Tag: high school

“They’re Wrong About Us”

Even before we started running around together, Shelly and I were two of the most visible people in our high school. Heck, it seemed like everybody in town knew us: we couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized. At the time it was a town of about twenty-five thousand people, and we had both been born there. Our dads were highschool teachers, so even when we were young, people knew our families. Both of us were deep into the performing arts and were used to being photographed by the local newspaper for publicity purposes several times a year, starting in junior high school. The fact that nobody would have imagined us as a couple prior to our now very public getting-together made us the subject of much gossip and speculation. As Tom pointed out, everyone figured we would last about three weeks. If “everyone” thinks a thing, there might be a basis for it.

Shelly took it as a challenge.

From the vantage of decades of hindsight, I think three to six weeks would have been appropriate. She would have graduated and headed to Europe for the summer, then to UCLA in the fall. I was preparing to attend the piano master class music camp that summer, with another year of high school after that. The fling would have served as a sweet coming-of-age memory for both of us. You are guessing correctly that it went a different way.

Neither of us minded the public attention our liaison received. We revelled in it. We were both accustomed to the rumor mill, she for being a “slut,” I for being “queer.” The cognitive dissonance that had people marveling over our odd pairing was hilarious to us, not least for the irony of it. From the outside, everyone assumed that Shelly, being a year-and-a-half older and “very experienced” was “robbing the cradle” and corrupting a previously innocent nerd who was painfully awkward with girls. Many were surprised because it was widely assumed I was “gay” — not entirely without reason, of course, since I am bi. She was well-known for her brash and assertive manner, and I was generally quiet, my goofy antics not withstanding. It certainly seemed I would be overmatched and swept away by her passionate intensity.

But as soon as we got to talking it became clear that the reality was quite different than what people thought. About the only part they got right was that I was indeed swept along by her intensity. I would push back, but in any clash of wills or perspectives, she usually won out. But while she had been the one to “make the first move” on me, she quickly hit the limit of how far she could go with it. In an earlier post I described how she was actually “terrified of men,” and she had kind of painted herself into a corner socially. She could never have lived up to her reputation. If she had gotten with an experienced man it would have become immediately apparent that she was sexually walled off. She would have been traumatized by the humiliation of it. She felt safe and comfortable with me, and I never pushed her past her boundaries. I am a sensitive guy with “great hands” and even greater patience. And I had done my homework. Her understanding of sexual matters was what she had learned in health class, wrapped in a thick layer of cultural myth and dirty jokes — cartoonish at best. On the other hand I had studied every bit of written material I could get my hands on, from legitimate to sketchy. I had read “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” “The Joy of Sex,” “The Sensuous Woman,” the “Kama Sutra,” and lots of “Penthouse Forum.” From Langenscheidt’s Medical Encyclopedia I had memorized all the diagrams of female anatomy, internal and external — to the point that I could have sketched them out and labeled them correctly from memory. I had even read Freud. She didn’t even really know what she had “down there,” and had never explored it beyond a quick scrub in the shower. Her very large breasts were an annoyance and an encumbrance to her, and not in any way a source of pleasure. As I described in a previous post, I could feel anxiety gather in any part of her body I touched, so I proceded with care. Because of the disparity, the power dynamic was reversed when we became physical: I was the one in control as I spent the next few weeks gradually initiating her into the experiences of intimacy, first clothed, then gradually, not.

This bifurcation between the public and private aspects of our relationship set a tone that persisted the whole time we remained together — a sense that “the world” just didn’t understand us. “They’re wrong about us.” It became a kind of trap. We both cared very much about how we were perceived, both as individuals and as a pair, but we each harbored dark secrets that wouldn’t see the light of day for years to come. In a sense there was a transactional nature to the relationship: we were both ashamed of our inadequacies and “weirdness,” and we hoped each would help the other overcome them. We came to be defiant in our defense of our partnership, and the more people looked askance at the way we began to cling to one another, the more we dug in.

Many years later my dad and I had a conversation about the whole relationship. He was comparing it to his with my mom. He said, “Sometimes when two people find they have complementary neuroses it can lead to a strong bond, deeper than codependence. Very unhealthy, because the mutual adaptation keeps both people stuck in their neuroses.” I had majored in chemistry at UCSB before dropping out, so I made an analogy. “Hemoglobin has an active site where oxygen temporarily attaches to an iron ion to be transported through the bloodstream from the lungs to the cells, where it is released for metabolism. Cyanide kills by attaching to the hemoglobin and never letting go.”

