A Reunion with High School Angst

The 40th reunion of the Crescenta Valley High School Class of 1973, my class, was held last month at the Chevy Chase Country Club. I didn’t go.

It’s not that I was out of town. I didn’t forget to put it on my calendar. I wasn’t in bed with a horrible cold or otherwise incapacitated. And the cost of the tickets to attend wasn’t overly ridiculous (although $140 at the door was just a bit spendy). None of those reasons kept me away. I just didn’t go.
 

Why? That’s a question that I’ve been asking myself ever since the morning after.

For at least a year leading up to the big event, I had been getting (to the point of annoying) regular reminder emails and snail mail from the company who organized the reunion. The date was highlighted on all of my calendars, and I had every intention of attending. Then, as tickets went on sale, I hesitated.

Again, I can’t say exactly why, but I never did buy a ticket. Which is too bad. Because, from the photos that were posted on various Facebook pages I’ve seen since that night, the early-October shindig was a big success.

Speaking of big, in many of the photos I’ve seen online, I’m pleasantly surprised that more than a few of my former classmates are also battling the bulge of middle age. I was a little relieved to see pictures online of many of the guys who (in my memory at least) were the studly, babe-magnet types in high school but now – well – look just like any old average Joe. Like me, in other words.

Also much in evidence in the posted photos are plenty of receding hairlines and bald spots. And those were just the women. (Rim shot!) But seriously, apparently I’m not the only male from my graduating class who has lost hair and gained weight.

On the other hand, seeing photos of various groups of classmates who reconnected at the reunion – the very same groups who hung out together on the CV Quad or the lower field or Tobacco Road – brought back many the feelings of being in or out of “the cool kids” club. I could probably go through my dusty CVHS yearbooks and find almost identical photos (but with much younger faces staring back) of the same old cliques.

In the months leading up to the reunion, I often logged on to the organizing company’s web site page that listed who was coming, who wasn’t coming, who had left comments, etc. One of the more interesting lists was who had yet to be located. I would think in this age of Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and NSA surveillance of every move we make, it would be virtually impossible to be un-findable. And yet, surprisingly enough, there were quite a few members of my Class of 73 who simply could not be located. I think that’s more than a little sad.

Even worse, though, was the online list with the names of my CVHS classmates who had already passed away. A quick scroll showed something like 25 of my Class of ’73 classmates have already died. How could that be? I mean, we’re not that old yet. Are we? It was a painfully sobering reminder of just how fast and how much life changes once you leave high school.

Not to get all melancholy, but maybe the reason I didn’t attend the reunion was because I didn’t want to see those changes played out in person, in real time. Only my therapist knows for sure. And who knows; maybe in another ten years, I’ll attend my 50th. As long as I can grow back my hair and lose another thirty pounds, that is.

To my fellow classmates who attended the reunion, my deepest apologies and regrets for not joining you. Until 2023, hopefully, I’ll see you ‘round town.

Mowing Down Personal Responsibility

“If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.” – Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby)

I thought of this quote when I read a letter to the editor of the paper in which my column (this blog) appears.  "Dude, you are so not immortal" 10/3/13  The writer took me to task for an earlier column in which I expressed incredulity and eventually anger over a Crescenta Valley High School student who purposefully walked in front of my moving car on the main drag in front of the school.

Briefly, the primary point of my column was not that the kid was simply careless or had absentmindedly wandered into traffic as he was distracted by friends or texting or simply a glitch in his teenage programming. I get that kids do that all the time. Oops. Been there, done that myself, in fact. But when that happens and they dodge death by mere millimeters – most typical kids will react with shock and make apologetic gestures at the driver. None of that happened this time. Nope, this clown’s condescending smirk and absolute refusal to acknowledge that my truck was within inches of his awesome self (how do you ignore a horn?) telegraphed that he knew exactly what he was doing and could not have cared less.

In her letter to the editor, however, the woman writing about my column was loath to judge the young man as being anything but “goofy and lovable.” And yet, she was quick to suggest that I was surely driving above the speed limit (I wasn’t). She also recommended that I attend anger management classes. To that I can only say – the fact that I was able to restrain myself from circling the block, hunting down the loveable chucklehead to pummel some sense into his bad self speaks to my obviously impressive ability to control my anger, thank you very much.

