During the summer of 1974, we spent alot of time driving 400 miles north to Soledad, California, in order to have family prison visits with Mom's true love, career criminal Paris Young. All that idle time in the car gave me plenty of opportunities to think about my high school plan. Even though I was usually an Eeyore type of girl, always looking at the glass half empty, I decided to let myself think positive this time. OLP could be a clean slate. Starting over fresh. No Warriner had ever attended Our Lady of Peace, so I would not be arriving with a bad family reputation. I was going to begin the school year on the Honor Roll due to my surprisingly good entrance exam scores. It occurred to me that I could rebrand myself. I could be one of the popular girls. Maybe try out for cheerleading, or join some clubs. Things could be different. I felt hopeful.
In July, Mom found me a used OLP navy blue uniform skirt in the San Diego Union Thrifty ads. My white blouses from St Vincent's still fit me. We went to Thom McCanns Shoe Store and got some uncomfortable hard leather black and white saddle shoes. And we kept making those 400 mile trips to Soledad Correctional Facility all summer long. In between trips, Mom waited every day for the mailman to bring her another love letter, and when she got one she would spend the rest of the day reading and re-reading it. Once a week she would sit by the phone for hours, waiting her the anticipated long distance collect phone call. This nonsense took most of Mom's energy and attention. She was like a love-sick teenager. Nothing else seemed to matter to her.
I am guessing that when she received my new student orientation packet, she only read the uniform requirements list. If she had read the entire thing, she would have known that I needed to attend an orientation day in mid-August where I would receive my class schedule, learn where my classrooms were located, buy my textbooks, learn the Alma mater song, sign up for various types of tryouts, and get a locker. Mom also would have seen that OLP started its fall session the last week of August. But she didn't read the packet, and I didn't know there was a packet to be read. August came and went, and I was blissfully unaware that school life started without me. Mom had just assumed that my high school schedule was the same as my younger siblings' St. Vincent's schedule, which began after Labor Day. She was wrong, and once again,
I was doomed to fail from the very beginning.
One hot September morning, Mom rushed into my bedroom and woke me up in a panic. "Get up right now, "she shouted. "You have to go to school!"
I was still enjoying the great summer feeling that comes with sleeping in late. This was like having a bucket of freezing water dumped in your face. I threw on my uniform, grabbed my bookbag, and ran outside to the car. There was no time for breakfast or questions. But there evidently was time for a first day photo. Then we jumped into the Volvo and took off. Mom was making excuses as she drove up Washington Street, to Park Blvd, and right on Adam Avenue and left on Oregon Street. She dropped me off at the curb in front of the school and drove off, leaving me alone to deal with what to do next.
OLP. A crazy mix of old estate mansion, Spanish buildings, and modern classrooms. There's alot of structures crammed onto this canyon rim.
I entered the main building and found the secretary's office, and checked in with the woman behind the desk. She took my name and perused a roster list. "Yes, here you are, we were getting ready to remove you from the rolls, dear," the nice woman calmly stated. "Where have you been?" Before I could answer, she handed me a piece of paper containing my class schedule. I looked at it, trying to decipher it. There were room numbers and building names, but I didn't know where anything was located. Then she handed me a list of books that I needed to purchase from the campus bookstore. This was all new to me. At St. Vincent's, all your textbooks were handed out to you on the first day of school. Mom didn't give me any money to buy books. I just stared at the list, bewildered. There were obviously many things about high school that no one had told me about. Then the old lady told me to go see Sister Mary Louis at the typing classroom. She was the person who handed out the locker assignments and combination locks. Since I had no idea where the typing room was located, I looked at my schedule to figure out where I was supposed to be at that very minute.
As I roamed the silent halls looking for my classroom, the bell suddenly rang. Doors popped open and hundreds of girls exited the classrooms, laughing and talking as they briskly moved about towards their next classroom. They all seemed to know exactly what they were doing. We didn't exchange rooms at St. Vincent's. I was clueless. I stood there, just watching, as the girls crowded the halls, slammed their lockers shut, and quickly left for a different floor, or a different building, as other girls arrived from a different floor or different building and took the space that the previous girls had vacated. And as quickly as the chaos had started, it was finished. Everyone scurried into classrooms, the bell rang again, and the classroom doors were closed. Again, it was silent, and I was in the hallway all alone.
As it happened, the classroom that I was supposed to be in was right in front of me, so I opened the door. Everyone looked at me. Ms. Franzese called me over and asked my name. She found my name on the roster, marked it "tardy," quickly filled out a detention slip, and told me to find a seat. I took it and went to sit in an empty desk in the back. This was my French class. I did not have a textbook, and as the teacher went on with the day's lesson, I looked at the detention slip and wondered what I was supposed to do with it. I looked at all the other girls, who were reading French words along with Ms Franzese. My stomach was grumbling from hunger. I just sat there as class went on, hoping no one would hear my noisy tummy. Then the bell rang, and everyone jumped up and exploded out the door to get to their next class.
