One thing I can say without reservation about Cle Elum back in the 1960’s is that it offered its students a world class education. I hope the same is true today.
Most of my teachers were examplary, but two in particular were real stinkers (in my personal opinion).
Grade School Crush
In grade school I had a non-sexual, non-hormonal crush on Mr. Whitney, kinda like the crush I had on DeForest Kelley later in life. It was Mr. Whitney’s personality and good looks that captured my attention, so much so that at one point, I tape recorded a message stating in no uncertain terms, ” I LOVE Mr. Whitney!”
Somehow, the tape recorder fell into Mr. Whitney’s hands, and I’m pretty sure he must have listened to it because, at one point he started to play it in class, but he turned it off at just the point where I was about to proclaim, “I LOVE MR. WHITNEY!”
I think his playing it up to that point was his way of telling me (without telling me) that I needed to be careful what I put on a tape recorder that just anyone could get hold of. I remember sweating bullets of anxiety when he turned that thing on and started playing it. I was apoplectic right up until he turned it off!
The Terrible Teachers
I don’t remember if we had Home Ec in grade school or in junior high, but I do remember the teacher’s name: Elaine McCoy. I remember because she was the worst teacher I ever experienced in my lifetime. (Again, this may be uniquely my personal opinion. I have no idea what others thought, or think, of their time under her “guidance.”)
The worst thing she ever did (at least to me) was to insist that I make, and then model for the entire school, a dress that she forced me to put together in her class.
I was an overweight teenager (not to mention transgender!) and very conscious of being so. She told all us girls to get a Simplicity pattern that we liked and bring it to school so we could put it together and model it during an upcoming school assembly.
Back in my day, Simplicity patterns were only available up to about size 14 or perhaps 16. And I was an 18, just barely.
I told her Simplicity didn’t make patterns in my size, figuring that would take me off the hook (I was more the Shop type than the Home Ec from Day One), but she said, “Just bring in the largest one you can find and we’ll adapt it, we’ll make it fit you.”
Then I said, “I don’t like any of the patterns, so I don’t have a favorite.”
She countered with, “Then just pick one.”
I said, “I don’t want to have to model it in front of the whole school.”
She said, “You don’t have a choice. Everyone has to do it. Unless you want to flunk Home Ec, you will, too.”
So, I dutifully put a pattern together but it fit so snugly — even with Mrs. McCoy’s alterations — that I felt I looked like the hippo in a tutu in that Walt Disney movie. I was apoplectic, but I was determined to get through this trial by fire MY WAY.
The day of the school assembly, I vamped the modeling, figuring I’d elicit uproarious laughter rather than suffer through hearing stifled snickers and snorts. If I was going to appear, I was going to do it my way.
So I turned my “momentary appearance across the catwalk” into a freaking comedy act.
Mrs. McCoy was livid as I came from the assembly. She threatened to flunk me. I said, “I don’t care. You made me wear something I hate and look like crap in, and I wasn’t about to do it your way.” And I walked out, went home, and cried.
She didn’t flunk me. But she should have been fired for being such a clueless martinet. (My opinion.)
Another Loser Teacher — Mr. Olson
Another loser teacher was Mr.Olson, a Mormon with five sons who always got too close and invaded my personal space while looking intently at my breasts and nearly salivating, it seemed to me. He told me I had just four options as a female: wife, mother, teacher, or nurse. Yeah, hump that, Buster! He also almost got me to sign up for Vietnam, saying it was our duty as American citizens to fight for our country. (Of course, I would have been a nurse in Vietnam, I’m sure he figured.)
My Greatest Teachers in School
Mrs. Alpha Rossetti
Among my best teachers in school were Mrs. Alpha Rossetti (she subscribed to two years of THE WRITER magazine for me to help me become an even better writer than she already knew me to be), Mr. Walter Dobbs (who continued to encourage me to write and NOT to go to college for journalism “because you’re an original like Mark Twain and college will teach you to write like everybody else. You don’t want that!”), and Mr. Oleson, the Drama teacher, who was one of the best actors I ever met. (More about Mrs. Rossetti and Mr. Dobbs in subsequent posts.)
Mr. Oleson encouraged me to go to Britain to perfect my acting skills at Stratford on Avon. “You have the acting chops to succeed there!”
Me?! Go to England?
That was a bridge too far for me. And I really wanted to become a writer more than I wanted to become an actor. But I deeply and dearly apprecated his encouragement. He made me feel capable of pretty much anything I set my mind to.
Mr Oleson, I believe, directed the high school plays I appeared in (The Curious Savage, The Wall to Wall War, and Noel Coward’s Hay Fever, which is an adult comedy, as you may be able to discern from its title!)
THAT TIME I WAS SHOT IN THE BACK
While rehearsing for THE WALL TO WALL WAR, we had on hand (as one of the props) an actual handgun that one of the actors used to hold the rest of us actors “hostage” during the play. We also had blanks for the gun, but no one explained to us how dangerous (and potentially lethal) they were.
So, one day I arrived for rehearsal, and one of the other actors came up behind me, put the pistol to my back (fortunately NOT directly on my spine) and pulled the trigger. I fell forward and down onto my knees as a searing pain scorched my back. It was a cold day so I was wearing about three layers of clothing, including a puffy jacket, and although the blank blasted through all three layers, I think there was enough buffer between the barrel and my skin to shield me from even worse damage.
Of course, the shooter was apoplectic. He had no idea that a blank could do such damage. And then he confided to me, “Oh, my gosh! Until you came by, I was planning to pretend to shoot myself in the head!”
