High School Years and My First Job (1970s)

One of my Pop culture experiences at age 19 was listening to the soundtrack album of the new Broadway hit musical "A Chorus Line" (1975) with such songs as "What I Did for Love".

Most people share the experience of attending high school, an aspect of contemporary society that reveals many common traditional and institutionalized aspects of growing up.  The intermittent bells signaling the beginning or end of a class period, the diverse young people and adults that one gets to know, learning about a selection of subjects deemed to be of basic importance — happening during an era when spiritual understanding is commonly associated with beliefs and not knowledge.

These are some magazine covers that I remember from my younger years.  My interests included science fiction and fantasy fictional entertainment, cryptozoology, and beginning to learn the truth behind 'occult' and superstitious beliefs through reading nonfiction books about diverse 'paranormal' subjects. 

Throughout my secondary school years, I always knew writing should be my focus for a career.  My first journalism writing award was received in the 11th Grade with a third place award for sports coverage in the write-in portion of USC's annual Newspaper Day attended by high school students.  The article was about football team flanker back Lynn Swann, who was again making headlines this past week upon resigning from his position as Athletic Director for USC.

For our senior year, my twin brother Mike and I were journalism students on the staff of the Pasadena High School newspaper and he was Editor-in-Chief.  We also were among staff members of the school literary magazine "Pandora's Box."  The title was selected after being inspired in part by the name of our pet cat.  The previous year edition began with my vignette about a contemporary anthropologist discovering an ancient box inscribed with the word 'Pandora.'  The myth is recounted and the article concludes with the box being opened.  The 1974 edition included my brief humorous article entitled "What's In A Name?"

1974 edition (art by Barbara Pedersen)

The U.S. 1970 ethnic demographics show that at the beginning of the 1970s Hispanic people (of any race) was at 4.4% with Non-Hispanic White at 83.5% and Black at 11.1%.  Our high school was one of those where black students were transported by bus every day as a result of school desegregation.  Estimated U.S. statistics for 2018 place Hispanic or Latino demographics at more than 18%.

One event of my senior year was attending a screening and press conference at Paramount Studios in Hollywood (where Mike and I each would eventually be employed later in our lives).  My first non-school article was a report about a Youth Day event sponsored by The Pasadena Union newspaper.  I also was excited to win First Place in a news writing competition at the Pasadena City College Journalism Day event with my article published in the PCC Courier.  My article quoted Los Angeles District Attorney Joseph P. Busch: "I do not believe you can muzzle the press . . . The great measure of a reporter is to be objective.  You do form and you do mold public opinion."

Perusing some of my article clippings from the high school newspaper that I've managed to keep all these years, I'm reminded that my "So What" column twice featured profiles of school secretaries (of the English and Social Science departments).  After I became a metaphysical author and decided to find a job outside of the corporate world, my eventual decision was to become an office technician for a high school Special Education office.  One of the books I reviewed was Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970) by Richard Bach.  (article)

I also can remember some of my middle school experiences and teachers at Marshall Junior High School.  One English  teacher happened to be the husband of one of my mother's coworkers whose home in West Covina we'd once visited.  He was a man enthralled by the works of Shakespeare and it was a fascinating introduction to the works of the Elizabethan dramatist. 

My biggest surprises while attending PHS was winning National Certificate of Merit Fourth Awards for 'Senior Informal Article' and 'Senior Critical Review' in the Scholastic Writing Awards conducted by Scholastic Magazines.  The informal article had been written during a spontaneous creative writing experiment and was entitled "Picture Puzzle of a Mind Without a Window".  The movie reviewed was "Save the Tiger."  

When I learned about being singled out by the Quill and Scroll International Society for High School Journalists for a National Writing Contest Feature Story award (for what I thought was a simple and factual article about the movie "The Exorcist"), my initial reaction was that probably a mistake had been made.  The contest had not required any student submissions.  It was learned that the contest judge had been impressed that information was presented without an emphasis on my personal reactions to the film.  Mike also won two 'Senior Critical Review' Fourth Awards from Scholastic Magazines, among other writing awards. 

Among other movies I reviewed were "The Candidate" and the Ingmar Bergman film "Cries and Whispers" (1972).  The latter was one of the European films that inspired me to think of the entertainment industry as a potential career.  The qualities of cinema seemed to me as being most realized with the intense and unpredictable, seemingly idiosyncratic films associated with ‘the auteurs.’  Among the filmmakers from other countries whose movies fascinated me at the time were Federico Fellini, Jean Luc Godard and Luis Bunuel.

The first part of the Pasadena High School yearbook of 1974 is rife with song quotes, beginning with the entire lyrics of The Carpenters' "Yesterday Once More" and including quotations from songs by famous singers back then: Carole King, Sly and the Family Stone, Kenny Rodgers, The Beatles, Bette Midler, Elton John, and Cat Stevens. 

Mike and I graduated in June 1974 with commencement ceremonies for Pasadena high schools at the Rose Bowl.  Just as the tradition continues in Southern California today, Mike and I went to Disneyland for Grad Night with our journalism classmates Lilith and Connie.

After high school, my first employment was working in Pasadena movie theaters in downtown Pasadena on Colorado Boulevard, the street that at the start of each year becomes part of the route of the famous Rose Parade.  I can remember that the movie that was playing when I submitted an application was the comedy "Blazing Saddles."  I was hired because a staff member (Nancy Jo) was impressed about my mailing a follow-up thank you letter.  When the manager was transferred to the larger theater down the block, we all went with him.