My next class was Algebra, and of course it was in a different building somewhere on campus. I found myself rushing through the halls, just like all the other girls, but they knew where they were going. I didn't. The bell rang, the doors closed. And I was still looking around, in the silent halls, all alone. I saw a janitor and asked her for directions. She looked at my schedule, pointed me to the next building, and I ran as quickly as I could. I arrived about 5 minutes late and went through the same drill with Mrs. Thrailkill. So now, I had two detention slips, still no textbooks, still starving, and no idea what the teacher was explaining to the class.
Then there was homeroom. I didn't even know what that meant, but I made it there on time and spoke with the homeroom teacher about my detention slips. She explained that I would have to serve two separate detention punishments, which meant I had to stay after school for an hour, either doing homework or doing chores. Unlike the teachers at St Vincent's, the OLP teachers didn't humiliate you in front of the class or spank you with a paddle, and for that, I was happy.
That first day included being herded down to the bleachers to hear some speeches and to sing our school song. Everyone knew the words of "Villa Montemar," but of course this was the first time I had heard it, so I stood there feeling like a disembodied soul. I also discovered that if you wanted to eat something, you needed to bring a lunch, or have coins for the vending machines. Mom didn't think to send me off to school with either of those things.
When Mom picked me up later that day, I told her how horrible everything went. She didn't seem to think it was all that bad. The next day, she sent me to school with a blank check for the bookstore clerk to fill out when I purchased my textbooks. I got to school very early and headed straight to the bookstore. Sister Mary Lawlor, a calm whitehaired old lady, took the list and started making checkmarks on it. "Sorry dear, but we are out of the Algebra, French, and American Short Stories books," she said. "We sent the extras back last week." This was getting worse and worse.
"What am I supposed to do now," I asked. I really wanted to just turn around and walk away from OLP forever.
Sister Mary Lawlor looked at me with sincere empathy. "I think the only thing you can do for now is to borrow from a classmate. Maybe you can go over to her house and you can do your homework together," she suggested. She told me to return in a week to hopefully pick up the reordered books . I politely thanked her and walked away. I did not know anyone, I was painfully shy and felt like a big loser. None of these girls lived in my neighborhood. Mom never let me go to other kids houses. At this point, my Eeyore thoughts resurfaced and squashed the plan to reinvent myself. Any hopes that I had nurtured over the summer were dead.
It took almost a month to get my textbooks. By then, I had flunked several tests, failed to turn in my homework, and no one, not Mom, not even my teachers, bothered to try to change my doomed trajectory. As expected, my first quarterly report card was dismal. The grades were mailed to my house. Mom could see that the only class I did well in was Piano. But she didn't sit me down to talk about my grades. She was currently working on trying to get her fiance released from prison, and that took every ounce of her energy. By October of 1974, only 3 months into high school, it hit me. I was in over my head. Mom didn't care. I was on my own.
After Christmas, Mom signed up to be a lunch monitor, because volunteering a couple days a week would knock some money off the tuition. She was assigned to walk around upper court, where the Juniors were supposed to take their lunchbreak. She was lazy, however. Instead of walking around, she would grab one of the picnic tables and sit there with her can of Tab. After a few days, she insisted on having me keep her company. I was supposed to be eating lunch with the rest of the Freshman on lower court. Luckily, I had made a friend who decided to rebel and sit with us on the Junior Court. Mom's work-for-a-discount schedule didn't last more than a couple of months.
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The high school photographer captured it perfectly and the memory is preserved in the 1975 yearbook. Mom with her Tab, sitting with her back facing the courtyard that she was supposed to be observing. And me, with a pained look on my face, wishing I was somewhere else.
My Freshman year at OLP started with me being an Honors at Entrance student, and ended with me being a mediocre C & D grades loser student. At OLP, D grades were considered failures which required repeating. It was suggested that I attend summer school to make up for my failure in Algebra and French. Mom had other plans. She had succeeded in getting a release date for her beloved. Paris was getting out in July, and it was all hands on deck to get the house decluttered, painted and cleaned, so that Paris would have a nice new place to live after getting out of Soledad Correctional Facility. There was no time for summer school. But there was another reason for not attending remedial classes. I would have to go to a public school for the summer session. Mom seriously hated public schools. I myself was terrified of going through another new school experience, so I quickly put the need for summer school out of my mind. I needed a strong Mom who thought about her kid more than her romantic plans, because I certainly wasn't strong enough to do what was necessary for myself. It was easier to just stay home and clean house. And Mom was fine with that.
As I spent hours repeatedly running the Rug Doctor machine over our hopelessly filthy wall-to-wall carpeting, I thought about starting the 10th grade in a couple of months. I already knew when school started, so I wouldn't be two weeks late ever again. I already had my class schedule, and I knew now that I needed to show up on orientation day to buy my books and get my new locker assignment. I would start the year with a new father. Mom's wildest romantic dreams would be fulfilled, and she could be with Paris Young all the time. Maybe she would let me off the tight leash that she always kept me on. Maybe I could have friends, go to school dances and football games. Maybe things would be looking up for me when I started my Sophomore year in August of 1975. I was still harboring a bit of hope. I had no idea of what was in store for me.
