Top Ten Capers at the HIGH

Top Ten Capers in High School

The title is a misnomer to get you interested. I probably can’t repeat the top ten, nor much remember them. Here are a few odds and ends of shredded memories:
+Cigarette breaks behind a grungy building across the street. It was kind of a big thing to be smoking at age 15. Surgeon General report was years away.
+The PJ party complete with midnight visit from the boys. Dianne threw up in the
basement sofa. A week later, a large beer bottle was discovered in the basement
fridge. I was in major trouble, threatened with boarding school, also at 15.
+The publicized police raid on the public library next to high school, demolishing my
way to get out of the house on a school night. I always did like libraries.
+Forging notes, a specialty I was proud of. I was especially proud of ability to match mother’s scrawl. Caught once, a note I didn’t need to fake, but it was a habit. The teacher was a pal of Miss Eldred’s and she retaliated by making me explain “menstruation”(fancy pronunciation of hers) to the coed class. Humiliating.
+Variety show performances, maybe more of these in Jr. High. We’d practice in my basement. Mother said everything we did looked like the Highland Fling.
+Favorite teachers/classes that I can actually recall: Miss Varano and Spanish. (Thanks Miss V.for getting me started with this). An English class which would be called AP today. I loved doing term papers and amazed myself by reading all of the endless and romantic Kristin Lavransdatter.
And an earlier English class with a teacher I’m sure was a lecher, on whom I had a crush. He approved me reading the full-of-sex Forever Amber. I will never forget the Black Plague descriptions. 14 states once banned it as pornography.
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The Saturday morning tour was lots more fun than I’d expected. What a beautiful place it is, especially since a recent renovation. State of the art swimming pool, lots of old beautiful details, the old library now a place for meetings and teas. Josie, Judy and I climbed the twisty and hazardous metal stairs to one of the balconies. I used to hide out there reading the latest Janet Lambert.
Judy and I learned a new and startling fact: the boys always swam nude. But not their coach. Skip says that was standard, in fact, all the Yale boys were photographed nude.
Nice fact: the school is now 15% African American. I wanted to photograph a black kid I sawcoming from the pool, restrained myself.
Not so nice fact: Skip noted he was the only person of color among 300+ attendees.
One of 2, counting a pretty and very young Filipina accompanying one of the men.
A bunch of the ladies lunched after by the waterside after the tour and I include a photo. Thanks, Diane, for arranging this and so much else.
It was okay, after all, to go back home again.
Next stop: the yacht club.