. I wanted to play football.

 

I was 16 and a half, and hadn't had even a whiff of a relationship with the opposite sex since 8th grade. But guys on the football teams? They all seemed to have girlfriends. So I figured if I went out for junior varsity football, too, getting a girl would be a slam dunk, to mix sports metaphors. Heck, I'd played sandlot football for years and was always good at it- quick with skilled hands, able to withstand a hard tackle and dish one out too. As a JV football player it'd be only a matter of time before girls would be following me all over campus, just begging for a date.

 

Wrong.

 

The day I tried out, though he let me run some drills and show what I could do Coach Miller had already made up his mind. "Even in pads, you'd get killed", he said. “You’re too small”. Hells bells, I was almost five feet and a shade under a hundred pounds. How is that small?! He explained there was some sort of minimum height/weight requirement which I didn't measure up to. I was a couple inches too short and about 15 pounds too light. With the right type of diet, Miller mused I could probably put some weight on pretty quick. But the added inches? Short of full-time Rack reclining, I'd have to wait till my body was ready for a growth spurt." Not much we can do about that, son, is there?" No, I suppose not. Actually, I'm still waiting.

 

But while waiting to grow, Coach Miller thought I might want to give soccer a try. "Doesn't matter how big you are in soccer. If you're fast, in fact, the smaller the better:” I didn't know soccer like I knew football and baseball, except they played it on a huge field with a funny looking ball. And it was sort of like ice hockey, except no ice, no body checks and no pucks. But the next afternoon, I went over to the soccer field and tried out. And two weeks later, when Coach Terwilliger pared his roster down, I'd made the team. But for the record, soccer chose me, not the other way around. However, making any JV or team came with a letterman’s sweater- something that seemed to impress the girls-and I desperately wanted to impress the girls

 

However, I quickly learned, no matter what you were wearing, soccer players didn't get the girls like the football players did. The closest I came- and missed by ten miles- was the humiliating encounter with a girl named Cheryl (see “School of Hard Knocks”; blogpost 3.9.11).  She was pretty. My attempts at getting to know her better, weren’t. Enough said. Read the blog.

 

I managed C's and D's during my junior year- all passing grades, mind you- and even learned how to stay awake during Mr. Lehman's second period Algebra 2 class. To remain lucid during that hour, Phil Alexander, Dave Dill and I took turns playing "Hangman". While Mr. Lehman was boring everyone else, we'd smuggle the game page underneath our desks to each other. The winner got to choose the next word, scouring his brain for the most base and disgusting term; pulling words and phrases out of a crude language cesspool that only boys in high school dabble in when wanting to out-crass each other. So, this may explain the D- on my report card. 

 

But gosh Mr. Lehman was so dull, had they been around back them, just being in his presence would’ve caused a Red Bull to go flat. A lifeless old man, tenured and obviously playing out the string at the end of his career, he probably wanted to be there about as much as his students did. So "Hangman’ was about the only thing that kept my pulse moving between 10:15 and 11:10 each morning. However, besides getting real good at spelling out bad words, my junior year also exposed me to other unique concepts such as socialism, as explained by a real socialist, Mr. Larson.

 

A man who may have been even farther to the left Karl Marx, Jerry Larson found excess personal wealth un-American, and hoped Congress would sooner than later push through new laws and regulations to make sure the affluent shared their affluence with everyone else. ”It's the only right way to run a government” he used to say. ”I shouldn't get to make more than you, and you shouldn't get to make more than me. It’s not fair. We should all be on a level playing field". Right.  Of course, he didn't call this scheme 'socialism'; he usually referred to it as "Larson's Plan" or "What I'd Do If I Ruled the World".

 

Seeing what's going on in our country today, though, maybe Mr. Larson wasn't so wrong after all. Maybe he was simply ahead of his time. Or maybe just a big 'ol Bolshevik. But I remember Larson’s two main points, both woven into almost all lectures and discussions in his Government and Civics class, centered on no one being allowed to earn more than $100,000 dollars in a year or inherit more $10,000 in a lifetime. Any amount greater, he though the government should step in and re-distribute to those with less. Regardless, even if they understood it, I'm not sure any of us in his class bought what he was selling. Many didn’t trust anyone over 30, and nobody trusted the government. But I liked Mr. Larson. Though I disagreed with his politics, I wanted him to like me, too.  But since I wanted to make a million dollars playing center field for the A's, I doubt he'd have held me in very high regard, either.

 

And he really wouldn't have liked Jay Weiland, a kid who whole-heartedly endorsed and embodied the all-American dream; in other words, making lots of money. Jay was an unabashed capitalist, and probably the most entrepreneurial, go-getter guy I ever knew. We all mocked and laughed behind his back, too, but Jay was no fool; he had a plan and knew what he was doing and where he was going. 

