High School Was 10th to 12th Grades
That first summer out of Junior High I worked for Clarance Peterson-his adult daughter Janice Uribe and her husband John Uribe directly supervised me and my work. He owned apartments in Santa Barbara and in Isla Vista. He needed someone to meticulously scrub walls and the grout in tiles. I was paid 80 cents/hour and I did a good job. He was known for firing people who didn't-very quickly. But all that brow beating from my dad to weed perfectly, wash dishes perfectly, sweep the carpet (every square inch) perfectly, well-I'd learned how to be both efficient and precise. So my first job was cleaning apartments. The money I earned? Had to go into the bank-I wasn't allowed to keep it or spend it (of course if I'd kept it, I would have spent it).
A LOT of stuff happened in high school. I met my first Asian (didn't remember meeting one in elementary or Jr. High). Hung Wung bought me a candy at See's the day I had gone over to the school to pick up my class schedule. Yeah-wasn't on line (Al Gore hadn't been born yet-snicker snicker), the school districts were too cheap to mail them out, so students had to go pick them up. SBHS was 5 miles from home and as I recall that was a very long time for me to be away from home-on my own, but I walked there and back.
I met Hung at the school and he seemed very cordial and wanted to visit a lot. After I had waited in line for what felt like forever (didn't line waiting when you were a kid feel like forever???) and received my schedule we went to See's downtown and he bought me a chocolate. I never could figure out how other kids had money in their pocket to spend on stuff. I mean, didn't their parents take their money away from them too?
First of all I never had friends that associated with me out in public and second of all guys steered clear of me. So I felt like a real duck out of water.
While I was scrubbing apartments I met someone that John & Janet knew-a kid a couple years older than me. His name was Jack Giles. He was 16 and he had his own Suzuki Motorcycle, 425 cc. It was big for a trail-bike but was also big enough to license and drive/ride on surface streets. He's the one who taught me that a Suzuki sounds unique apart from other motorcycles as it's sound is a, "bring-ding-ding."
Jack ended up playing into my life for about a year and a half-covering the time before and after we joined the church. We dated a few times, but weren't steady. He thought of me when he was between girls that could satisfy him in ways I wasn't ready or willing to (thank Heavens).
That first fall of 10th grade I joined the Usherettes. Our uniform was an olive green jumper (you HAD to wear dresses to school and school events-that was the dress code-my gosh it sounds so archaic to say that) and a gold turtleneck shirt. They usually had enough Usherettes to help with seating at the theatrical performances at SBHS but they needed some extra help for the football games. Not only did they need more people to help direct people to seats, they also needed people because some girls didn't 'like' going to the football games-they were outdoors and it was so cold outside (yeah right!).
Boy did I feel like a caged animal set free! I got to go to the games, yell, shout, and enjoy the whole game. I knew NOTHING of football before then (dad didn't explain it when he watched the games he was too busy shouting at the plays and at us kids to shut up so he could hear it all).
One last note about high school. There was a Jr. ROTC program at our school. They had an underground shooting range on campus. Yeah-nothing like that would happen around here or in this day and age. Anywho... Diana Floyd was in one of my classes and she started talking about it and that she knew a group of girls that were interested in starting a Girls Rifle Team. Well, that sounded way interesting to me. And yeah I joined as soon as it started up. I really enjoyed it. I like shooting and target practice. I was a sharp shooter.
A LOT of stuff happened in high school. I met my first Asian (didn't remember meeting one in elementary or Jr. High). Hung Wung bought me a candy at See's the day I had gone over to the school to pick up my class schedule. Yeah-wasn't on line (Al Gore hadn't been born yet-snicker snicker), the school districts were too cheap to mail them out, so students had to go pick them up. SBHS was 5 miles from home and as I recall that was a very long time for me to be away from home-on my own, but I walked there and back.
I met Hung at the school and he seemed very cordial and wanted to visit a lot. After I had waited in line for what felt like forever (didn't line waiting when you were a kid feel like forever???) and received my schedule we went to See's downtown and he bought me a chocolate. I never could figure out how other kids had money in their pocket to spend on stuff. I mean, didn't their parents take their money away from them too?
First of all I never had friends that associated with me out in public and second of all guys steered clear of me. So I felt like a real duck out of water.
While I was scrubbing apartments I met someone that John & Janet knew-a kid a couple years older than me. His name was Jack Giles. He was 16 and he had his own Suzuki Motorcycle, 425 cc. It was big for a trail-bike but was also big enough to license and drive/ride on surface streets. He's the one who taught me that a Suzuki sounds unique apart from other motorcycles as it's sound is a, "bring-ding-ding."
Jack ended up playing into my life for about a year and a half-covering the time before and after we joined the church. We dated a few times, but weren't steady. He thought of me when he was between girls that could satisfy him in ways I wasn't ready or willing to (thank Heavens).
That first fall of 10th grade I joined the Usherettes. Our uniform was an olive green jumper (you HAD to wear dresses to school and school events-that was the dress code-my gosh it sounds so archaic to say that) and a gold turtleneck shirt. They usually had enough Usherettes to help with seating at the theatrical performances at SBHS but they needed some extra help for the football games. Not only did they need more people to help direct people to seats, they also needed people because some girls didn't 'like' going to the football games-they were outdoors and it was so cold outside (yeah right!).
Boy did I feel like a caged animal set free! I got to go to the games, yell, shout, and enjoy the whole game. I knew NOTHING of football before then (dad didn't explain it when he watched the games he was too busy shouting at the plays and at us kids to shut up so he could hear it all).
One last note about high school. There was a Jr. ROTC program at our school. They had an underground shooting range on campus. Yeah-nothing like that would happen around here or in this day and age. Anywho... Diana Floyd was in one of my classes and she started talking about it and that she knew a group of girls that were interested in starting a Girls Rifle Team. Well, that sounded way interesting to me. And yeah I joined as soon as it started up. I really enjoyed it. I like shooting and target practice. I was a sharp shooter.
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