So, my injury kept that kid alive. (And I’m super glad he didn’t elect to shoot ME in the head!)
When I went home that night, I walked in the door and told Mom I had been shot. She took that with a grain of salt until I said, “Take a look at my jacket. See the hole? Take a look at my shirt. See the hole? Take a look at my undershirt. See the hole?” Then I told her the entire story and she just about croaked. But she, too, was very happy that the kid had shot me instead of himself as a joke!
My back ached for three months afterward. I’m grateful it finally stopped. I wonder if I have a scar back there…
BIKE TREK TO STAR TREK SET THWARTED
Mr. Dobbs volunteered to be our biker buddy and chaperone when several Star Trek fans and I received an open invitation to visit the Star Trek set if we rode our bikes from Washington State to Los Angeles to meet them as we were planning to do. We were all excited about the trip right up until Mom put the kibosh on the idea and forbade us to go. (Wise mom, but I thought she was mean!!!) But I eventually ended up moving to Hollywood and becoming “family” (for all intents and purposes) to DeForest and Carolyn Kelley, so my dream of meeting him and the rest of the cast came true anyway! So there! And Mom and Dad finally met De and Carolyn and adored them, too,
Mr. Dobbs is also the one who insisted that I send my article about meeting DeForest Kelley at the Wenatchee Apple Blosson Festival to Paramount for De to read. When I did that, De sent it to a NY Magazine (TV Star Parade), and they published it word-for-word. So that happened in Cle Elum, one of my earliest triumphs and the one that set me on the trajectory to eventually become a true friend and helpmate to the Kelleys during their greatest time of need.
THE TREK TO GET THE MAGAZINE ARTICLE
When the magazine issue that held my article arrived in Cle Elum, the lady at the drug store that carried it called the principal of the school to let him know it had arrived. He told Mr. Dobbs, who interrupted our class to tell me to “go get your article!”
It was January and icy cold outside. I made my way gingerly to the drug store, bought six copies, and then started back. As I approached the school, I could see that Mr. Dobbs and the whole class were lined up against the windows watching my progress … at which time my feet almost went out from under me and I literally ice-skated my way out of spreading myself across the sidewalk with my skirt above my head!
What a way to make an impression! I got back unscathed and four of the six copies were bought from me immediately so I could inscribe them to my classmates and autograph them.
What a day!
DRUG STORE FAUX PAS
And this is probably the best place to describe the time I inadvertently (and just momentarily) “ripped off” a TV Guide from the same drug store.
I went in there one day to look around. (The Cle Elum drug store was the best place in town to buy magazines at the time.) While I was in there, I tucked a copy of the current TV Guide (they were less than half the size they are these days) under my armpit while I looked around, intending to buy it and anything else I decided to get at the same time.
But when the time came to leave, I hadn’t found anything else to get and the TV Guide in my armpit was a distant memory, so I walked out of the drug store and headed down the sidewalk. The drug store owner saw me go, knew I hadn’t intended to rip her off, and just watched me proceed down the sidewalk.
Well! When I discovered the TV Guide under my arm, I fairly jumped off the sidewalk, spun around, and came charging back toward the drug store in my haste to pay for it. I saw the owner in the window laughing.
When I walked back in, she said, “I knew you’d be back!”
So, see? Small town living DOES have its perks, after all. They all knew me well enough to know there is no way I would have consciously ripped them off!
FUNNY MEMORIES OF CLASSROOM FAUX PAS
I wonder how many of my classmates remember THIS embarrassing thing that I did? I have certainly never forgotten it!
In Mr. Millam’s biology class, we all sat on a wooden riser. My spot was on the highest tier back against the wall.. Millam was a no-nonsense guy. I never saw him smile that I can recall. Not even when THIS happened.
I had bought a box of tiny jaw breakers and brought them to class. (We were not allowed to eat in class.) But those tiny jaw breakers were calling my name, so eventually I opened up one end of the box and shook a small handful into the palm of my hand and, when he wasn’t looking, put them into my mouth. Awwww….delicious!
That’s when the box of tiny jaw breakers somehow got dislodged. With the box now open, those dozens or scores or hundreds of tiny jawbreakers cascaded onto the highest tier of the wooden bleachers and plop, plop, plopped their way almost to a halt before reaching the edge of the tier and then plop,plop, plopped to the next tier, and so on and so on, for what felt like several lifetimes to me as they made their way down about four flights of tiers.
Except for the cacophany of the eternally descending jawbreakers and a few snickers from the peanut gallery, it became deathly quiet in Mr. Millam’s class!
As the last of the escapees came to a final halt, Mr. illan inquired, “Awright…who did that?”
Well, the evidence was right there in front of God and everybody: there was a trail of tiny jawbreakers that led directly to the top tier and my feet.
Busted!
THEN THERE WAS MR. Shawen (PRONOUNCED SHAWN)
Mr. Shawen was a religious man. That much is certain. (Most of Cle Elum was Catholic at the time, so his devotion to the Divine was no surprise to any of us.)
And he thought he was a very clever man. (And he probably was.) So, whenever some student would grouse using the terms, “Jeez!” or “Cheese!”or “Shoot!” Mr. Shawen would say, “I know what you really want to say there. I know what you’re really meaning to convey.” It was an attempt to shame pretty shameless kids, and it never worked very well.
Another of his frequent pronouncements, whenever a book or something would fall, was, “Leave it there and it won’t fall again.”
Mr. Millam could have used that line when I dropped all those tiny jawbreakers! But of course in that case, he would have had to wait a very long time to be able to proclaim it! HA HA HA HA HA!