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We Get to Talking

That first weekend is still kind of a blur. Drinking, making out. How I got from one place to another, whose house we were at, how I got home: I have no idea. Even at the time I was in a haze. But over the next week we began talking more and more: on the phone, at school. I remember kissing in the hallway in front of everybody between classes. If anyone hadn’t heard the news by then they knew now. I think we both relished the thought that we were the talk of the school. We were an unlikely couple, and we were both well-known. It had everyone speculating. Our friends congratulated us.

The surprise for me was the nature of our private conversations. Shelly was brilliant and articulate. Whereas I didn’t even last one year in Catholic school (see the thread “From Boom to Bust”) she had thrived there. She was a great student and the nuns loved her. She loved being Catholic and was fascinated by all the theological and ritualistic aspects. She sang in the church choir and relished the music. As you may recall, by that point in my life I had become an atheist and felt completely alienated from my Catholic roots. She had taken an additional middle name at confirmation and now her initials were SASS. I kid you not. Shelly was athletic. She played field hockey and swam. She was adventurous and assertive, and when she played field hockey it was “banzai!!” as she rushed into the middle of the action. She worked after school, reading for a blind woman and assisting her with her personal and professional paperwork. She had been saving money all through high school and planned to backpack through Europe alone during the summer after graduation. She had her airline tickets, passport, and Eu-rail pass all ready to go two months early. In the fall she was entering UCLA. I learned all this very quickly.

In the process, I picked up on the fact that her energy and quick wit masked a great deal of anxiety. She worried about everything, all the time. She was actually quite insecure. Her way of dealing with fear was to just go balls-to-the-walls all the time. She told me she had trouble sleeping, for years. It’s possible that the only time she relaxed at all was when she was drinking. This explained a lot.

Our make-out sessions were passionate and intense, but even a week in we were fully clothed. It was just kissing and hugging. Whenever my hands would wander anywhere on her body I could feel the anxiety flow there. Touch is my “element.” When I touch anyone, I feel things inside the body. Like a sixth sense, I “see” what’s going on with the person. Many years later this natural gift made me a very successful massage therapist. At the time I didn’t reflect on it at all, I just knew what I knew. But I could tell something was up with her. We got to talking about it.

Turns out kissing and hugging is all she had ever done with a guy. The rumors about her being a “huge slut” were based on the fact that she had made out with a lot of guys at parties, but she told me she had never had a boyfriend and had never done anything sexual with anyone. In fact, she said, “I’m actually terrified of men.” The reputation was a cover, a magic spell to ward people off. I smiled, laughed, and said, “I get it.”

She then told me about her night terrors. I asked, “What is it you are afraid of?” She said, “I wake up in the middle of the night terrified that I am going to die unexpectedly.” I said I thought that was strange for a person so young, and she replied, “It started when I was eight.” That intrigued me, so I asked more questions. She said, “Well, there was this older man who lived alone in our neighborhood, retired. He had a nice house and a swimming pool, and all summer long all the girls from the neighborhood would hang out there all day. Our parents were fine with it. He was really nice and didn’t mind. We had a lot of fun there. But then one night he died unexpectedly in his sleep. That’s when I began to wake up in the middle of the night afraid that God would take me too. I would run to my parents’ room and climb into bed with them — that’s the only way I could sleep. Until one day Dad said I was too big to sleep with them anymore, and since then nights have been dark, cold, and lonely.”

As this story sank in I had one more question. “Did anything weird or inappropriate happen with the neighbor?” I asked. “Not that I can remember…” she trailed off. “But of all the girls that hung out at his house, I think I had the most close and special relationship with him.” I took a deep breath and decided to leave it there.

It turns out that I was the first guy she ever felt safe with. There was something about the way I listened, the way I touched her, and the way I articulated my own emotions that put her at ease in my presence. And now I understood that fate had brought us together so we could walk through our anxieties together. I sensed that we stood at a threshold.

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Swept Away

Returning to that first fateful night after the show: the next thing I remember after making out in the bathrooms is riding in the back of someone’s car. Shelly and I continued to kiss and hug. I was surprised by the thickness of her waist and the way my hands and arms sank into her when I squeezed, but I liked it. She was a very good kisser. We weren’t saying much, as I was still pretty roasted. The next thing I remember was rolling around on a bed in a back room at some house I had never been to, fully clothed, but very wrapped up in each other. We started talking, although I have no idea what about.

The next night, Saturday, I was aglow with anticipation of another party that she had planned with her closest friends. I remember arriving together and being greeted with inquisitive looks. As soon as I got there someone handed me a beer. There were a lot of people, although the house was small. I was introduced to several people whose names I already knew and who probably already knew mine, but the formality of it cemented the fact that I was with her. And that turned out to be a very big deal. She knew virtually everybody at our school (her father still taught there — more about that later) and she seemed to have many friends. Suddenly I found myself conversing with a bunch of seniors — well-known popular people — and they were curious about me.

