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EVERYBODY’S DANISH – A NEW ADVENTURE
By fred | August 26, 2009
It was 62 years ago since I graduated from L. A. Poly High – yet my memories of those days is so clear. I think it was because attending Poly ripped a young, somewhat sheltered kid out of that protected existance and made him stand on my own two feet.
All of a sudden, I had to learn how to select my own classes, find friends in this mass of kids, learn belatedly, how to mix with a larger group of those my age or older. So much to learn so far behind socially than others that were so far ahead socially in public education. A private junior high such as Trinity Lutheran may have you ahead in your studies, but socially you were way, way back in the pack.
In three years the students, the teachers, the coaches at Poly High took a young 14 year old, molded him, pushed him, shoved him ahead, gave him confidence, the kids elected and honored him as a team co-captain, as a senior class president. But mostly my fellow students gave me confidence to go into the world with the confidence you need to succeed, the self-confidence that I was sadly lacking until I got to Poly High.
If anyone wonders why I cling to, cherish my friends of those distant years, it is the debt I owe so many for what they did for me, how they in those three years enriched my life by giving me that confidence.
That Poly also gave me, as of this date 59 wonderful years with the lady of my dreams, my beloved Sally – and a brother in law in Jack Anderson that was likely more of a brother to me than a real blood brother could have been.
Poly High to me was a magical school – those brothers and sisters of those magical days will be friends until they put me in a box – hopefully later, not sooner.
Read on – Fred
CHAPTER (THE MELTING POT THAT WAS POLY HIGH – THREE MAGICAL YEARS!)
A NEW ADVENTURE
It is difficult to describe the first morning at John H. Francis Polytechnic High School. I was fourteen years old – this was a deep dark secret, something that I was not by any means proud of. For some reason my Mother had started me in school early and that transected my whole school life. Upon graduation from Poly I would be one of the youngest members of my senior class.
This deep dark secret was ‘blasted’ out to the male student-body by the varsity football coach, Voyle Brennen. When I went to the coaches office to sign up for football, he looked at my record and said, out loud, much to loud in my opinion, “Fred, you can’t get insurance until you are fifteen, you can’t play in any games unless you are insured.” Here I was a six foot, two inches tall giant compared to many of the kids standing in line, almost two hundred pounds, without an ounce of fat. I could beat any one I knew in a foot race, and I can’t play? I remember heading for the door, with my head down, almost in tears.
I think the coach had second thoughts, because he said, “Wait a minute, your birthday is October 30th only a couple months away so you can come out for practice, anyway.” Of course, the ‘cat was out of the bag’ then and I was the ‘baby’ a big one, but still the ‘baby’ to my newfound buddies.
I am getting ahead of myself – let’s get back to the beginning, my first day at John H. Francis Polytechnic High School.
The closest streetcar stopped a block away, it was packed with students. Most were with friends from their former junior high school, Berendo. There certainly was no way you could miss Poly High, all you had to do was follow the crowd.
All the students from the public junior high, Berendo were not daunted by the size of the campus. Berendo was a large school and this was no big deal. It sure as hell was to me. The school I came from, Trinity Lutheran, with its four only classrooms was a tiny peanut compared to what I was looking at here.
The front was a large grass area, large enough for several thousand students to assemble. I found out later that this was the case for some flag raising ceremonies. To the left was the huge auditorium and facing the lawn and flagpole was the Administration building. Two large, two story wings, were attached to the administration building. In the back, if you glanced behind the building, was a big open space, then several more two-story buildings, consisting of the science building, shops, language, athletic building and football and track field area, on the right was low-slung building which was the cafeteria.
How in the heck am I ever going to figure all this out, I thought. I had been told that classes at Poly were like other kids had at Berendo. Each period you move to another room, for another subject. So you were expected to know where the next class was and get there right away. You are not given much time.
This was a completely different system than what I was used to at the private junior high, Trinity. There, the same teacher taught all subjects, religion, math, history, everything. You stayed on one room the entire day. The only time you left that room was for a recess or lunch break, or to go home, period! They did not have one teacher, specializing in one subject, like they had here at Poly. It was a little scary for a guy at the age of fourteen going into this new system, called public education.
Another thing that was somewhat overwhelming was the hundreds of students. Trinity had probably a maximum of a hundred and fifty students. The melting pot that was Poly High, I found out later had well over two thousand, three hundred boys and girls.
I was very interested in the ‘dress code.’ This is a very important subject to a new guy. I was watching very carefully what the returning ‘lettermen’ were wearing, guys that seemed to know their way around. I especially watched those cool looking ‘lettermen’ with those gorgeous, delectable girls hanging on their arms. The guys ‘going steady’ with anything that beautiful were the hardest study.
