Arthur Miller-Born in October of 1915

And for all my friends who have a literary bent, here’s one of my favorite quotes from the great playwright Arthur Miller, who wrote The Crucible in the 1950’s, during the McCarthy era. A very telling and unfortunately all too prescient play warning of the dangers of authoritarian thinking and hysteria, and of the need for compassion and forgiveness

High School Vignettes to share

Some vignettes of high school that were just jotted down as I look back on the funny and brief moments that made up my high school life. It is such a fleeting time...and the memories, some of them as fresh as if they happened yesterday, are ones that I have enjoyed recalling as I still laugh at some of the best of times from my high school years at Plant.

High School Memories...

The McDonald’s run to the Todd...

From the annals of Plant High: I remember the “McDonald’s runs”…The funniest story I have about that was going with my best friend & her boyfriend to McDonald’s. I was driving, and Kathy told me later what her boyfriend had said.  There was an X-rated movie theater that we would joke about going to that was on the way to McDonald’s. It was called something like …The Todd Theatre, I believe? I remember that we always joked about it, but of course, were “all talk and no action.” I had the two of them in the car and I was driving, and I pulled up to the entrance of Todd Theater and slowed down and put my blinker on. Kathy said Malcolm almost died of embarassment and was sweating bricks that I was serious about going there on our lunch break! He didn’t know what a chicken-S**T I REALLY was!

The telephone pole we missed...

I have thought many times about this when I see the signs in memorium where young people have lost their lives by running into poles as they were out drinking with friends. Kathy & Mary Ann Dubowski were in the front seat of Mary Ann’s Volkwagon bug, and I was in the back, in the middle, just hanging over the front seat to talk…So there we were, three young idiots, driving down the road laughing, and I looked up and there was a telephone pole that was staring me in the face. I said, “Look out!” and Mary Ann swerved the car and we drove on, laughing and yukking it up. We came so close to just wrapping ourselves around this pole, and I have no doubt that it’s something so innocent that can end the lives of the very young & foolish in an instant!

The Dobie Gillis “B.M.O.C.” Moment...

Kathy & I saw one of the Big Men on Campus outside a classroom one day that was worthy of a Dobie Gillis movie…He was trying to make a date with a girl who was seated in class, so he whispered….”Seven-Thirty?” to her as we walked by…That’s always been a huge joke for us: "Seven Thirty?", as we used our best ‘Ginger from Gilligan’s Island’ voice- it could mean anything!

My Cheerleading Tryout Jump...

One of my favorite memories was palling around with Tricia Pope, my Big Sister in Kiwanettes. She used to love to watch me exhibit my “Cheerleading Tryout” jump from 8^th Grade. Of course, my feet didn’t really leave the ground more than one inch, so it always cracked her up. But the earnest approach, hands on hips, staring straight ahead as I walked right into it was enough to get her going every time.

To Kill A Bluejay...

I remember the English class with Mr Foster and his Pink Bat. He would hit the desk of anyone who fell asleep, and I often had creases on my face when I snoozed in his class. He was a bit lax in later years, because I remember he couldn’t think of the name of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and called it “To Kill a Bluejay”!

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The Girl from the Drive-thru and Math Class...

Kathy & I were in Algebra for Dummies Class, and there was a girl sitting in front of us who would act very assured when I asked her a question that was “Math Related.” Once she was helping me with an algebra problem and I innocently asked her what to do with the extra number or digit that was on the side….and not part of the equation? She looked puzzled, and said, “You put the number over there for now” …which was a HUGE red flag. I said to myself:  “Self: You know as much as she does about this!” So I was telling Kathy later as we drove through the drive-through at Wendy’s about this girl and her defective math. And she innocently looked up at the window and said to the girl working there, “You short-changed me, I think. I gave you a 5, etc….” Now who do you suppose was the girl working at the Wendy’s drive-through window? Yep…the same one who had carried the numbers safely over to the side column in Math class and never quite knew what to do with them…and she had the same stumbles at Wendy’s as she did with me. She said,  “Oh! Well….I think you gave me a 5, and then I took it, carried the three, put this over here…” We were laughing so hard that I don’t know if we ever got the change straightened out!

Mr. Martinez and the down-payment for an “A”

I did hear that Mr Martinez told this story to many other classes. Mr Martinez, the Physiology teacher, was hilarious, very droll, had a dry wit about him. And he would jokingly tell everyone they could get an A if they gave him 50 dollars, or something like that. So I decided to play a prank on a friend of mine, by putting money in the teacher’s box in the main office one morning for Mr Martinez to find. The note was in an envelope and said something like, “Dear Mr Martinez: I know I am not smart enough to get an A in your class. But if you could please take this money as a down-payment, I would like to have an A in your class. I don’t have 50 dollars, but I can give you the rest in installments. Thanks so much! Signed Debbie (Not her real name.) “ So Mr Martinez and another teacher pulled the girl out of class, and they tried to gently tell her that he had just been joking. She threw the money at me later that day: “ Here! Take your money back, I know what you did!”…She told me that it took quite a lot of convincing to let them know that she really did NOT put the money in his box! They kept patting her and telling her not to be embarrassed and ashamed!