Another Eye Blink

Fifty years ago today, I was about to begin my senior year of high school.  I was looking forward to it.  I was now entitled to special privileges as an incoming senior: taking classes I wanted instead of those required; the ability to wear a tee shirt and jeans to school instead of pant suits; and the right to sit at the back of the bus and sing out:

“We are the seniors, the mighty, mighty seniors!

Everywhere we go, people ought to know

Who we are, so we tell them

We are the seniors, the mighty mighty seniors…” and the song would go round and round as long as we pleased.

September 4, 1972 was Labor Day.  My tradition was to spend it watching the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon with Jerry Lewis.  I’d begun watching it a couple of years back, and I always was moved by the stories by MDA sufferers and by any progress made in the medical field.  I donated what I could afford.  Each year, when Jerry Lewis sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at the conclusion of the telethon, I would cry too.

I’d been enjoying the Summer Olympics up until the next day, September 5th.  Terrorists belonging to a group called Black September invaded the apartments of the Israeli wrestling team.  Two Israelis were killed outright, others escaped, and nine were taken hostage.  It was horrifying not only because an act of terrorism had struck the Olympics but because they were in Munich, Germany.  Germany had been trying very hard to discard the Nazi stigmatism and to make amends.

As soon as Jim McKay, then the journalistic face of the Olympics, announced what had happened, I was glued to the TV set.  It was such a shock for such an awful thing to happen at the Olympics, an occasion when political differences were set aside for athletes from around the world to peacefully compete in sports.  I’m sure this was an instance where “the whole world is watching” but I only had eyes and ears for Jim McKay.  In between his reports, the games went on.  It was sort of surreal, continuing the competitions when there was so much danger right there.

The crisis went on into this day, 1972.  I don’t remember the time of day or night, but I was watching when Jim McKay came on the air, his face pale with shock.  In a stunned voice, he announced that the fleeing terrorists, with their 9 hostages, had been confronted at the airport by police.  All the Israeli athletes were killed in the firefight and so were all the terrorists.  It was absolutely horrifying.  I felt sick to my stomach and turned the TV off.

My senior year began on a melancholy, grieving start.  As is true with youth, though,  I was 17, and by the end of the week, I was having fun having lunch in the senior lounge with my best friends.  Most of the year was pretty awesome.  My teachers, all but a couple, were totally amazing.  The two exceptions were the teachers for U.S. History and English.  The English teacher was originally a kindergarten teacher and from that position, suddenly found herself at the high school level.  She treated us (I felt) like the kindergarteners she’d taught.  I acted out in her class, arguing with her over every little thing.

She sent me to the principal’s office.  Everyone loved Mr. Fortunato.  There wasn’t a mean bone in his body, and he was as rumpled and cuddly looking as Pooh Bear.  We’d talk; he’d send me back to class.  After the third time, we explored why I couldn’t behave in Mrs. Burke's class.  I told him I felt my intelligence was being diminished; I was bored and tired of being treated like a dumb little kid.  He then saved the rest of the year by moving me to a class taught by my 11^th grade teacher, Ms. McManus.  I’d loved my junior year with her, learning all I could from lessons on transcendentalism and other interesting topics related to English.  I was never bored.  Being in her class again was so refreshing.

The history teacher was just a loss.  I think she was burned out and had no real interest in teaching.  I was totally bored out of my mind; all we did was read a dry textbook.  I’d been learning the SOSDD for the last few years.  Did history never progress beyond the Revolution?  I began skipping her class to either take the bus downtown to the library or to visit my Drama teacher, Mrs. Cooper.  Mrs. Cooper was supportive and encouraging of my abilities and I developed a lot of self-confidence working with her.

One day I happened to look into the hallway as I sat in Mrs. Cooper's class.  The history teacher passed by and our eyes locked.  Oh no, caught!  Sure enough, the teacher turned me in and I was back with Mr. Fortunato.  I readily admitted cutting her class to go visit Drama a second time during the school day.  He asked me not to do it again and I said I wouldn’t but … well, little did I know until a little later in the year that he and Mrs. Cooper had a thing going.  One time he came into her classroom for a chit-chat while I was there, cutting history again.  He acted like he didn’t see me.  I was always grateful for that.

In December, one of our maintenance crew apparently lost his mind.  I heard he was frequently the target of student bullies.  I’m not sure why they made fun of him.  Anyway, they were at it again, tormenting him in the cafeteria just before the first period bell was going to ring.  He drew out a machete and chased his tormenters out the door and onto the outside quadrangle.  I guess he panicked and then ran from the cafeteria and up the stairs.  There he confronted a security guard and stabbed her with his knife.  He ran from there, down the hall toward his office.  On the way, he grabbed a hostage, a sophomore.

His office was right around the corner from my psychology classroom.  His back wall backed up to ours.  He and his hostage were screaming.  There was pandemonium.  I’ve written about this before and am sure I will write about it again this December because it’s become so imprinted on my brain.  I’ll just say this for now:  it didn’t end well for the maintenance man.  I’m not sure what traumatic memories the sophomore was left with.  She’d be 65 this year.

After December, the rest of the school year went very well.  It’s fortunate I was in Psychology when “the incident” happened.  Years before non-war related PTSD was ever considered, our teacher understood what trauma could do to a kid.  She kept us calm throughout the incident.  When we came back to school the following Monday, she had us write down everything we could remember from that Friday the 13^th.  She advised us to write it out as often as we needed and to talk about it and not keep it like a secret.  That ended up being the best advice, one repeated to me by therapists I've seen over the years.

The rest of the year was pretty awesome.  I was still making pretty good money as a babysitter for several families, buying my own albums and books to read.  My favorite artist continued to be Neil Diamond but I was also rocking to Elton John, Dr. Hook, Three Dog Night, The Moody Blues, Chicago, The Temptations, the Carpenters, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Stevie Wonder, Jim Croce, Diana Ross, Helen Reddy, Paul Simon, The Edgar Winter Group (Frankenstein), Roberta Flack, and Aretha Franklin.  I realize Paul McCartney, the Stones, Jackson 5, Osmonds, David Cassidy and others aren’t on the list.  I liked them but not as favorites.  I had too many favorites to begin with anyway.  My bedroom walls were completely covered with posters from teen magazines.

As seniors, the school year ended two weeks ahead of our younger classmates’.  As a junior, I remembered the celebration of departing seniors from the school parking lot.  Now it was my turn, except I was riding a bus instead of driving a car.  It was such a feeling of freedom although I was sad about leaving my favorite teachers. 

Graduation was very special.  I had gone to an all-girls high school and we had such a big class, we graduated from Baltimore’s Civic Center.  We all wore white formals instead of graduation gowns and, to be honest, that just felt ever so much more special.

I went to the school’s one-year reunion and met up with my best friends and Mr. Fortunato.  We gathered together at the student union of Johns Hopkins University.  Our school’s 1924 class were gathering in another banquet room, and I remember being awed.  Fifty years!  Imagine that!  How incredibly old these graduates were, and how amazing it was for them to celebrate together after all those years.

Well.  I’m expecting to hear from the person in charge of our 50^th Anniversary celebration.  That’s next year.  Fifty years.  Wow!