I had walked in the door shy and inhibited. One or two beers later a complete transformation occurred. I vaguely knew that one of the signs of alcoholism is a radical change in personality when drinking, but I wasn’t reflecting on it at the time. What I felt was the crushing weight of self-conscious inhibition that had tormented me since being assaulted by Walt was suddenly lifted. I was free: unafraid and exuberant to be the person I had been in sixth grade. I was funny. I was zany. I found I could converse with people, and I loved to hear one after another say, “Wow, I had no idea you were such a fun/interesting person!” It was amazing. Obviously, I wanted more. I also experienced a curious craving for more beer. It was the first time (but not, certainly, the last) that I found myself drinking uncontrollably until there was no more to be had. This became the pattern for how I behaved at high school parties from then on. I realized that being with Shelly was like having a key to the center of the social scene of the drama crowd. It was amazing.

It was the morning after this party that my mom got the phone call. As we puzzled over Cleo’s dire warnings my mom asked me where I thought this might be going. I told her we had simply made out a couple of times, it was casual and I had no reason to think it would lead to anything serious. My mom expressed some concern that Shelly was older than me and already eighteen. I said I knew what I was doing and would be fine. (I didn’t and I wouldn’t, as you will see.)

A couple days later I found myself riding in a car with a guy named Tom. He was a very prominent senior in the drama crowd, sort of the male equivalent of Shelly in terms of his knowledge and influence. Don’t ask me how I got there, he was just giving me a ride to another party or something. It was the first time we had ever spoken, and I will never forget the things he said. He seemed to know Shelly very well, and commented that people thought us getting together was very odd. He said, “Everyone thinks it will last three weeks, tops.” Clearly we were the subject of much gossip and speculation and that thrilled me. He said, “You’re new to the party scene, aren’t you?” I affirmed that and added, “I really don’t have any experience with women, either.” He turned to me and said, “Well, stick with Shelly and you will get very experienced very fast.” So that was the gig: I would be her plaything for a couple of weeks and finally get my wings. I didn’t mind the thought.

It turns out that Tom didn’t know Shelly as well as he thought he did.

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What I knew of Shelly

I need to fill you in on what I knew of Shelly before that fateful night when we got together at a cast party. I mentioned that it came out of nowhere. Nothing in my story up to this point foreshadows it, and absolutely no one at the time would have pictured the two of us together. And yet there was a certain kind of inevitability to it, which became apparent to the two of us only gradually.

I first met Shelly when I was in eighth grade when we were in a speech and drama class together. She was in ninth grade, as was the majority of students in that elective. A part of me loved the course because it was so interactive. We did improvisational exercises, script reading, speeches, and so forth. I was painfully shy at that point, although I would have thrived on it in elementary school. Truth is, the abuse from my stepfather had really taken a toll on me socially. My social blossoming in the band room had yet to take place, and I felt a bit intimidated by the older kids in the class. But it was fun. Shelly and I got along just fine. She was very extraverted, joking and laughing all the time. She loved being the center of attention, and she was hilarious. She was five foot four with long blond hair, thick and straight. Her face was pretty enough but her ample Macedonian nose made her brown eyes look smaller. None of that mattered when she talked, because her voice and facial expressions were animated and fascinating. She could easily capture the attention of a room full of people.

One day in class a group of the ninth-grade boys began making jokes about her breasts, which of course everyone knew were the largest in the whole school. It was her claim to fame, and she didn’t seem shy about it. Although she was laughing it off and coming up with snarky retorts, I sensed she was beginning to get uncomfortable. I suddenly found myself telling the guys in a stern voice to knock it the hell off and leave her alone. They were shocked at my sudden intrusion, but they sheepishly complied. She acted like it was no big deal and she had the whole situation under control, but after the guys turned away she threw me a glance. There was a lot of information in that glance: surprise, gratitude, and curiosity all mixed together. One of my older sisters was an early developer (fifth grade) and back in those days men made all sorts of ignorant assumptions on that basis. I remember my sister crying at the way she was treated by boys and men of all ages, including sexual assault. That must be where my sudden courage originated. I felt empathy and indignation.

After that we conversed sometimes in class, and had fun doing improv together. I loved it when she laughed at my jokes. But that was our entire relationship: one semester of middle school getting to know each other a tiny little bit. In high school we would see each other around, but we never talked. She was very wrapped up in choir, drama, and musical theater. She had an amazing singing voice and was the strongest soprano in our high school. She often accompanied the choir on the piano. The two of us had been involved in two musical theater productions prior to that spring, where she now played the part of Aunt Eller in Oklahoma! while I played the piano in the orchestra pit. It was over the course of the many rehearsals where I was providing the musical accompaniment that we began to feel each other’s presence more and more.