What influenced me, motivated me in sports was the Poly girls, I truly thought that they were turned on by an athlete. I saw Ray Lopez, a handsome bastard if there ever was one and several others like Bobby Lampshire with Beverly Groves a gorgeous lady – (60 years later she – AND – Beverly’s daughter, another beauty are still dear friends of mine) all with letterman’s sweaters on, the huge Poly P with the football on it – and – on the arms of each of the letterman I saw were some of the most beautiful, lip smacking, hot, lovely girls I had ever seen. Sorry Beverly – have to tell it like it was you were, hey still are one gorgeous doll.
Years later I was told that I did not have play football – I could have just asked for a date. Didn’t know that then, football and winning that letter, having that letterman’s sweater, that was goal one, in my mind I knew that was a way to get they girl of my dreams. I would kill for that sweater for that football letter, I would get it or die trying, that was my motivation, girls, girls, they were the motivation, it had nothing to do with winning glory for dear old Poly High . With the football letter I figured I would get the girl, my dream girl. I did get the girls, several of the sweetest in the world, and even married my princess, the beauty queen, the Spring 1948 May Queen from Poly High, the fact that she was one of three of the highest honored scholastic students was my luck, how a dumb jock like me got beauty and brains as his girl, his wife, his love for his entire life, just has to show you that sometimes you get lucky in life.
Still it was deflating to find, fifty years later that all that blood, sweat and heartache on the playing fields of Poly was really unnecessary. Gals saying at our fifty year class reunion, “Fred, all ya had to do was ask!” Ha, the lessons of life!
If the way those guys looked, dressed, or acted, had anything to do with getting me one of those beautiful young things on my arm, I would do anything in the world to do it. I knew that getting the letterman sweater would take some time, but I was going to copy everything else, dress, the way they looked, walked, very detail was studied that’s for sure!
The standard outfit for the really cool fellows was dirty cords, or dirty Levi pants but that was all that was dirty. A pure white T-shirt and pure white socks, and the shoes were mostly a red cordovan color, with a medal tip on the heel. You could hear the click, clack as they walked. The shoes were polished so you could almost see your face in them, then the ‘letterman’s sweater’ on top of all this.
Once in a while you would see a guy dressed like this, except his steady, that soft, warm, exciting gorgeous little female on his arm, would be wearing the letterman’s sweater. The fact that the arms on the sweater had to be rolled up to fit, and that it reached to her knees, had nothing to do with it. The guy would stroll across the campus with his arm around his ‘steady’ like he owned the world. He did as far as I was concerned.
Now this was the dress of what I considered the coolest of the cool. There were others wearing all kind of stuff, slacks, regular sweaters, golf shirts, a couple of very scholarly looking guys, even had ties on, they were not the ‘studs’ I was looking at, that was ‘wimp’ dress, not so cool.
The girls, all those beautiful girls! It had been like being in a desert at Trinity, and then, all of a sudden, moving into the land of plenty. The girls were all beautiful, and they came in all sizes, and colors, big, little, skinny, heavy, black or white, and colors in between. Some had long hair, short hair, wavy hair, straight hair, black hair, brown, blond, for a young man that was thinking about the mystery of the female sex, it was like being in a huge ‘candy’ store of girls. I think I fell in love with every one on sight.
None of the girls wore slacks, or pants in those days. All of the girls wore skirts, some tight, some full and most dresses were slightly below the knees. At that age I could sit and watch them just walk by for hours, the dresses swaying, those cute little rear ends giving that exciting little jiggle only girls’ can seem to produce, the lumpy topsides could make any red blooded young male break out in a cold sweat!
Topside the girls would wear everything from sweaters, to blouses. I guess they would wear what would make them look the best. They would pounce across the campus and the boys would be paying attention, very careful attention to be sure, at fourteen, the male hormones were boiling over, wow would I like to get one of those in the sack. Big thinking, of course back then if a girl actually let me get her shall we say, in an ultimate, very intimate situation – it is doubtful that I would have know what to do about it. Love I was to find was also a learning experience. The most fun class I ever took at Poly was not a class in school but the classes held with our lovely Poly ladies, learning to love, learning to stop when they said ‘stop’ – their teaching a young man to respect them, yet love them, as the super human beings they were and are.
Fortunately there were plenty of signs to tell the new students where to go. The first was to determine with the counselor what kind of courses I was going to take. If you had no intention of going into college, you took courses that would help you in your chosen trade. Poly had a bunch of shops, for mechanics, wood workers, and so forth.
If your intention was to get a college degree then another schedule was made up to prepare you for the entrance examines in college. I decided on the college course. To tell you the truth, I had no idea if I would go to college, I always figured to go into business with Dad. Shops did not hold much interest for me. I was not interested in cars like most kids that age, my cousins in particular. My California cousins, Dave, Soren, and Frank could talk about motors, compression, wheel ratio, and stuff that I could care less about. They would gab about that boring stuff for hours. Cousin Richard was the only one that was on my same interest wave length at the time.
