Down To Business ...

During the Summer of 1985, again my Mom did some research and found that I could attend Sanford-Brown Business School (not an accredited college yet) and it would cost NOTHING.  Because of the financial status of our family, I would be able to attend school, tuition and books fully paid and get a diploma in whatever program they offered.   This was wonderful news to me! 

I wanted to go to a 4 year university and get a degree, but could not see why I couldn't follow in my Dad's footsteps and attend the Business School he did many years prior.   So Mom and I headed to the school, talked with an admissions advisor, and I chose to take the program on Data Entry and Computer Principles.   Computers were finally beginning to become prominent in business and it seemed like a good fit for me...I wanted to work in a white collar job like my parents did when they met and married.

August 1985 was the beginning of classes.  Unlike all my high school classes and teachers I remember to this day, I don't recall all the classes and really don't remember teacher names during the 9 months I attended SBBS.  What I do remember more are some of the people I met, some of the work I did and some of the antics that went on.  It was like college but still more like high school to me.  I went to class and again did well in all of them.   I really didn't make any friends there until December 1985.  I was a shy one, new environment, and all new people surrounding me.  I wasn't known for being an extrovert at all!  

First two people I met and befriended were both named Lisa.  Then I met Donna.  Then we all met Mona and her sister.  The five of us would do stuff together outside of our classes.   Lisa S. lived in the dorms across town from the college.  Lisa R. and myself still lived at home.  Mona and her sister I believe lived an apartment near the highway.   And Donna lived at home with her significant other.  During the rest of the school year I had visited each of these places.  Only Lisa R. had been to my house.  I was still anxious about anyone turning up at my home with my Dad there.  I just didn't want him to embarrass himself or me, in front of my friends. 

The two Lisa's knew others at the dorms and I met a lot of guys and gals there.  Several times throughout the school year, we'd finish classes (around 1pm) and head to the dorms and party over there.  That was my introduction to dorm life.  Sometimes we'd skip our last class, I was doing well in the class, so skipping it didn't bother me much.  It was like a learn on your own thing for one of the programming languages I was learning.  We'd head to the Lee's Fried Chicken restaurant down the street and have lunch and just plain enjoy ourselves.  I loved this school year after I met these people.  I let some of my defenses down and had a good time as a 19 year old in a new environment.

On many Tuesday nights, the two Lisa's and I would travel across the river into Illinois (the East side) and go to a Ladies night at Stages, a dance club.  That was my introduction to drinking and dancing...and men looking to pick up girls.  For the life of me I could never figure out how it was legal for this bar to serve girls underage.  Everyone entering had to show their driver license.  And girls were allowed in if they were at least 19.  Guys had to be 21.   Thinking back on it now, it was the ultimate in hookup places.  Although, I can admit now, I was never "picked up" in that place.  I had a dueling feeling in my heart about that.  On the one hand I really wanted a guy to ask me to dance (that never happened) and on the other hand I was way out of my element and scared of older guys.  In reality, this was really not a safe place to be for a naïve girl like myself.   I just wanted to belong, and dance, and have friends.  And drink. 

We were there once at this club and some male strippers were performing.  I was totally freaking out at all that.  Watching the looser girls up by the stage carrying on, I would laugh, I would stare, I would turn my head, I just didn't know what the heck to do.  That was the only one of a few times I ever was in proximity to male strippers. 

What I truly enjoyed was the band that played live there on Tuesday nights.  They were called Tropix.  They were very good.  The lead singer was a very attractive guy, his brother was in the band, and if I wasn't checking out their performances, I was eyeing the keyboardist.  That was the instrument I loved back then.  The brother of the lead singer was dating some girl that worked at the hair salon Lisa R. went to get her hair done.  That's how Stages became a part of our lives for several months. 

A few times instead of heading to the bar, we stayed at the dorms and drank and played games or watched sports on TV.  I remember attempting to drink a 6 pack of beer and not being able to get past can number 5.  I was pretty drunk, and although that was not the first time I had gotten that drunk, I was happy that no one took advantage of my state.  I really didn't think too far ahead about what could have happened in those circumstances.  I think all my experiences back then taught me how easy it is for girls to get into a load of trouble with guys and one thing leading to another, all while under the influence.  You have to remember this was 1985-1986, when AIDS was in the news all over the place.  All I remember back then was it was a sexually transmitted disease, and I didn't want that death sentence.  I think this was one of the main reasons I didn't try to open myself up to any guys and date back then.   I just didn't trust guys and I didn't want to get AIDS.  (Oh, normally you'd hear girls say they didn't want to get pregnant....well, that was not an issue for me....you'll learn why soon.)