Everyone in our school knew who both of us were, since she stood out in voice and stage work, I in music. But she being the extravert and me being the nerd, no one would have imagined us dating, including me. Especially with her being a year-and-a-half older. And when I say she was an extravert, I mean she was a true drama queen: president of the Thespians club, organizer of cast parties, godmother to the cast, locus of attention, and the life of every party. If you wanted to know any gossip, just ask her. If you were wondering where the next party was going to be, ask her. She cared about how everyone was doing, and they went to her for advice. She was also a straight-A student and was ambitious about her future: really a remarkable person, frankly. This is all I knew of her prior to that fateful night, except for one other detail.

I said she was the center of attention and the life of the party. Well she definitely did like to party. By that I mean drink. And make out with boys. Actually, she had a reputation. Maybe it started with the anatomical features that evoked assumptions about her proclivities, especially when she made the most of opportunities for humor with her Mae West impressions and bawdy jokes. She didn’t seem to mind that everyone considered her “the biggest slut at our high school.” She took it in stride, seemed to enjoy the notoriety. Perhaps that was why I wasn’t entirely surprised to find myself making out with her that night. My number had come up, I assumed. It was just my turn, perhaps.

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My Mom Gets an Unexpected Phone Call

“I got a very strange phone call this morning,” my mom said. It was approaching noon Sunday, the 9th of April, 1978. I will always remember it. I was hungover from a cast party the night before, the first time I had ever gotten drunk two nights in a row. I asked her to tell me about the “strange” phone call, and she began, “Well, it was Shelly1 Staival’s mom, Cleo. I haven’t heard from her in a long time, although we know each other quite well since we were in Faculty Wives2 together for years. After some friendly small talk I asked to what I owed the pleasure of her call. Her tone suddenly became very urgent and she said, ‘Carolyn, what are we going to do about the kids?'” My mom told me that confused her: what about the kids? Cleo said, “We have to do something. I heard they are dating. We have to do something to stop them.” My mom got a bit flummoxed and sputtered back, “Well, I don’t know what you have in mind. Kirk told me all about it. It seems to me they are old enough now that if they decide to date each other there’s nothing we can do about it.” Cleo took a deep breath and replied, “Well, we can’t just let that happen. Your son is so gifted and has such a bright future ahead of him — and I know my daughter. She is so intense she will consume him, deflect him from his goals and destroy his life.”

We sat there in silence for a few moments as we processed the implications. Shelly’s mom, whom I hadn’t met, sounded crazy to me. And how antiquated the notion of controlling your teenage children’s dating choices was! I was sixteen, soon to be seventeen, and Shelly had already been eighteen for a few months. We most certainly would continue dating if that’s what we wanted. But I owe the reader an explanation as this is all coming out of nowhere.

What happened was that on the previous Friday evening after opening night of the Spring Musical, I was invited to go to a cast party. I honestly don’t remember who I got a ride with, but it was at a little “country club” just outside of town. I use the term “country club” cautiously, as it was merely an acre of land surrounded by a chain link fence. There was a pool, a covered picnic area, and a couple of tennis courts. The rest was a large grassy field for whatever. We had been members when I was growing up: I took swimming lessons there when I was about seven. I had never been there after dark, so the experience of the cast party was surreal. I don’t think we even had permission to be there, but somebody obviously had a key to the gate. There was beer, of which I happily consumed several cans, and I even took a few puffs of a joint that was being passed around. This was only the second time I had tried smoking. Let me tell you, the beer and the pot combined hit me hard. I remember being in a highly altered state, just wandering around talking to people, then becoming very quiet. When the chaos and shenanigans started overwhelming my senses, I wandered off to the pool facility where there was a large restroom and changing area. There were a few people milling about in there talking and laughing, but I just retreated to a nearby wall and leaned against the cool cinderblocks, zoning out.

Suddenly Shelly was standing in front of me, looking directly into my face as if trying to solve a puzzle. Without a word she stepped forward, put her arms around my shoulders and planted a sweet, wet kiss on my lips. The similarity with what Kelly had done four-and-a-half years earlier is striking, and my response was the same. Which is to say I received the kiss passively, in shock. But I liked it. She pulled back, intently surveying my expression for any kind of feedback. I looked past her, over her shoulder and, as if speaking to someone else, said in my best Spock voice, “Captain! I appear to be receiving a curious labial stimulus.”

Her jaw dropped, then she burst into laughter. She moved in a second time, took me in her arms, and we began “making out” for the first time. The first time for us, the first time for me, but certainly not the first time for her. So now I need to give you some background on who Shelly was, at least as far as I knew her up to that point.