Speaking of impressive, I’m fascinated that the letter writer had the skill to discern what really happened without being a passenger in my car. After reading the letter to the editor, my immediate response was, well, now I know whose kid was hell bent on become a human hood ornament.

But then I began to wonder how it is that so many folks today are reluctant to judge the actions of people (especially teenagers and young adults) or make excuses for their behavior. Instead, they point the finger of blame at other people, situations, supposed inequalities, injustice, economic conditions, and on and on and on. It seems to be a national epidemic.

Take, for example, the recent syndicated column by veteran reporter, John Stossel. In the column, “Longing to Be A Victim” Stossel recounts that Vice President, Joe Biden’s niece was arrested last month for throwing a punch at a cop. Although major media reports had detailed the woman’s well-known addiction to alcohol and pills, even this wasn’t given as the reason for her attempt to deck the cop. Nope. Rather than take responsibility (or even acknowledge that her substance abuse played a part in the incident), the niece excused her actions saying she is a victim of the “pressure she faces” because her uncle is vice president. Poor baby. I’ll be she’s really just a goofy and loveable gal.

Another quote I like is from Ann Frank, who said, “Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.”

What worries me is that too many parents (and adults in general) refuse to take responsibility for correcting and guiding upcoming generations. When excuses are automatically made for our kids’ behaviors, or if responsibility is deflected to others, how will they learn responsibility?

Even the new Federal mandate that “kids” can stay on their parents’ health insurance policies (those who still have a policy, that is) until age 26 is part of a troubling trend. News flash: if you’re 26, or 21 or even 18, you’re not a kid. Sorry.

I certainly don’t want to turn one encounter with a jerky kid into an indictment on society. But seriously, if we can’t even agree to call the act of purposely walking in front of a car a dangerously stupid thing to do, we’ve got big trouble.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Dude, You Are So Not Immortal

I don’t know your name and can only make a logical guess at your age given that you are a Crescenta Valley High student. (I've taken to calling you the "Tall Teen Twerp" lately.) But your smug face and stupidly reckless actions will be hard to forget. You are tall, with an average build and longish, blondish hair that you probably love to flip away from your eyes with great disdain at anyone without your level of awesomeness.

You probably didn’t give a second thought to our little encounter two weeks ago, so I’ll refresh your memory. That Tuesday, on a typically beautiful late Southern California summer afternoon, long after most of your classmates at CV High had left the campus, you and maybe seven or eight of your friends were on the sidewalk in front of school, just above the auditorium. As I drove down Ramsdell Avenue (in front of school), I noticed your group walking, laughing – happy to be finished with classes for the day, heading towards hump-day.

Almost at the same moment as your group was about to step off the sidewalk and onto Ramsdell (nowhere near a crosswalk, of course) you all noticed my vehicle heading towards you. Everybody stopped in their tracks and didn’t step off the curb. Except you. You saw me coming. There was no way you didn’t. Your friends all yelled at you to stop. But you kept walking without a hitch in your swagger. And so, dripping with cool and staring straight ahead, you walked across the street and directly in front of my oncoming 11,800-pound pickup truck.

I thought of so many things within the milliseconds that followed. That you were an idiot, of course, but also that you were somebody’s son. Maybe someone’s brother. As my right foot stomped on the brake and I straight-armed the horn button, my staccato thoughts continued – that this was likely going to be really bad, was going to ruin your school year at the very least and holy crow what will happen to my insurance rates and how ironic will it be to see a news story about this tragedy in the same paper that publishes this column and I hope his friends will back me up that he walked right in front of me and what could this chucklehead be thinking playing chicken with an oncoming truck?!?

Thankfully, I was somehow able to stop before bouncing you off my hood and changing both of our worlds forever. But here’s the thing, even coming within inches of getting hit – even with my horn blaring at you for a full minute at least – even with your friends screaming from the sidewalk and me yelling things out my open window that I would never want my pastor to hear – even then; you didn’t flinch, didn’t slow down, didn’t so much as glance my way.

