Maybe some people go to their high school reunion with no motive other than to share a good time with old friends. Not me. I RSVP’d to show my former classmates I wasn’t the loser they remembered. Just to be on the safe side, I brought an entourage – my sister Joyce, husband John, and two friends. Sure, it practically screamed insecure, but at least I wouldn’t wind up sitting at a table by myself. I wore my favorite outfit – an ill-advised Evan Picon vested skirt suit that failed to stand the test of time.
I wanted people to think I transcended high school but in truth I was obsessed with it – so much so that at age 29 I posed as a high school student and returned to Wilcox as a student for a brief spell – but that’s another story.
Disguised as high school student for my return enrollment at Wilcox in 1981. I hoped the huge hair would draw attention away from my face.
Suffice to say, it’s no coincidence that well over half of my scripts and teleplays concern high school kids. It became my specialty. It was easy to channel adolescent minds, because my own mind was mired in adolescence. While I might be excessive, I’m not unique.
In Ralph Keyes’ excellent book Is There Life After High School, he distills his experience, research and interviews to three major points.
These memories focus on comparison of status and
High school is the source of indelible memories
Status comparisons continue long after graduation, in a society shaped fundamentally by high school
Big hair to compliment my chic ensemble
On the outside, I’d travelled far since high school but on the inside the neurotic outsider I used to be ran the show. I drank too much, talked too much, got too giddy and too grandiose. The harder I tried to be one of the cool kids, the more I proved I was not.
These photos are, I think, cheats from later reunions.Carolyn Sakuaye, Ruth Anderson and…..Sandra Hegwood, Ray Prevost, Steve Hoffman
Sandy wasn’t a friend who’d waste a day bronzing in the sun or swimming. We were always playing some kind of fantasy game or plotting an adventure whether it was leaving different footprints in the sand or talking to the ouija board at midnight on my front lawn. If a spectral car didn’t hurtle out of the night, we’d find another way to terrify ourselves.
Our ouija board told us his name was Rehsi and he was from the planet Asteron. He wasn’t exactly a gifted, fast-tracked ouija board. He was probably held back a few years. I don’t think he ever answered a single question correctly but being clueless didn’t keep him from making dire predictions.
I know some people think ouija boards are scary and demonic but for Sandy and me it was a fun spooky game. Not for an instant did I believe that we were summoning dark forces to serve the devil. Maybe I would’ve been more scared if I’d seen The Exorcist.
STRANGLING EACH OTHER WAS ALWAYS FUN WHEN WE RAN OUT OF OTHER IDEAS.HMMM. SANDY SEEMS MORE SERIOUS ABOUT STRANGLING ME THAN VICE VERSA.
People go to fairs and carnivals for fun, not to wallow in existential despair over the human condition. Given this reality, my own psyche was the dark cloud hanging over the corn dog stand that summer. Everywhere I turned I saw another story about loneliness, suffering, and doomed lives. There was a little boy, about 7, that hung around – son of a “carny wife” (woman who moves in with a carnival man for a month or two). All of the grown-ups kept telling him to get lost – but there were no children his own age for him to go to. He was just so – alone, (Where is he today?)
My friend JoAnn Hill, who lived in Willow Glenn, got a job in another food venue. We hung out together when we had breaks at the same time. She was tall – at least 5’11” – and model-gorgeous with long blonde hair. Walking around with her was an instant inferiority complex.
JOANN HILL
Since JoAnn and I worked there, we got free rides – not always a good thing. The guy who controlled the spidery ride wanted to impress JoAnn so he gave us what felt like hours of extra spinning – I was almost sick to my stomach. Things didn’t improve in the sweltering heat of the Pup Hut. A bad situation got worse when I was tasked to shove sharp sticks into hundreds of naked doggies. It was truly the stuff of nightmares.
And that’s why I’ve never consumed another corn dog.
THE LATE GREAT BRILLIANT WRITER & MUSICIAN, DAVID ACKLES
Chris met his future BFF when he was two; he and Geo Ackles both attended the Church of the Lighted Window’s Montessori School. I noticed that whenever I picked CD up, he was with the same boy who – at that time – bore a striking resemblance to CD. Unfortunately, one of them (I don’t remember which) moved to another pre-school. As these two-year-olds lacked the social skills to exchange phone numbers or arrange play dates, a beautiful friendship almost died before it began.
But fate intervened! My in-laws stopped on their way to Temecula and took CD and me out for lunch at Bob’s Big Boy.
By miraculous coincidence, David Ackles was there with his son George. Our two-year-olds were delirious with joy. They leapt across the restaurant to greet each other like long lost brothers. David and I exchanged phone numbers and promised to get them together.
I assumed we’d facilitate play dates but otherwise pass like parental ships in the night. I was astonished to learn David was a fellow WGA member as well as a talented singer/songwriter who recorded for Electra (check out Road to Cairo – my favorite of his songs – if you haven’t heard it).
DAVID ACKLES SINGING HIS SONG,”ROAD TO CAIRO,” IN 1967
Not only that, he was witty, charismatic and just plain delightful – and although it almost seems impossible – it gets BETTER! His wife, Janice, was just as quick, hilarious and fun as David.