  1. My wife Sarah [real name], whose advice I trust, has told me I need to make up fake names from here on out, so Shelly and Cleo Staival are not their real names. ↩︎
  2. Back in the early 1960s, when most of the high school teachers were men, there was actually an organization called Faculty Wives where the spouses of faculty met together socially. Shelly and my parents already knew each other when we were born. ↩︎
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A New Religion

I grew up in a big Catholic family with twenty-three first cousins but by the time I was in eighth grade half my aunts and uncles were divorced. My mom remarried and my stepfather, who was an ordained Methodist minister, turned out to be psycho. My mom threw him out of our house soon after my thirteenth birthday, but the two-year marriage had left me quite damaged. (I am summarizing for people who might not have read my synoptic “From Boom to Bust” thread.) I discovered a new worldview in the book, Dune, and found myself embracing humanism. I have talked about reading a lot of sci-fi and philosophy. What I haven’t mentioned much is the television show Star Trek.

Star Trek was airing in prime time when I was six and seven years old. I mentioned sitting with my dad in the big easy chair watching it with him, being terrified yet fascinated. By the time I was thirteen the show was in syndication. We would get home from school and be on our own for several hours before my mom got home from work. I would watch an episode of Star Trek almost every day. Eventually I had seen every episode multiple times. Two of my best friends were also into it: Chuck and Alan. (Chuck and I started out in beginning band together in eighth grade, having been friends since kindergarten. Alan was the airplane nerd from the Bay Area whose mother was the school librarian.) Chuck and I were obsessed with the show. We bought and read books about it, including the making of the series and the science upon which it was based. Chuck’s dad was an architect and we both had taken drafting in eighth grade. We set about designing our own starships, drawing up detailed floor plans and doing our best to sketch the shapes of the ships. We got into philosophical arguments about specific episodes (we would rarely agree on anything).

We were all somewhat secretive about it. You have to understand: back in those days Star Trek was just this campy, weird show that had been on for only two seasons. The entirety of the Star Trek “universe” was just some re-runs on afternoon TV. People who were really into it were considered weird nerds. It wasn’t something to brag about. But actually it was a bold and innovative concept — with the potential to become a new religion. Instead of ancient myths involving warring tribes in the Middle East, we are given a mythical future, wherein mankind has overcome our barbaric past by means of science and reason. On the bridge of the Enterprise we have, in addition to the All American Hero captain Kirk, an African woman, a Russian, an Asian, and an Alien working side by side. In 1967, in the middle of the war in Vietnam and the nuclear standoff with the USSR, this was a shocking vision of the future — almost too much to hope for. I grew up doing bomb drills in school. We all figured we might be wiped out in an atomic holocaust at any moment. Star Trek offered a vision of hope for the human future. It wasn’t mere entertainment: it was philosophical speculation of the best kind.

One day in high school this guy who had recently moved to our town from the Bay Area appeared on campus wearing a Star Fleet shirt and Vulcan ears. Everybody was talking about it and laughing. “Have you seen ‘Spock’ yet?” I had to admit he looked pretty good: he even had the Starfleet standard haircut — in the seventies when everyone was looking scrappy, or had feathered hair. It turns out my friend Alan was hanging out with him. Alan and I never hung out at school together. I would go to his house for sleep-overs and such, but I don’t think anyone really knew we were friends. I’m not sure why, but it felt like something I wanted to keep secret. Anyway, he called me one day and asked if I wanted to go to Sacramento to a Star Trek meeting. I had no idea there were such things, but I said yes. The three of us, Alan, “Spock” and I carpooled over to a lecture hall at Sac State where the meeting was held. There were mostly grownups there. I was considered pretty weird by most of the students at my high school, but even I was saying to myself, “Man, these people are really nerdy.” And the atmosphere! It was very serious, as if we were in church. There was mention of Star Trek conventions, which sounded amazing. But the room got very quiet when someone who had recently returned from a meeting with an affiliated Star Trek club in Los Angeles gave us all an electrifying update. There were talks — just talks at this point — about the potential for a Star Trek movie. Word was that most of the original cast had signed on to the idea, and there was funding and studio interest as well. It was likely to be a full-fledged feature film! Holy cow! I sensed the tension mounting in the room as people were afraid to hope yet were exuberant at the thought of it. You may be laughing now, but seriously, for Star Trek aficionados it was a first glimmering of the glorious future to come in the following decades.