Your “I’m so badass I can’t possibly be hit” smirk didn’t falter. You weren’t listening to music; no cords dangled from your ears. Most likely, you were listening to some inner narcissistic soundtrack that continuously affirms your greatness. In your mind, you walk on water, I’m sure.

Maybe your friends or a teacher who saw what almost happened that day ripped you a new one after I drove on. I hope so. But I’m pretty sure you would ignore them as easily as you ignored my blaring horn and screeching tires. (Was it just your dumb luck or mine that I’d had new tires installed literally the day before? I wonder.)

Enjoy this season while it lasts, buddy. There’s a big (way bigger than you), hard reality waiting for you beyond the insular bubble of high school life. The next time you pull some stunt like that, the person behind the wheel may not be paying such close attention to his or her surroundings. Or he may be changing the music on the stereo. Or, God forbid, doing something even more potentially lethal, like texting as he careens towards your foolish, arrogant little self.
Dude, it’s going to take many years for you to grow up and learn that you’re not nearly as invincible (or cool) as you think. I only hope you stay alive long enough for that to happen.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Shared Shock and Sorrow

It was around 12:45 last Friday afternoon when I returned to my office from a physical therapy session on my bum knee. The familiar ping from my phone alerted me that a new text message was waiting. It was from my son at college down near San Diego asking me if I knew what had just happened at Crescenta Valley High – the high school in our small bedroom community on the fringes of sprawling Los Angeles. I had no idea what his text was asking.

At almost the exact same moment I was reading my son’s message, my sister called on our house phone (yes, we still have one of those and no, it isn’t a pay phone) asking if I had heard anything from the staff at the CV Weekly newspaper (the newspaper that runs my weekly column) about the big breaking news. My sister has a son who’s a senior at CV High who had been texting her with what he knew was happening. I think she – like many of my regular readers – assumed that because I write a column for the paper each week I have the inside scoop on any buzz going on in the newsroom on any given day. Not hardly.

As my sister relayed the hard-to-believe news about a possible suicide at CVHS, I suddenly noticed the drone of multiple helicopters hovering somewhere high above the 210 freeway. That sound is always the first indicator that something big is happening up here in our normally calm and quiet valley.

Sure enough, as the minutes ticked by last Friday afternoon, we all quickly learned more about the tragic suicide of the sophomore student. As sketchy and often wrong as the rapidly passed-along details of the event may have been, it reminded me again that we are all connected to each other’s lives like never before in the history of humanity.

With the increasing saturation of smart phones (do you know a single teenager or pre-teen without his/her own mobile phone?), iPads, laptops and near universal access to the Internet, along with apps like Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging and others – our ability to share news or events within literally seconds of it happening is stunning. Much of the time the shared information is trivial and inane at best. But sometimes, like last Friday, the news can stun.

Then, in one of those oddly connected, not-so-random bookends that the universe throws at us every so often, the very next day after the horrific event at CV High, information channels all over the world were ablaze with tragic (yet not entirely unexpected for anyone familiar with her struggles and addictions) news of another untimely death – pop superstar and once-gifted singer, Whitney Houston.

Although one could certainly argue that Ms. Houston’s death was also the result of a suicide – albeit a long-term and not nearly as deliberate an effort – it’s safe to say that both of these sad souls must have been terribly troubled individuals. I can’t help but wonder, with so many available ways to connect with other people, how is it possible that anyone today could live with such loneliness and despair that they ultimately disconnect from life itself?

Our family did not know the young man who died last week. And yet, we are connected. My wife and I are both proud alums of Crescenta Valley High. Three of our four kids graduated from there. My own two brothers and one sister graduated from CV as did one of my sisters-in-law. And as I noted above, I have a nephew who will graduate from CV this coming June. To say the least, we are a Falcon family to the core.

As such, we all grieve the loss of one of our own and send our prayers and condolences to all of those directly affected by this unfathomable tragedy. The school, this community, will forever be a different place because of what happened at the start of the lunch period on an otherwise typical February day in the Foothills.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 2.16.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

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