Once the decision of what kind of courses you are to take was decided, the next step was to fill in your class schedule. I was given a map of the campus, and off I went to try and fill in the classes on my schedule. I was going out for football so that was no problem that would be the last class, the sixth period. Filling in the rest became a heck of a problem.
My fellow freshmen from Berendo had a decided edge. From older brothers and sisters, or friends with older brothers and sisters, they knew which were the best teachers and zeroed in on them fast. Many classes I tried to get signed up for were filled long before I got there.
TEACHERS THE GOOD AND THE BAD!
Approximately five months ago before writing this chapter, at my Fifty Year Poly High School reunion, one of the best teachers at Poly High was there. He happened to be a fellow by the name of Frank Bates. Mr. Bates ran our Music Department, as the senior class president I was also fortunate enough to have him as our graduating class faculty sponsor, along with another lady teacher a Miss Taecker. There were many patient sincere, gals, and guys teaching, just trying to pound some appreciation of knowledge and culture into heads interested in everything but the tools we needed to get through life. I just wanted to insert this, so you would know that we had some great teachers and coaches, ‘but’ we also had some real weird ones too.
The good teacher’s classes were filled long before I got to them, the worst teachers classes were not filled, not by a long shot – in several of those there was plenty of room for a new freshman like me. Just sign up here.
One of the worst teachers at Poly was an Algebra teacher I got that first year. Thank God the name escapes me. He was a very old, little shrimp of a guy. He would sit slumped behind his desk, with dirty glasses on his nose. How he could ever see out of those glasses is beyond me, he always had a suit on that looked as if it had been stomped on by horses at best slept in. He mumbled, never talked, he only mumbled. Even the students in the closest seats to his desk could not hear him.
The only way you could ever learn from him was that the assignment for the day was on the blackboard. One day I just could not figure the problem out. I went back to his classroom after school to try and get some help. Every other teacher at Poly would stop immediately and help you, especially if a student took time after school to ask for help. I guess they figured, if a student was that concerned about a lesson then they should spend an extra few minutes explaining it to him or her.
Not this old bastard, I asked him if he could explain how to do the problem. On his way out the door he said, “I explained all that in class – don’t you listen?” I would dearly like to have told this old jerk the truth. That he was the joke of the entire student body, and a few more things that would not be too complimentary, but I knew it was impossible. This old jerk could give you a ‘D’ or fail you with the flick of a pen.
The problem finally was solved, by asking one of the beautiful ‘brainy’ girls that sat in the front row, it took getting up the nerve to ask her, but she was so nice. Helped me on that and other Algebra problems that I could not figure out, she, not the teacher is the reason I got a good mark in that class.
Another teacher that was difficult for me to pay attention too, at least be attentive to the lesson being taught, was the Spanish teacher, every male student in her class had the same problem. For a college course of classes you must select a language. I had decided on Spanish. Los Angeles, and the state of California has a ton of Mexican American’s, many of my friends were Mexican Americans, if I was going to learn another language it was going to be Spanish. It just seemed like a good idea, for fun, and for a future in business.
The teacher was in her middle twenties. Good looking is not the word for it. Slim with a very lovely top-side that had all the guys eyes glued too – she always wore low peasant blouses, with shoulder length long wavy brown hair. She would glide across the room with those beautiful hips swaying and the gentle juggle of her breasts pouncing under the low-necked blouse was almost more than the male students in her class could take. If she ever bent over a guy’s desk to help with his writing the guy would break out in a sweat.
Every male, unattached teacher, at Polytechnic, was in her room constantly with made up excuses. Some days her classes would be constantly delayed by these bachelor wolfs, you could almost feel their ‘hot breath’ as they stood drowning in the vision of this beauty. The teachers’ section of the cafeteria, the table she sat at, was filled with these same unmarried teachers. I am afraid that many of the married male teachers would have liked to be there also.
I remember asking one of the guys in the class if he was getting any thing out of it. He turned to me, and said, “If you mean learning anything – who cares? I don’t care if I have to take this Spanish class over and over, God what a lady!”
She had this soft voice like honey, and she would speak in Spanish. Now Spanish is a beautiful language, even if you don’t know what a person is saying it can be beautiful. They say it is the language of love, and I believe it, her soft voice, speaking that beautiful language. Who cared what it all met.
The only way I ever passed that class was by a friend helping me out. Ed Bravo, a good friend, at Poly High was a year ahead of me and probably the nearest thing in my entire lifetime that I had as a big brother, Ed would explain stuff to me, help pronounce words. He would take the time to explain things to me that I certainly should have learned in class. Our long walks to school and home after football practice is where I was able to learn enough to pass the Spanish language class.
That Spanish teacher was probably my first love at Poly. For a lad just turning fifteen, I did tend to fall in love often. I could walk down the hall and fall in love fifty times before getting out the door of the building sorry but it is the truth. Young males in their teens with the male hormones popping all over - well – lets leave this subject, I am sure you all, especially my male buddies, know what I mean.
NEXT WEEK – more of Poly High
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