I continued working part-time while attending Pasadena City College and even during weekends after transferring to the University of Southern California to be a cinema major.  Among the movies that had long engagements at the Academy Theater while I worked there were "Cabaret" (re-release), “Tommy,” “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” "Rocky" and “Star Wars”.  

Sometimes there were special screenings, such as a matinee of "Tommy" for a youth group, a classic movie series for senior citizen bank customers, and a 'sneak preview' of a low-budget movie starring Cindy Williams.  When I spotted the actress run frantically into the ladies room during the film, it made me ponder how perhaps it could be difficult to observe oneself on the big screen.  Special midnight screenings of rock movies such as "Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains The Same" usually resulted with some teenager overdosing on illicit drugs.  It was recreational to work at a movie theater before the advent of the multiplexes because there was time to socialize between the busy period at the start of a film.

Down the street from the Academy were my favorite bookstores, record store and my all-time favorite store: Jerry Piller's (clothing store).  I don't know how he did it but Jerry would sell designer overflow stock clothes for prices less than the apparel sold at department stores.  Jerry—who spoke with an electrolarynx as a cancer survivor—would regularly drop by the theater and that's how I learned about his store.  (Years later I noticed he had a small acting role in the movie “The Color of Money.”)

I remember working as a doorman, concession clerk, usher and once in a while as cashier at the movie theaters.  Another of my tasks was putting up the titles of the movies in red plastic letters on both sides of the marquee that faced in different directions.  My reaction was always bewildered dismay when I found out about romantic dalliances between theater employees.  Concerning myself, there have been attractions and investigations throughout my life but the reality of finding the ideal person with whom to begin a meaningful intimate relationship never progressed very far due to particular circumstances of mine (despite the realization that those circumstances were continuously evolving.) 

The theater staff was ethnically and culturally diverse and I realize now what a unique period this was for me in relation to making so many close friends and actually finding time to go out with a lot of them.  Nonetheless, I didn't look back when moving on with my life and career; thereafter, I involved myself during my free time in the solitary occupation of researching and writing in a predominating way.  

There were some fascinating coincidences between myself and theater coworkers: Collette turned out to be the young black woman who shared Mike's and my bus ride home once a week after an evening creative writing class at PCC.  Three best friends were named James: Jim (P) who married a co-worker named Judy; James (H) was from a military family background; and the other (James A) a very intelligent yet emotionally troubled young man who I'd known in high school (none of these should be confused with my elementary school friend James).  The theater manager Karl was young and amiable.  He'd just made the transition to family man and I recognized that such a milieu was not something for me.  Among my coworkers, there were also two Mikes, Kate, Shauna, Mary, Sylvia, Chris, Greg, Yolanda, Wendy, Judy (#2), Merritt, Alan, Jim S, Charles aka Chuck, and some whose names I've forgotten.  I remember one friend resigned because she found that the movie "Coming Home" conflicted with her religious and spiritual morality, which was a thought-provoking incident for me.  Considering some of these friends now, sometimes I wish that there was a close friend in my life today although I know it's impossible.  Countless people aren't even aware that there can be variations to individual human experience of aspects of life that have been articulated as 'Nonlocality,' 'Entanglement' and the 'Unity of All Being.'

My most bizarre memory from this period involved my mother after she helped Mike and me to purchase our first car.  We chose the American Motors Pacer with it’s roomy and unusual ovoid shape, the model that would later become most famous as the vehicle known as the Mirthmobile in “Wayne’s World.”  There was one difficulty with the new car and this was that it’s size and windows that made it such a pleasure to drive made it extremely difficult to park in the garage.  Whenever Ellen would be a passenger in a car, she would scream and yell that I was going to have an accident so when she said that I was going to scrape the side of the car when trying to park there was no way for me to know that this time she was correct.  Her  almost constant anger and hysterics were difficult to live with and on this occasion there was a startling ramification.  The next day, after parking the car, I looked up to our apartment window and saw something astonishing.  The figure who momentarily peeked out I knew was Ellen but she seemed to be wearing some kind of bizarre mask that I can only compare to deformed characters I would later see in the movies “The Elephant Man” and “Mask.”  Of course, once upstairs I discovered that this was no mask and her face had become startlingly misshapen.  Her face didn’t stay in that astonishing condition for very long yet it didn’t seem to be just “a bad case of hives,” which was how Ellen explained it.

My mother was proud when she was awarded a medal honoring her for twenty years of employment at St. Luke Hospital.  Although she didn’t consider it a great distinction, the medal was a symbol for raising two children on her own with no one to help her when a difficulty arose.  Soon thereafter the hospital was sold to a corporation and a new administrator told her that she was expected to lay off some of her department staff as those who remained were expected to take on the additional work.  “Then they would hate me,” Ellen responded; and to this the executive commented, “Isn’t that what you want?”  Ellen remembered, “I was still able to do the job.  I just wasn’t willing to do it for them.  Almost all of the other department heads left.”

She hadn’t planned to retire at so young an age (almost 54) but that was how things worked out, mostly due to persistent discomfort from gout.  Years later when she became more ill, she accepted my invitation to move in with me and I became her caregiver when she started undergoing dialysis. 

"One" is among the Pop songs that I now realize to have a prophetic aspect in relation to my unexpected path of spiritual discovery (Oneness) that culminated later in my life.