High School

That heading is deceiving because I was not the kind of kid who got into trouble at school. For sure there wasn’t a halo around my head either and while I was put in possession of a math exam stolen out of the classroom (naming no names) I was too cowardly to actually use it for the final. I trembled in my gladiator sandals throughout the exam in case Miss Jansen’s xray eyes saw through my bag to the stolen papers. I still shudder thinking about that hour!

After grade 9 we moved to Montreal for 10 months where I attended Lindsay Place High School in Pointe Claire. Over the Christmas holidays we heard about the huge rumble that had taken place at WPC when the school had invited some other school (cannot remember the name of it) to attend one of their dances. It hit national news and Debbie Ryan (who had also moved from WPC to Lindsay Place the same time as I did – and how weird is that coincidence?) was the one who told me about it. As a consequence when I moved back to WPC at Easter time it was to the news “no more hops, dances or other extracurricular events until further notice”. Which meant there were no dances that year or the following year. We didn’t get the dances back until grade 12.

Not that it would have mattered much to me anyway because my dad was so strict that I wouldn’t have been allowed to go to a dance anyway. If it hadn’t been for my mother finally putting her foot down I never would have gotten out of the house even in grade 12. I wasn’t even allowed to date until the summer before grade 12 when Mom said it was okay for me to go to the Zoo with Eric Derby. Wow, how wild and liberating. This was 1970 and other kids were driving cars, smoking cigarettes (and maybe marijuana), having parties with boys, going downtown on dates and I got to go to the zoo. I was a very sheltered 17 year old, practically living in a convent, except I had 3 boisterous brothers in the house. I’m the only girl I know (other than my sister Jeanette) who took ballet and judo at the same time. As we are both Gemini it was a perfect fit. We were girly tomboys, an unusual combination, and awkward.

My mother would send us to school in pants when it was mandatory that girls wear skirts (in fact we weren’t allowed to wear slacks until grade 12 and even then jeans were forbidden). When we got sent home by the teachers my mother would send us back without changing us. My teacher called me George for the rest of the year. Then we got promoted to trendy miniskirts and pale pink lipstick and I carried a purse with a comb, hanky and lipstick in it and nothing else. I had an empty wallet. Man I was so poor and so awkward I feel sorry for myself even now! Even though I had naturally wavy hair my mother would insist that I get a perm every summer and I would have to put my hair in rollers after washing it even though in 1970 it was Peggy Lipton straight hair, part in the middle. I did manage to grow out my bangs and part it in the middle by grade 11. One small victory for girl-kind.

High school had its struggles and fitting in was one of the biggest ones.