JOHN MUIR MIDDLE SCHOOL is located in a working class neighborhood in San Leandro, CA. In the past…read more50 years, little has changed here, in terms of the nature of the houses in this neighborhood (it has not yet been invaded by condos) and not much has changed in terms of the businesses (there are still no Starbucks, Jamba Juice, or Apple electronics stores nearby). John Muir has provided me with many fond memories and a couple of lasting friends. The best times included the opportunity to perform on stage in a theater play, the opportunity to play in a rock'n'roll band at a school dances, and metal shop.
We performed NIGHT MUST FALL by Emlyn Williams. I played inspector Belsize. A remembered moment for me was being on stage in the gym, and trying to light my pipe (lighting it with the second match), and intentionally pausing in my line for emphasis. The prompter girl at the side of the stage thought that I'd forgotten my lines, and she was loudly whispering the line to me. It was interesting that there was even a make-up girl, and they put make-up on me to make my skin lighter. The play was made into a film, which starred Rosalind Russell. The drama teacher was a young man, and he taught us to "stay in character" and we had to learn a play about a character who chose to wear a mask, during the time of colonial America, and the town wound up killing him because they could not tolerate his anonymity. Nona Valla taught English. She adored Rosalind Russell. Once she exclaimed that she wanted to change her last name to "Valhalla." Once we went to see Nona Valla perform at Alameda Little Theater in Menotti's play, The Medium.
The leaders of my rock'n'roll band were Drew Johnese and his brother Randall. At that time, I rode a bicycle with a banana seat for delivering newspapers on my paper route. The synthetic plastic in the textured seat had worn a hole in my pants, revealing my white underpants, and I was not aware of it until one of our band's performances. And so, while performing in the cafeteria at John Muir, I tried to hide the fact that my pants had a rip in the rear. As part of our show, we played ANGEL BABY, and as it turned out, the most beautiful and glamorous girl (tall blonde) in John Muir sang the song. Right after the song, a very ethnic-looking Portuguese boy (in terms of hair style and dress) came up to her, wanting to shake hands with her, but she refused. As part of another performance, we performed a long version of GLORIA, and Bruce Kane was the singer. Bruce Kane was a very good singer, perhaps on par with Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders. In the song GLORIA, when we got to the part where the lyrics go, "When she comes to my house, She knocks upon my door, And then she comes in my room and makes me feel alright." I knew that Bruce was going to add more lyrics derived from his real-life experiences with girls, and so I played a guitar riff that drowned him out (because I was worried about what Bruce was going to say about his own adventures).
I enjoyed metal shop taught Mr. Lawson. I loved making a copper tea pot and making a sharp metal chisel. Mr. Lawson had the nickname "Pockets" perhaps because of his denim apron, but I was told it was because he kept a hand in a pocket and diddled with himself. Also, I painted campaign posters for 2 students running for public office. One was Kent Bailey and he won. I spelled his name wrong and what I printed was "Ken Bailey." The other was Elizabeth Allen. One of my friends was Mickey Myers (not same boy as Mitch Meyer). Mickey was in the school band and he played electric guitar. On the rear of his guitar he used black tape to spell the word, "Crusher" (or something like that) and once during a performance with the school band, he flipped the guitar over and proudly displayed the word. One of the gym teachers was Mr. Spear, a sharp-looking young man who drove a sports car. In swimming class, I had a cramp on my foot and Mr. Spear gave it a massage to make it better. On the disconcerting side, once all of the boys were lined up to shoot a few baskets, one boy at a time. I was the very worst and missed all 10 shots. While I was trying to toss the ball, Mr. Spear expressed interest in the fact that my dad was a doctor. In retrospect, I wish he had taken me aside after school, and trained me how to shoot baskets. Another gym teacher was Mr.English. He gave us a lecture that we should not squeeze our pimples. He came up with the example of a boy who popped his pimples before he had a date with "Roberta." Once in the summer, I saw Mr.English busy with a summer job, which was delivering newspapers (I felt a little sorry for him for having such a crappy summer job). He had ruddy skin and lacked charisma. I scored high in math class, and our math teacher sent me to St. Mary's College in Moraga for a math contest. But I let her down and didn't win. Okay, that's about it for John Muir. Great times.
