HIGH SCHOOL

It started out being called Arlington Junior High School. I was an 8th grader and the junior high school admitted 6th, 7th and 8th graders. I had left Hamilton Junior High School in Fresno, California and had attended 7th grade there, while my Dad was serving an isolated tour in Iceland for the U.S. Air Force. Upon his return, we were reassigned to March AFB, near Riverside, California.

My junior high school in Fresno had been absolutely beautiful in a variety of ways. It was well established, had excellent teachers, the latest classroom equipment and a huge, well manicured, park-like campus grounds, with tall trees, and gorgeous flower gardens. I had grown to love just looking at the environment. My step grandfather, Joe Pirani, worked as a grounds keeper there after retiring from a steel factory. The next door neighbor boy and I had become fast friends and we already had a girlfriend or two picked out.

Arlington, in 1959, a suburb of Riverside, was dusty and almost treeless. We were taught in temporary buildings while the high school was under construction. The school was more of an eye sore, than a thing of beauty. It was set to grow by degrees. I was in the oldest grade as an 8th grader. When my class became 9th graders, we were still the oldest grade and the school grew with us and so it would go, until our senior year. We had the distinct privilege of never having to deal with upper class mates, but also the class that had to tolerate building inconveniences and delays. We were always the oldest group of kids at Norte Vista; a name we voted to call the school after we became freshman. The school name meant North View. As time progressed, eventually the 9th graders were the youngest group attending.

I lived about a mile from the school in a home our parents had purchased after arriving. It was a new home in a new area and the first time my parents owned a home instead of renting. Dad didn't dare purchase a home when he was active duty military for fear that they would ship him out and he wouldn't have time to sell. At Riverside, however, Dad was due to retire from the Air Force and begin civilian life. This was a transition that was difficult to make. I witnessed his struggles to adjust and vowed I would fare better when I retired from the Air Force, something I had already planned to do at 14 years old. As it turned out, however, years later when I retired from the military, I made some of the same mistakes, plus a few new ones.

Looking back on those years today, I can see that all my worries about fitting in, getting educated, being popular, getting a scholarship and finding a one and only, were so much chaff in the wind. Life is nothing like high school, but when you're living it, nothing else seems to matter. I was interested in sports from the onset but not big enough for football and yet loved baseball. Our school had no formal baseball team so I went out for track, running cross country and then much shorter races like the quarter-mile (440) or the half-mile 880. I never was a star at any of these events but got to be around some great runners and coaches, so I felt my time was well spent.

I struggled to get good grades but often felt inadequate to the task. It was no trouble to land "A"s in English or History but science and math beat me up, especially math like Algebra or Geometry. If I really worked at it, I could earn a "B" in a science course but I was seldom ever to get over a "C" in math. I studied extra, my Dad tutored me, (he was a whiz at math) I sat at the front of the class, right under the math teacher, so I could glean every morsel of help but all to little avail. I tried to correct all this in college but it remained about the same and it has continued to this very day.

Money was scarce in those days for me. I had five brothers and when 18 years old, had a sister. We all ate our share of viddles. I did all the usual things to earn money, mowed lawns, pulled weeds, delivered newspapers, worked with my Dad at his plastics and later locksmith shop but it was seldom enough for more than basics. I remember my glasses frames getting busted from a little too much basketball and not having the bucks to get them repaired, for months. It seemed tough at the time but it actually was to my benefit. It taught me to be wise in my spending.

I didn't have enough money to buy a car, let alone pay for insurance, so I walked a lot or rode my bike, which helped me stay in shape for track meets. I fell in and out of love many times with girls from school. Some love was one-sided and some actually returned affection. The junior prom was a date that I remember vividly. Love that followed after high school was much more endearing. At best, love in high school was superficial, but it has to start somewhere, I suppose.

There were those who were popular. I recall a young man, handsome and from a well to do family. His girlfriend was a gorgeous red head. All of us thought them the ideal couple and they were intensely popular until our senior year, when they dropped out of school to get married, she having become pregnant. So much for popularity. We had our types in the faculty as well. The single, attractive typing teacher who flirted with the single, handsome English teacher. Then there was the older German teacher, who spoke with an accent; the gruff P.E. teacher, the ruddy faced principal, the senior citizen literature teacher, the Latin instructor, the U.S. History instructor and others. These all played a part of forming my high school experience.

On Nov 22nd 1963, John F. Kennedy was shot and killed and our female music teacher helped us cope with the surprise of that event. I was a Junior at the time. After graduation, we went to Disneyland, for our senior party and it was all over. I did a year and a half of college after that, later joined the military, after being reclassified 1-A and didn't see Norte Vista till 1990. The bare fields around the school were completely filled in with homes. Illegal drugs and crime have affected many students in that area today and what had seemed so important so many years ago is now just another stepping stone from the past.