 

When a new McDonald’s opened up near school, he was one of the first to eagerly apply for and land a position, even pre-emptively cutting his hair super short (as all McDonald's employees were required to do) before the interview. Crazy. Then after he'd been hired, he often wore his black slacks, red tie and white shirt workplace uniform to school.  To the unwashed masses on campus- um, that'd be me and a lot of my friends- Jay looked ridiculous. A major dweeb. He stuck out like a sore thumb.  He said he only dressed that way to avoid having to change for work after the last bell. However, we all suspected he just liked showing off.  

 

In addition to the strict dress code on the job, Jay also had to wear a goofy looking paper McDonald’s hat, which only added to the corporate suck-up look, a look he darn near perfected. One afternoon after soccer practice, some of us went in for Big Mac’s and fries and loitered at the counter to make sure Jay waited on us. We placed our order while giving him a hard time, and snickered as we watched him work. Jay just smiled at us and gracefully took it, was pleasant to his other customers and generally looked like he was happy and enjoying his work. I feel bad about it now because I’m sure he knew we were making fun of him. Nevertheless, Jay always said he could help get us on there if any of us ever needed a job. I'm pretty sure nobody took him up on his offer; I certainly didn’t. Me? Wear a funny hat and get a buzz cut? For a job? Never.

 

However, Jay eventually worked his way up from counter help to crew leader, to assistant manager, to manager and eventually bought the place. At 26, Jay was already a freaking local-boy-makes-good fast food franchise mogul. At 26, I was in Spokane struggling to make ends meet on 4 bucks an hour, working the graveyard shift at KGA. I could barely afford a radio, let alone own my own radio station. But it wouldn’t have surprised me if Jay ended up owning several more McDonald’s, then selling them all at a huge profit and retiring a millionaire. But all that time in high school, when I thought Jay was more pathetic than I was? I was wrong. Completely. He had it right all along. Jay was a winner and got even with all of us by being successful. And if I or any of my few friends had even a minimal clue back then how the world worked, we might’ve turned out as successful as our more ambitious classmate, too.

Right after Marxism 101, I mean Mr. Larson’s class, I had geography with Mrs. Bouffard. Yolanda Bouffard was one of my favorite teachers simply for being the butt of a lot of great jokes. You see, not only was she a very nice lady- which she truly was- very engaging and good at her job; she also had a very ample rear end. I mean, it was ginormous. Like a small continent. Her legs literally bowed under its weight, as if dragging around 40 pound sandbags on her hips. And unfortunately for her, Steve Phillips- one of the funniest guys to ever walk into her class- sat behind me.

 

Whenever the poor lady’s back was turned Steve would whisper some gratuitous remark about the south end of Mrs. Bouffard's anatomy. Something crude, merciless, hilarious. Of course this made me laugh, and the more I did the more obnoxious and outrageous he'd get. It’d get so bad I couldn’t stifle my hysteria anymore and she’d turn around, see it was me making all the noise, and I’d get bawled out for “disturbing the class”. I’d get extra homework; he feigned innocence, always smart enough to never laugh at his own stuff. Regrettably, I was always dumb enough not to.

During my senior year, on nice days Steve Phillips, Gary Nelson and I ate lunch on Senior Square, observing all the underprivileged underclassmen eating their hearts out because they couldn’t. Underclassmen weren’t allowed to place even a toe on Senior Square. If they did there was retribution, usually from a jock, and usually involved the perpetrator being dumped into a garbage can. I know. It happened to me three times. And now a senior and varsity athlete, I’d been waiting four years to return the favor on someone else.

 

But not one unsuspecting or careless freshman, sophomore or junior ever set foot on the sacred space, at least not while I was around. It wasn't fair. I'd been purposely pushed onto Senior Square by my friends, once as a freshman and twice as a sophomore and each time was summarily deposited into the nearest trash receptacle. I never went in head first, but was placed less-than-gently butt deep in wrappers, lunch remnants, paper and other crap while my so-called friends watched and laughed. Had I been on the other end, I guess I’d have found it amusing too. That’s what I was hoping for. I just never had the chance.

During my last semester at San Juan I took home-ec. No, really. Home-Economics was an elective course that a lot of my friends elected to sign up for because it sounded like another easy goof-off hour. So I signed up too. And we got it half right. We did goof off a lot, but the class itself wasn’t that easy. We had to bake cookies, create a household budget, cook a roast, and use a sewing machine without losing a finger. Most of the stuff we had to do I've long since forgotten, but the class was actually kind of fun. We didn't become too domestic or refined, though. During most of the baking projects, between prepping the pots, pans and mixing spoons, we spent a lot more time "reviewing" the recipe - which was usually a copy of "Playboy" someone had smuggled into class and inserted into the recipe binder. Oh yes, taking home-ed had been a great idea. That was fun.

 

But when time finally ran out on my high school career, I wasn't much more than your basic garden variety barely adequate average student. Academically, I worked hard enough to be scholastically marginal. Though I played sports, I still lacked confidence, was often sad and still socially ungraceful. I never had a girl friend and, except for lettering in baseball and soccer, never accomplished anything special. However, along the way I got my driver's license, had a few laughs, learned a few things and emerged from the halls of San Juan 4 years older and maybe a shade wiser. At least I had a diploma and could put those four forgettable years behind me forever. 

