In the year 1965....

Perhaps the best thing i can say about MadMen this season is that it has reminded me of a time in my life that i hadn't thought about for a long time. 1965 was an amazing year for me in so many different ways. When you are eighteen, graduating high school and then going to UCLA with a scholarship, not much could bother you. Getting to see the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were icing on the cheesecake of a dozen magic moments.

The year didn't start all that well considering how it ended. On December 6, 1964, i was in my usual inebriated and high condition at a high school dance. That i was a student body officer didn't mean all that much to me either, but evidently it, and my condition, mattered to other officers and school authorities. Apparently reds and malt liquor were not compatible with a positive and contributing attitude for school support. It didn't matter that in the weeks before, i had stood in front of the assembled masses presenting awards to our school's Olympians; now i was the pariah to be punished. Friday night bled into Saturday morning, and i didn't really come to think much (i really couldn't very well actually) about the whole thing because i had to take the SAT. I don't remember the test at all; i do remember waking up enough to realize that it was afternoon, and i was taking the English subtest with an incredibly debilitating hangover. I think i scored an 1196 or so; not bad for seriously impaired.

So January started off with me having to go to another high school--Reseda was hand-picked by one of the Vice Principals--who thought that he could really punish me by withholding my athletic eligibility for 20 weeks. Reseda was the 1964 City football champions, but had not, up to that point in time, fielded a successful swim team. As i couldn't enroll in all of my classes at the new school, so close to the end of the first semester, i had the option of taking only four periods, one of which was weightlifting with the football team. That proved fortuitous, in that i got to know some of the players and the coach quite well, leading to recruiting for the swim team. It also led to wonderful mornings of drunken revelry under the guidance of the coach, who seemed not at all interested in keeping his "boys" from imbibing their pleasures. I did have another unfortunate run-in with the law right after my birthday in January. Three of us (from my old school) were out and about, cruising, because in 1965 that is what you did late on Saturday nights. We chose to follow a couple of guys to a "witches" house in north Van Nuys (near the Granada Hills border). Apparently, the people across the street from the house were fed up with the constant ruckus and had a standing call to the cops whenever anyone paid a visit. Needless to say my parents weren't thrilled with that either.

One of the deals, i had made with my dad, was that, if i could somehow keep my swimming going, still receive my Navy scholarship, and get accepted at the university of my choosing, then he would purchase tickets for me to see the Rolling Stones at the LA Sports Arena. These goals afforded me some options about how to proceed with my social agendas and still keep up appearances. I had left girlfriends back at my other school (Taft), and i needed to do my best to keep up with them. And i also had new ones at Reseda, one of whom followed me over there due to her lack of conforming to the norms of behavior. I also knew i needed to keep up academically in order to win my bets, which were important to me though not to others in my life. At the end of January, the semester ended, the new one began; and there was a winter prom at Taft, to which i had been previously invited (and allowed to attend).

I got a 4.0 in four classes at the end of the semester (i left Taft with a 3.2 in 6). The new semester required that i take Calc II and Calc I at the same time, a Senior English class, International Relations, Physics 2, and PE conditioning and swimming. The Calc classes posed a problem because i needed Calc II which was offered in the morning, but Calc I was only available after lunch before swimming. As the semester wore on i realized: i could do no work in Calc I, cover Calc II through a homework journal that could be copied from old ones in available files, IR would be easy working with a team of good students, essays were all i needed in Eng, Physics 2 would be tough, but it was first period after pre-school swim workouts.

I went to the Taft dance with Robin Miller, a cheerleader sweetheart, but ended up spending much of it with my neighbor Jerri Adair, a diver friend of my lust idol Sue Gossick. From that one winter prom night, i ended up taking Jerri to allnight grad night six months later, went out with Robin for the end of my freshman and beginning of my sophomore years, and proved that i could act appropriately and respectfully of my old high school. This latter turned out important, because at the end of the year i would be allowed to attend Taft senior activities on campus, without much supervision or taking any classes. And then there were the girls at Reseda, a few of whom were "excused" from their previous high schools for various issues, mostly drugs and behavior. All in all, my life, though shattered by the suspension and arrest, was pretty grand.

I swam before school, went to class, went to the high school swim workouts where i helped coach, and then swam at my swim club in the later afternoon with my brother. Weekends were spent swimming and the usual fake studying. As the school year went on, i got more freedom and latitude to go out again, and enjoy the last few months of that carefree life. My swim coach bribed me with beer, so i had a constant supply as long as i swam well. Reseda was a diverse population of a few surfers, lots of greasers (cars were a huge deal in the Valley in the 1960s), small pods of geeks and socias (socially motivated types), and the usual admixture of new hippies and the weird. Taft was mostly geeks and socias because of the professions of the parents who had moved into that end of the Valley in the 50s (Taft opened in 1960 --you can see a quite impactful list of Taft graduates who went on to fame at the bottom).

I remember quite well, one time, being invited out by one of the girls who had been suspended from Taft and was sent to Reseda. It turned out to be an odd sort of set up, involving a Taft girl who wanted to make her bad boyfriend jealous by going out with me, a bad boy. Her name was Karen Tremaine, and i had actually known her since the 8th grade, when she was "going out" with one of my better friends, Robin Ramondi (8th grade was another bad period of my life, a year i failed school, spent most of my time working in theater and music production running lights and sound, and bootlegging cigs for the juvenile home boys). It finally became apparent what was happening when we were making out at the Zuma beach bonfire, and Karen's boyfriend came up and caught us. All i got was a shoulder shrug from Karen as she went off with him. In some ways i think things never change. It made a lasting impression though, in the sense that the whole green monster of jealousy that i had watched in the Twilight Zone episode, could be manipulated with such precision for an outcome. I vowed then and there to not be jealous, nor envious, of and for others and myself.

During that academic year, i cut school a few times to go to the beach to surf, mostly with the Pierce brothers, whose extended family owned a large mortuary and cemetery business in the Valley. Otherwise i kept to myself most of the time, doing all the usual things a high school kid in the mid-60s would do. None of that looks like anything on MadMen.

to be continued: