Those Halcyon Days

Or, the meaning of life, from my perspective, as it began on

that adventurous day when I began high school.

Oh, I long for that time when my only responsibility was getting

the newspaper to land somewhere near the front porch, before

6AM, without waking up the dog.

If that level of insouciance could have been maintained for

life I would be a happy person. But it was not meant to be.

I have traced my decline from a carefree existence back to

1957, when, as others, I received that invitation to mandatory

presence in high school.

We were a people thrown together like an arranged marriage.

We were the highlights of each other’s day.

Destiny chose us to be the posterchildren for American

Graffitti. We practically invented rock n’ roll.

Rewind the tape forty some years. Late one freshman fall

afternoon while passing by the open door of the Pirate on my

way home after school, I found myself attracted by the music

of Fats Domino. I entered, not knowing what lay beyond, but

I had a feeling I was about to discover the holy grail of high

school decadence.

I passed by the Wurlitzer with its stack of 45’s fanned out

like a monochrome peacock tail and noted the selections.

They were all there. Buddy Knox, La Vern Baker, The Dell

Vikings and more--all the groups heard on AM radio nights and

weekends.

I took a position at the far end of the counter so I could

take in the now classic soda fountain ambience. My attention

was directed to another commonplace 50’s icon, the pinball

machine, expressing its low tech prowess with bells

ringing and mechanical numbers clacking as they doggedly

turned over.

Its player, an older student, was rocking that machine like a

baby carriage. He had the classic look of the era—plain white

t-shirt (no billboard for logos) with a pack of cigarettes

rolled up in the sleeve ( a practical convenience to keep them

from being crushed, I suppose).

His low slung jeans and greasy duck-tail announced that he

was both stylish and defiant. He had a practiced motion,

hands slapping at the sides of the machine and hips undulating

in a kind of bump and grind that a stripper would envy.

His relentless attack was intended to nudge the ultimate

out of each chrome ball but short of the kiss of death—

“tilt”. He was the definition of cool. He was, in the vernacular

of the day, “a wheel”.

This is who I wanted to be. He wasn’t taking any books home

from school. He wasn’t worried about that next test. But,

upon later reflection, he probably wasn’t graduating, either.

At the beginning, life for me in the education lane was not a

casual spin around the block. Somehow I found myself as the

only freshman in Miss Le Fevre’s Latin Class ( I always

wondered why she was a miss”—I once saw a photo of her in

her early teaching years and she was a knockout!).

Furthermore, the scenery was good, consisting of mostly

upperclassman girls, but that didn’t compensate for the fact

that that class was tough. Latin was Greek to me. Study?

Why weren’t we given a hint about this painful mental exercise

sometime during the first eight years of school?

Not far from academics was another world I wished to discover

but, once again, the kid and the image didn’t seem to match.

Autoshop. It seemed that one had to be chosen as if a master

had allowed you, the apprentice, to sit at his knee.

Mysteriously, some got appointed. I think there were guys who

majored in Autoshop. Who knew that Spokane would eventually

have the oldest custom car club in the United States and these

guys were the pioneers? The closest I ever came to claiming to

be a part of that culture was reading Hot Rod magazine at the

barbershop. I even remember a guy who, unsuccessfully, put an

Allison aircraft engine (like they used in hydroplanes) in a

dragster. It was a slug. That’s the kind of stupid thing I would

have done if anyone had let me—always going for something

different.

However, I took an active interest in those amazing

custom works of automobile art. Lowered in the back,

frenched headlights, barely legal fenders on some, and, of

course, Lake pipes. It probably didn’t make that much

difference in a street race but it sure sounded tough

to be able to bypass that muffler.

I remember once admiring a particularly nice early fifties

Mercury with a backseat as big as a double bed. It’s interior

was pristeen except that the pure white headliner was marred

by some scuff marks. When I asked about this I got the reply,

“high heels”.

Was it just my imagination or did girls go for the bad boys?

I tried to be bad---I just didn’t know how.

Several people have commented on Mr. Raymond’s penchant

for giving hacks. It might be well to remember that that guy

was big—not just big; huge. When he put his meathooks on

your desk while explaining a math problem there wasn’t much

room left for the books. I was probably the only person who

dared to get a hack from him. When he was the basketball

coach, he had a rule during homeroom. If you could hit the

waste paper basket from your desk (with a wad that was

probably your homework with a “D+”) you were home free—

maybe even applauded for your shooting skill. I never found

out. Not that I didn’t try. I remember that I was the only one

who tried. That hack literally raised me off the floor.

I felt fortunate that I had upperclassmen friends from that

circle of disciples devoted to theatre. They included me

in their trips to the drags, their weekends at the Panda,

their drinking parties. I remember, hazily, two seniors who

each had a favorite liquor. One over-consumed some well-

aged golden rum and the other a particularly fine Slo-gin

---decidedly purple in color. When they both got sick about

the same time I was struck by the symbolism.

Ah, be true to your school.

Thomas Wolfe wrote “You Can’t Go Home Again” but I’m

going to try.

I’ve almost got the VORTEX machine working so I can go back

to 1957 (I tossed in the cat and haven’t seen her since).

But first...... I’ve got to get better at pinball.

A. Summers

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