High School, Trials and Tribulations

I’m of mixed mind about O’Gorman. I loved my friends. I loved the times we had. I even loved how small the school was when compared with the others. One would never be lost in the teeming masses. That said, there weren’t that many places to hide, either. Everyone knew who you were. There was precious little wiggle room when it came to reputation, to clique membership.

For me, the worst aspect of attending O’Gorman was the never ending apparent need to canvas for money. It seems that I was always knocking on doors, begging sponsorship for this activity or that. I feel for all those kids forced to do it now, but at least they are fund raising by selling something tangible, like chocolate, cookie dough, pepperettes, something that allows the sponsor to come away with something they want. Not so us; we canvased neighborhoods, asking, begging, indifferent households to sponsor us for basketball marathons, dance marathons, whatever. And I heard the same line over and over again, “No thanks, I support the public-school system.”

Then there was the dress code. We didn’t have a uniform like the students at O’Gorman do now, but we did have restrictions on what we could wear, and that was NO jeans. Denim jackets were okay to travel to school in, but not for class. I suppose their original intent was that all students would wear wool slacks and skirts, but no one ever wore such items on a daily basis then, anymore. That left cords. Did I mind? Not particularly. Everyone else wore them, too. But as I didn’t own any khakis then, they did make for some sweaty exams, come June. So, one day I wore painter pants to an exam. They were the newest thing; they were certainly cooler. I know now that they were actually jeans, just not the denim one remembers. Butch McMillian, one of our teachers, saw me waiting to enter my exam, and took a long sideways look at me. Then he approached. And pressed the fabric between his finger and thumb. He asked me if they were jeans. I said, no, they were painter pants. He then told me, no, they were jeans. They don’t look like jeans, I said, so how was I supposed to know they were jeans. He thought on it, and in the end decided that they were unlike jeans enough to not send me home. But he did tell me not to wear them to school ever again. Good thing; there was no way I’d have been able to get home, change, and return in enough time to arrive prior to the start of the exam.

John Lavric was not so lucky, but then he was, too. John had been sent home once for God knows what dress code infraction one day. What that infraction was is lost in the fog of time, probably a punk or metal t-shirt (John had a bunch of those). What I do remember was that we were surprised to see him back in class right after lunch. He explained that just as he’d arrived home, his father came home for lunch, something that rarely ever happened. Upon seeing John at home and not in school, he asked why. John told him why. His father was livid. He ordered John into his truck, and drove John back to school. He ordered John to sit in a chair outside Sister Fay’s office, and without asking to see her, without waiting to be ushered in, he stormed into her office, interrupting whatever she may have been doing. For the next five minutes, John heard his father yell at Sister Fay. He said, in no uncertain terms, that for the money he was paying for John to attend O’Gorman, John could wear anything he damn well pleased, so long as there wasn’t a curse word or a naked woman on it, and if she had something to say about it…. When he left Sister Fay’s office, he told John to get back to class, and without looking back to see if John DID go back to class, he left to go back home, to work, to wherever he had a mind to go to. Jeff O’Reilly was not so lucky. He wore a rock and roll tee shirt to school one day, likely with the Monk’s “Bad Habit” cover on it. He did not have John’s father as an advocate. He was told to wear it inside out, or to go home and change.

But having John’s father storm into Sister Fay’s office didn’t win John many brownie points. Neither did our onsite gambling. About the same time that I was invited to the other clique’s blackjack nights, there was a rash of gambling throughout the school. How prevalent was it? I don’t really know, but I remember there were quite a few card games being played. John, Chris, Garry and I were no exception. Small stakes stuff, with matchsticks subbing in for nickels. Sister Fay caught wind of our game, and called us to the office to explain ourselves. We weren’t the rich kids; they'd been seen gambling too; in fact, they’d been playing right next to us, but a blind eye had been turned on their game, as the school would never risk their parents’ financial donations. Not so ours. And so there we were, jammed into St. Fay’s office, treated to her stern gaze. John had balls like on other, an icy calm at times. When Sister Fay asked us, “Were you gambling?” he denied the suggestion of our gambling for money without pause, and following his lead, so did we. Strength in numbers, and all that. Mob courage, too, for that matter. We denied any involvement of money. I’ve said it before; we weren’t stupid. To admit to actual gambling on school property may have invited expulsion, even if only for a short time. And had we been, there’d be more hell to pay at home than there’d ever been at school. I don’t think she believed us, but she didn’t have any proof, either. She knew we were playing cards. We’d been seen doing just that. And we admitted to doing just that, but not to any actual exchange of money. Any further supposition was just that.

Lastly, we of my grade were gipped out of a senior school trip. When we were in Grade 11, we watched the Grade 12s and 13s leave for New York City. Needless to say, I was envious. I was also terrified of the prospect of such a trip. It was New York, after all! New York was the landscape of countless crime dramas, gangster films, and the home of graphic violence on the news. But it was also the Big Apple! Broadway, Times Square, the Yankees! Who wouldn’t want to go there? We couldn’t wait to go, ourselves. But, the next year, my last in high school, there was no school trip; and not the next year, either. Then, miraculously, when we were finally out of O’Gorman’s hallowed halls, the Grade 12s and 13s were off to Europe. Was I mad? Did I feel slighted? You bet I did.

To this day I wonder, did they hate us that much? Or was it simply that there weren’t enough chaperones lined up? Teacher disinterest? No one to organize the trip? Did something especially bad happen during the last trip? Not enough money? All I know is that there was no suggestion that there would be a trip for my grade while we were there. Not a hint of one.

I’ve made up for my lack of travel experiences since then. So many places. So many adventures. Backpacks, buses, planes, trains, and automobiles. Boats, ships, catamarans, even an outrigger. Where? The Caribbean, Australia, the Philippines, South Africa, Egypt, Ecuador, France, Italy, Canada from coast to coast, the American Midwest, L.A., San Francisco, New Orleans, Alaska.

And yes, New York, too.