Before long, we were dressing up and role-playing mystery games with Joyce and John Salter, Terry McDonnell, Matt Rowell, Anne Kurrasch, Jake Jacobson and others. I wish I’d had the foresight to tape or film a few of those sessions. We laughed until it hurt.
The world lost a great artist and we lost a great friend when David died of lung cancer on March 2, 1999 but his music lives on – as does the friendship between Chris and George.
PLAYING A MYSTERY GAME – Top row: Joyce Salter, John Salter, Anne Kurrasch, Terry McDonnell, David Ackles; bottom row: me, Janice Ackles
This was a transitional time in our lives. John had finished his last year of law school but wouldn’t know when or if he’d be licensed to practice until after the bar results. When we married, I was working for Len Hill at NBC. I quit to take a job at USC that gave both John and me a break on tuition. I quit that job for more time to write and immediately got pregnant.
New Mom
Christopher was seven months old at the time of this entry. John and I shared a car, which he drove to USC and work, so I was marooned in the Hillside Strangler’s killing fields (bodies were piling up in circumference around us).
70’s Fashion
I had no idea whether or not I’d succeed as a writer. My identity was in flux. When I look back at photos taken then, I hardly recognize myself. I’m dressed like I thought a new mother or future Jr. Leaguer should dress. (On the other hand, 70s fashion didn’t do me any favors.)
New Mom and Dad and Son
The part of my psyche that never changed – my constant – remains in my worry about the impression I made on Gailya. From the time I started writing in diaries (age 12), whenever I spent any time with a friend, I second-guessed my performance in my diary – “I’m sure I bored her” was my most common review. Maybe everybody critiques their social interactions and inventories their mistakes. Even if true, I suspect most people grow out of it.
Am I any better now, 40 years later? Maybe a little. Not enough.
Three days before she died, I received a letter from Natalie. Uncharacteristically, I wrote back immediately. I don’t remember what I said but at least I wrote back. Her brother found my letter, unopened, on the kitchen counter, when he arrived in Ukiah after she was dead. My name was on the return address. That’s how he knew where to contact me and let me know she was gone.
Fall, 1961. “A family with a daughter your age is joining our church,” my father says. Natalie is short and round with blue eyes and blonde hair in a Prince Valiant cut. I’m the fourth grade giraffe, tall and skinny with wavy brown hair. She’s an outdoor-oriented extrovert, a born entertainer. I’m a sullen sedentary introvert longing for center stage despite my lack of talent.
Obviously, we’re destined to be best friends.
Natalie far left. Me next to her. Probably.y at Mount Cross Bible Camp.
January, 1967. Natalie and I are sophomores at different high schools. We claim to be cousins and people believe us despite how little we have in common. Natalie’s in Choir and Pep Squad. She’s secretary of the Future Teacher’s Club and wins a speaking role in the school play. The Beatles reign on my stereo while she remains loyal to the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean.
We graduate from our respective high schools in 1969. She and her future first husband Bobby are voted Cutest Couple and featured on a full page in Fremont’s yearbook. I leave Wilcox as anonymously as I served my time. She goes north to college, first Pacific Lutheran in Washington and then Chico State. I head south to UCLA. Natalie majors in PE and Education, I choose Film Writing. We get together briefly every summer but during the school year we forge new friendships.
Natalie and Bobby divorce. The next time I hear from her, she’s engaged to the man of her dreams. She doesn’t ask me to be a bridesmaid in either of her weddings. The outdoor ceremony takes place on a blistering August day at the Ukiah ranch where they live
Summer, 1988. Natalie, her husband and their daughter spend two days with my family on their way home from Disneyland. Natalie’s jumpy, a restless bundle of uneven edges and darting eyes, nothing like the laughing Natalie I remember from childhood. She smells the same, a summer collage of rose-scented soap, saltwater or tears, sunblock, healthy sweat and new mown grass. She tries to hide the small scaly patches engraved on the skin on back of her hands and elbows. She isn’t any smaller, but in some profound way she is fading before my eyes.
JOYCE AND NATALiE DOING RECORD ACTS LIKE IN THE OLD DAYS
Not long after, she gets divorced again. In the spring of 1994, Natalie’s mother – in many ways her anchor – dies. Natalie spirals down, then goes into freefall.
NATALIE AND I WITH HER MOTHER AND HER DAUGHTER
While at work as a kindergarten teacher, she passes out, drunk, in the ladies room. She’s fired from her dream job. Next, she loses her driver’s license. After that she loses custody of her daughter.
Fall, 1995. I hate it when she calls late at night. She rambles, repeats herself and slurs her words. I make excuses to get off the phone.
March 26, 1996. I open Natalie’s last letter. She never learned to type so it’s handwritten like all the others. The round, precise cursive lines of blue ink on the first page remind me of the tight, controlled perfection of her record acts.
Her writing deteriorated with every line, crazily sloping out of control by the time she signed her name. I wanted to believe her but I didn’t. Even so, I never thought alcohol would kill her at 44.
I hope she knew I loved her. I know you can’t save people who don’t want to be saved but I wish I’d tried harder. Whenever her name is mentioned, I still tell people she was my cousin. She’s buried next to her mother in Massachusetts instead of Ukiah. I’ve never been to Massachusetts but one of these days I’ll go.