My love of Star Trek was a secret I shared with just two special friends, but perhaps it showed up with my band friends whenever I rolled out my Spock impression. While Captain Kirk resonated with my heart, especially reminding me of myself in elementary school, Spock represented what I was striving to become during my teen years. Having emerged from puberty being prone to emotional hysteria, Spock’s disciplined dedication to the principles of logic captured my own struggle to use my awakening mind to override my turbulent emotions. I amused myself endlessly trying to craft Spock-ish phraseology. I remember one time during band rehearsal when Tana turned to me and said, “Ooh, I love that harmony.” I responded with, “I agree: the nodal interference in the overlapping wave forms produced by the oscillating columns of air does produce an effect that is most pleasing to the ear.” She looked at me like I was nuts, then burst into laughter.

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Intellectual Awakening

All through my childhood I enjoyed prowling around my parents’ tall bookcase where the encyclopedias were kept, along with a wide variety of books old and new. I was fascinated by the old books particularly, which my mom had inherited from her favorite aunt after whom she was named. Aunt Carolyn had lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her husband for many years and had collected Indian pottery and rugs, which we also had. The dusty old books were typical of the 1930s, with philosophy, poetry, mythology, fiction and non-fiction titles. I couldn’t actually read these books, but I would flip through them looking at pictures, savoring the old bindings and the musty smell. I was infatuated. One day when I was twelve I picked out one with an intriguing title: The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant. I opened it to the first page and began reading. I’ve mentioned that I was dyslexic. Reading was a real chore for me, and I had never actually read any book all the way through except Hardy Boys mysteries. I had read every one of them in my elementary school library, beginning in third grade. But I had never been able to tough it out through any adult books. Until now. I was strangely able not only to follow the stories about the old philosophers, but was somehow able to comprehend the ideas they grappled with. My mind lit up like a Christmas tree and I was hooked. I just kept reading and reading as a sense of euphoria came over me. My mind was unlocked. In fact, I was puzzled why they seemed to think these philosophical ideas were so difficult. It seemed to me there was a lot of unnecessary struggle over rather easy problems. I had already contemplated the nature of reality and “truth”, the limitations of logic, the importance of symbols and semantics — I just hadn’t realized there was a discipline that had given names to these things and grappled with them. I had found my people.

Book in hand I marched into the kitchen to see my mom. “Mom! I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up. I’m going to be a philosopher!” Her smile faded and her face took on a look of chagrined pity. “Oh, Honey, there aren’t any philosophers anymore.” I guess I knew what she meant: nobody is walking around in a toga with a laurel wreath on their head, whiling away the hours engaging in Socratic dialogue about the meaning of the word “Justice”. Now we only have career choices like Physicist, Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer. I was crestfallen. The wind had come completely out of my sails, and I made one of the biggest mistakes of my entire life.

I believed her.

I still haven’t forgiven myself for this blunder, even though I know I should. I was only twelve. My mom had a degree from Berkeley. I took what she said on authority. I didn’t know then that taking things on authority was what kept Europe in the Dark Ages for centuries. If only I had asked one of my teachers about it. They would surely have told me that every university offers courses in philosophy, often as a requirement for graduation. Who do you suppose teaches those courses? You can major in it. The world is full of philosophers, some who embrace the label, some who avoid it. At that time I surrendered to the impossibility of doing the one thing that really inspired me, but resolved that whatever I found myself doing after that, I would do it philosophically. I would be a philosopher in secret.

When I turned thirteen my step-mother gave me a book I had never heard of. No one else I knew had ever heard of it either, perhaps because it had only been published nine years earlier. Everyone knows it now: Dune, by Frank Herbert. As I held it and looked at the intriguing cover graphics I felt the weight of it in my hand. I flipped through it: no pictures, only small print. And it was thick. What on earth? She couldn’t possibly think I could read such a tome. She said, “I think you might like it: the main character is your age.” So I began the slog–dictionary at my side. It was slow going, but she was right. I very much saw myself in the character Paul Atreides. I quickly became obsessed with the story, which dealt with topics like arid land ecology, power politics, and deep philosophies regarding artificial intelligence and selective breeding (of humans!). It became my new bible. I had, I just now remember, already managed to read The Bible cover to cover: perhaps in another thread I will explain how and why, and what I really thought of it. This was so much better though, because it was intellectually stimulating and coherent. On the cover of the book were quotes from book reviews, one of which compared it to The Lord of the Rings. That sounded intriguing, so after I finished Dune (it took the better part of a year), I began reading Tolkein. Oh my. By the time I got through high school I had managed to read both trilogies about eight times. I could only read a dozen or two pages at a time, mostly at bed time, with classical music playing on my cassette recorder. Then I would fall asleep.

In my earlier thread (Boom to Bust) I talked about discovering that I could easily get top grades just by showing up to class and paying attention. I wasn’t good at finishing homework, but I would do enough of it to convince myself that I understood the subject. In high school all the cool kids were taking college prep courses, so I followed suit. I was a top student in just about every class. So when my schedule became completely full of music, including before and after school and during lunch as well, I found myself making a cup of instant coffee at ten-thirty or eleven at night to begin working on my chemistry or physics homework. I would finish at midnight or one AM, set the alarm for five-thirty, and do it all again. During my senior year I got sick with walking pneumonia, as one might expect, but it wasn’t diagnosed until after I graduated. But I had no trouble with motivation because my brain was on fire. Even with the grueling schedule, I continued reading on my own in philosophy, mathematics, linguistics, and history. I always had a book with me, which I would pull out whenever there was a pause in a rehearsal or before the start of class. In algebra and geometry there was usually time in class for working on the homework assignment. I would would finish it very quickly, then pull out my book! I remember at a musical theater rehearsal (I was the pianist) whenever we stopped for the director to re-block a scene, I pulled out a book on calculus. Calculus was not offered at our high school, but some of the more advanced kids commuted to the university to take it. Someone saw what I was reading and asked what it was for. I said, “It’s interesting, I want to learn it.” They gave me a weird look and said, “Okay.” Looking back, I think I might have been compensating for a sense of inferiority because I had gotten a late start in taking academics seriously. I wasn’t able to actually take a calculus class until my first year of college, but I did well because I had already familiarized myself with the subject during rehearsals for “Gypsy.”

This all left little time for philosophical reading, but I found time during breaks from school. I liked Descartes, Spinoza, Plato, and Emerson. But I was particularly enamored of two books that I found on the bookshelf at home. One was Out of My Later Years, a collection of essays by Albert Einstein, and the other was Pragmatism by William James. Both sat well with me, raised very few objections. I had finally found a way to harness the madness inside of me and make peace with my weirdness.

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From Boom to Bust (Part 10/10)

This thread was only supposed to be a handful of posts but it turns out my life has been pretty complicated. As we get into my high school years the cans of worms that open up are too numerous for this thread, so I will unpack them in future threads. There will be a thread describing the awakening of my mind through reading philosophy, sci/fi and fantasy, which led to readings in mathematics and science, social psychology, and military history. There will be a thread on my involvement with music, how it saved my life and gave me an identity leading to endless opportunities. There will be yet another thread on how my alcoholism developed over a ten year period leading to a very hard bottom at the young age of twenty-three. Another thread will deal with my misbegotten relationship with an eighteen-year-old schoolmate that began when I was still sixteen, and how it contributed to my utterly disastrous early adulthood. And there will be a deep dive into my psychological problems, a many-headed hydra that still horrifies me. But for now, let me just tell a couple more stories and sketch out the logistics of how I emerged from childhood a member of Generation-X.

As the winner of the High Achievement music award I was given a scholarship to go to music camp. This was not a mountain retreat. It was held on the campus of a private university, hosted by the conservatory of music there. Kids came from all over the country. It was amazing. There was a junior music camp comprised of a pair of two-week sessions through the month of July, and a senior music camp that lasted the whole month, for older high school students. There was some kind of mix-up which, by the time the dust settled, resulted in my attending the month-long senior camp as a bassoonist. Many of my friends from junior high school were attending the junior camp, and I turned out to be the youngest student in the senior camp. There were sections for choir, band, orchestra, and a piano master class. As a budding pianist I was particularly in awe of the musicians in the piano master class who all seemed to be leagues ahead of me. One day I managed to find — unlocked — one of the practice rooms with a grand piano. I had recently purchased a copy of the Brahms piano sonata in F minor, so I settled down for a first run-through, sight reading, never having even heard it before. While I was still midway through the first movement there was a loud knock on the door. Oh no! I was not supposed to be using that piano as it was reserved for the master class students, and I was a mere bassoonist who had just turned fifteen. I sheepishly opened the door to see two of the guys from the master class. One had just finished high school and was going to attend UC Berkeley the following year. The other was from Las Cruces, New Mexico, who was about to start his senior year of high school. I had heard them both play: they were the best in the class. They together shouted, “Who are you?” I told them I was sorry to be using the room as I was just a lowly young bassoon player, and they replied, “Oh, no, you go ahead and keep playing. We were just wondering who it could be who had the chops to play the Brahms sonata so well. We know no one in the master class is playing it.” I told them I had just bought it and was trying to sight-read it. They were amazed to hear that, and told me I was going to have to hang out with them. After that they took me under their wings and at lunch they introduced me to the master class instructor, a world-famous concert pianist. I was euphoric. I ended up paling around with them all month, walking on a cloud. They told me, “Next year you have to sign up for the master class.” It turns out I did attend the master class two years later, but those details will have to wait for the music thread.

