School Story:
I moved to Cathedral City in 1960 with my mom and dad and three MUCH OLDER SISTERS. When we arrived in the desert, we lived at the Palm Springs country club. I attended Cathedral City school and my Kindergarden teacher's name was
Mrs. Michealwiez.My grade school chum, was Desiree Warren, until she moved away to Arizona in 1964. I was raised by a single mom since 1960, and my mom managed the Tiki Jo Jo motel for about 13 years. It was interesting and strange to meet so many different people, and watch them come and go, over the course of my childhood and young adulthood.
I was thrilled when I started my life in Junior high school, but that happiness sooned turned into something else as i was a big geek with braces who kids stole thier shoes and threw them down the sewer and I was teased unmercifully because I was such a vunerable gullible little mealy mouth.
Things turned around for me in the ninth grade, when I lost 22 pounds over the summer and I started wearing cute, trendy clothes. Of course my brain hadnt caught up to my already adult looking body... and i couldnt handle all of the instant popularity and I still continued to act wierd. Needless to say, there were a new team of girls who threatned to kick my butt on a daily basis. I was the object of bullying, something that is sometimes difficult to look back on, but I bet those high school kids who got me in a circle and took turns slapping me across the face have long since forgotten the act by now.
Moving right along and dropping the melodrama, I took alot of choir classes in school. I was in Mrs.Nokes music class for three years, and in Mr. Hartmans for two years previous to that.
I had two understudy solos with Mrs. Nokes, and I was in all district choir under the direction of Mr. Harman in for the spring recital of 1967.
Previous to my fifth and sixth grade class, I was in choir at saint louis catholic church in the fourth grade, where I tried to outsing the organist with the voice full of jelly.
In high school I was under the direction of Alex Hammond, worked with the new choral director Richard reed, and once again worked with that wonderful and beautiful man, Mr Edward Hartmann.
From grade three until High School, I hung around with Anna Dougherty from Cathedral City. She was my best friend during these years.
I was fortuate enough to date and hang out with some very stable and dependable young men in High school. Some of the memories that I have made will stay with me my entire life. i fell in love with a pre med student when I was sixteen, learned about ecology, and all about the musical genius of the beatles, crosby stills nash and young, and led zeppelin. I hung out at the English resource center for two years with my best friend, and I came to rely on that friendship more than I realized at the time.
I really into ecology when I entere the twelfth grade... and was sneaking off to pot parties up the street with fellow PSHS class members. I think this was the first time in my life that my grades plummeted from a b plus average to a c average.
I enjoyed all of my English classes in high school, and dreaded anything I had to take that had to do with mathematics.
During my senior year I became a major football fan because I had a crush on Eric Beck and I rode the rooters bus and went to every home and away game for the season. Of course, that crush never even came close to working out, but i was a silly rumor going around the school that I had " done it".... and of course, you couldnt tell anyone to the contrary because some people seem to rely on and enjoy negative information.
Of course, I had to defend my own honor at school, for at least a week or more, and then someone called me up on the phone and read me the riot act and cussed me out up one side and down the other for something I hadnt even done... now I wish I had.... gosh darn it... where is a scarlet letter when you want to parade your shame down the middle of the street??? lol lol lol lol lol.
I have furthered my education since high school, taking a year of graphic design in 1975- 1976, and and continuing on into the University of Phoenix for two years to attain a degree in business.
I have learned a great deal about myself over the years as well as I have about others. You can never assume what anyone is like just by judging the surface, you can never assume what anyone is thinking, and never assume anything about anyone in general. And, in conclusioin I am about two hundred times stronger and more outspoken than that little wimp I was in High School.