 

However just when I thought I had, thanks to Classmates dot com, they reached out and grabbed me one more time. Gary Nelson found me on the Classmates website a few years ago, contacted me out of the blue and set up a meeting. Back in school, Gary had been a tall skinny guy with a pretty thick head of black hair. But when we got together as grown-ups, though still tall, Gary's hair had made a full retreat and he was much more round than rail thin. It was quite a contrast from the guy I ate lunch with on Senior Square and shot hoops with at recess three decades earlier. But he was still Gary and we enjoyed catching up and laughing over old times.

During our discussion, he gave me the contact information for a couple other old buddies, Dave Dill and Steve Phillips. And during the month after getting together with Gary, he, Steve, Dave and I did l exchange a few e-mails and promised to meet up again sometime. But the messages quickly petered out, we never arranged to see each other, and I haven't heard from any of them since. Still, it was fun to hear from those guys and, for a few minutes, remember being stupid kids again. But it’s really hard to try and pick up where we left off all those years ago. We’re not kids anymore- well mostly- but in reality we’re all practically strangers to each other now.

I guess you just can't go back. But that’s okay because I really don't want to. I’ve never gone to a high school reunion and don’t ever plan to. At San Juan I was just a little dork without much going for me. Why would I want to go back and reminisce about that? Thank you, no, I’ll pass. It was a time I spent trying to evolve from the person I didn’t like into something I did; and failing. It was a time I sought love, and acceptance, self-esteem and pretty much failing at that too, except for the few friends I made with guys like Gary, Steve, Dave, etc. It's also a time I associate with people I knew dying young. So I prefer to leave all those awkward and awful days of high school where they belong- buried in the past.

I graduated from San Juan on the oppressively hot evening of June 7, 1973. It was over a hundred degrees that day and at 7 p.m., when the ceremony began, it was still in the 90's. Adding to the discomfort, we all had to wear the school's long heavy red cotton robes. Since everybody already knew it'd be hot, rather than long dress pants some of the guys planned to wear cut-offs under their robes. Nobody would be able to see or tell the difference, and comfort wise, it’d be a lot cooler. Going in cut-offs instead of stuffy slacks? You bethca. I’d do it in a heartbeat.

 

But Mom found out and rather angrily nixed the idea out of hand. And, as if there'd be any doubt Dad overwhelmingly backed her. I couldn’t make either one of them see the logic in trying to make a really stressful and uncomfortably hot evening a little more tolerable, by wearing shorts underneath my robe. Nobody would know. But they'd know. And that was the rub. No way, Jose. So I'd graduate in a hot robe over long pants, hard soled shoes and a tie, and sweat like a pig. Case closed. 

 

And on what should’ve been a special night, Mom and I had our 821st and last high school tussle over my appearance. And like the other 821 times before, with no other choice, I wilted and caved in. But who cares about a button down ceremony concluding 4 years of high school mediocrity, anyway? I didn't. By the time we arrived at school for the last time, I simply didn't care anymore. Mom wins, Rocket doesn't. Again. Just like always. So if my head wasn't into going through with the graduation hoop-la, my defeated heart certainly wasn't either. If there was such a thing as an angry apathy, that's where my heart was that night. I was pissed off and didn’t give a rat’s ass about it.

However, at least I was done with all of it. High school was over. Yet, there was still a part of me that wanted to hold on. As much as I hated the time at San Juan, I didn’t want to leave either. Though the years there had been tedious, hard on the ego and mostly a gigantic let-down, at least they were predictable. Up until the day of commencement, every morning I knew what to expect-- go to school, do my work, be bored, mess around with my friends, eat, sleep and do it again the next day. And of the few friends I'd cultivated, I didn’t want to say goodbye to them, either. However they were all charting their own courses and I wouldn’t be part of their lives anymore, nor they part of mine. For the first time in my life, the security of reliable friendships and established routines was gone. It was sad. And kind of scary.

 

For sure, I didn’t know what to do next. I didn't even go to any of the parties or on the senior trip to Disneyland.  I wasn't one of the cool people, so had no clue where the parties were happening. And I didn't want to ride a bus all night to Southern California then turn around and do it again 24 hours later on the return trip. So I had some cake and ice cream with the family and called it a night. Pretty exciting, yeah?  But growing up, that type of evening was considered a wild time. Our house was the place where good times went to die. Okay, it wasn't that bad. On the other hand, yes it was.

 

Later on that night I laid in bed wide awake, dripped in sweat with reflections of life dipped in layers of dread.  The disturbing truth that nothing was ever going to be the same again drowned out all other certainty. And as the last night of high school slipped into the maw of an unknown new phase of life that would start in a matter of hours with the next sunrise, I tossed and turned and waited for sleep while trying to fight off one recurring thought:  Oh, dear God, what happens now?