I was also embraced by some older orchestra musicians, one a brilliant violinist and pianist who later became a professional, another a clarinetist who was pretty obviously gay. One of their friends, an alumnus of the music camp who was now in college and also pretty queer, came to visit one day and the next thing I knew I was whizzing along in a car with them to go to a music store. It was strictly forbidden to leave campus except on supervised activities, so I was risking being sent home in shame if it were discovered, but I was too jazzed up by all the attention they were lavishing on me, telling me how talented I was and treating me like a king. The visitor and I got to talking about Rachmaninoff and being bisexual — it seemed a natural blend of subjects at the time. At the music store he bought me the score of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and said, “You better know this by the next time I see you.” I have never quite mastered it, frankly. Perhaps I wasn’t as good as they thought, but my self-esteem was rocketing upward at the time. And yes, even then I understood that this was grooming behavior, but I didn’t care. They treated me respectfully and I didn’t feel in any danger. I don’t think there was any.

My high school years were dominated by music. I had jazz combo (on piano) before school, symphonic band (bassoon) and marching band (tuba) during school. At lunch time the jazz big band rehearsed (baritone sax). Last period I had music theory. After school I went to the voice teacher’s studio to accompany piano lessons (paid), and on Saturdays I taught piano lessons at the local music store. In the evenings in the fall we had marching band practice for the Friday night football games, and in the spring time we had musical theater orchestra for the big spring musical production. I was busy. But my brain having awakened, I was also taking all the college prep courses, including chemistry, physics, Spanish, psychology, creative writing, rhetoric, etc. I was one of the top students by now. One day my creative writing instructor, a hip/cool veteran of the Vietnam conflict, asked me to stay after class. He inquired about what I planned to do for a living after high school. I said, “I’m kind of thinking composition.” I meant becoming a composer of music. I dreamed of writing movie scores while I improvised on the piano for hours at a time. But he thought I meant English composition and said, “Hmm, I wouldn’t recommend that path for most people, but I think you could actually succeed at it.” He entered my name in a national creative writing competition, but I freaked out and never submitted anything. Awkward! Then my chemistry teacher took me aside and said, “You know, this is a thankless profession and I wouldn’t wish it on an enemy, but you have a special gift. That presentation you did in class reminded me of your father. You could be a great high school chemistry teacher!” The next year my physics instructor took me aside and said basically the same thing, but for physics: “That presentation you did on diodes had everyone hanging on every word!” Finally, my band director asked me to sit down in his office during my senior year (I had never even set foot in his office before!). He asked me about my plans for the future, and by then I was planning on attending the University of California at Santa Barbara for chemical engineering (long story, see girlfriend thread coming soon). He said, “Oh, I thought for sure it would be music. And I would say, don’t even waste time going to college for it. You should head straight down to LA and start doing studio sessions. You’re already better than half of those guys. You know everything you need to know to get started.” Man! I was flummoxed. Too many choices for this neuro-divergent to possibly process. So I went to UCSB because I wanted to learn to surf.

When my older brother, Dan, graduated, he went to live with my Dad. That left just three of us at home. I enjoyed having my little sister in band with me my senior year — she played clarinet. My little brother learned the drum set and played in a punk metal band when he got to high school. As my own graduation approached my mom decided it was time to sell the old Victorian house I had lived in since birth and move ten miles away to the university town where she worked. The escrow closed before the end of the school year and I had to commute the ten miles to finish the last two weeks before graduation. It’s all a blur, but it pretty much ruined the end of my senior year for me. I wasn’t able to celebrate with my friends properly. I never even picked up my diploma. The graduation ceremony was pretty cool, though. There were nearly five hundred students in my senior class. Normally the entire symphonic band would sit on the football field endlessly playing Pomp and Circumstance while the students filed through to get their diplomas. This was a bummer for the dozens of seniors in band who would have preferred to be with family and friends. This year the jazz combo volunteered to play instead. There were only six of us — piano, bass, drums, guitar, saxophone and trumpet — so that freed everyone else up. We played it straight: pomp and circumstance in all it’s regal solemnity. But after a few choruses we mixed it up, doing a blues version, then back to straight. We did a country version, a rock version, and a jazz version too. The crowd loved it!

By the time I was in college my younger brother and sister alternated years living with my dad and I was starting to lose track of where everyone was at any given time. The childhood home was a thing of the past and we were scattering into our adult lives. My older three siblings are all classic Baby-Boomers in their general outlook on life. But I became much closer to my younger siblings who came to define for me the attitudes of Gen-X. We were essentially latch-key kids, on our own for the most part through high school. We each had to carve out a life for ourselves with very little parental guidance or support entering adulthood. All six of us meandered through our twenties, working hard just to survive. We all turned out very different, but we all made it. The older we get, the more we appreciate each other.

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