Lisa R. was good friends with Lisa S.  But Lisa R. and I would become very close friends and do lots of stuff together.  When it came time for graduation in June 1986, Lisa R.'s parents invited my parents to their home to meet and then go to the graduation ceremony.  I was concerned the whole time about how my Dad would be perceived.  I was happy to learn later from my mom that everything went well.  And later still learn from Lisa that her parents liked my parents.   That was a blessing.  Lisa's Mom could be quite particular about other people's manners.  I never knew my Dad to have manners...sad to say.  But I guess he was on his best behavior, and that I loved to hear!

The ceremony was at a unique place.  And the stage was a place celebrities came to perform, and the whole stage rotated around and around!   Really wild.   But it moved slowly, so everyone in a 360-degree circle around it could see the going's on up on stage.  I again had to wear a cap and gown and received a diploma for my efforts.  I earned a 3.9 GPA that year, and I was most pleased with that accomplishment.  I think my parents were too! 

Many kids go off to college and have fun, learn new subjects, make friends and "sow their oats" so to speak, before getting serious and finishing degrees and getting married and having families.  I started out pretty much the same way, but life didn't exactly progress in the same manner that many of my High School friends lives did.   I wouldn't continue college after Sanford-Brown as I intended.  I got involved in other going's on, and headed down a different path.  My life would soon become an adventure...sometimes interesting, sometimes scary.  Never boring. 

....life is never predictable.  You can plan something for years and things change midstream when you least expect it.  You can be enjoying your youth and suddenly be transported into very adult situations and have no idea how to deal with things.  These are the things I contended with.  Sometimes well, sometimes not.   More to this life saga coming up, stay tuned ....

The facade of Sanford-Brown campus.

The school was in front of a golf course.

I took this picture because of the humor of it all. 

 

Lisa R. (in the hat) and Donna taken indoors from the patio

where we'd congregate between classes.

I couldn't find any pictures of myself at this time in my life at school.  Ahh..

Finishing The Readying ....

My Senior year was by far the most fun I had in all 4 years of High School! I took one semester of College Composition (for college credit), Math Analysis (precursor to Calculus), Teacher's Aide class, Drawing & Painting, Commercial Art, Computer Programming, my most favorite Spanish I and my least favorite Chemistry.  

I initially signed up to take Physics, because I thought it would be fun.  It was full, and so I decided on Chemistry instead.  It was tough, and because it was my last class of the day, by then, I was usually tired and just bored out of my mind.  And the silliest part, I didn't have to take a 6th class my entire Senior Year because I had enough credits.  I could have gone home an hour early but silly me wanted to give it go. 

I had Mrs Thiel again for College Comp class.  If I had taken the 2nd semester of this class I would have had a completed composition written with footnotes, and so forth, but I only took the 1st class and had to just write and rewrite and have a working composition in order.  That was kind of interesting in itself for me.  I did learn a lot about different writing styles, and Mrs. Thiel was on her A game the entire Semester in my opinion. 

I had Mrs Caples again for Math Analysis.  This was a lot different than Algebra and definitely different than Trig.  What I remember of this class was it being really heady and having to write out proofs.  Prove that 0 didn't equal 1, for instance.  Well what really does that mean and doesn't everyone already know that?  But in Math things like this aren't what they seem.  It's easy to say 0 doesn't equal 1 or 2 or even -1 or absolute 1, but when you use the same idea to explain space or nearness to things, then you need to understand what Math Analysis is and does in the real world.  I did okay in the class, but I knew it was the next step towards taking Calculus, and I wouldn't touch that class for several years, until I went to College.  More about that in a later post.

My Teacher's Aide class was my favorite class after my art classes.  Mrs. Hillemann was the director of this, but we didn't meet with her to learn how to be Teacher's Aids, no we got to pick which teacher and class we wanted to teach and had to get that Teacher's permission to do so.  Our job had a few criteria.  To observe the class and record our observations.  Both the students activities and behaviors and the Teacher's.  To teach 3 lessons on our own from the Teacher's handbook.  That was my favorite part by the way.  And to create some activities on the bulletin boards, hand out paperwork and pick it up, and take attendance.  I chose Mrs. Caples and her Trigonometry class.   (Oh I said I had that in my Junior year, my bad, I had that in my Senior year.  I remember this now, because I had my Trig class early in the day and had my Teacher's Aide class later in the day.)  On the lessons I had to prepare and teach myself, I did really well when I did it in my own Trig class.  It was a bit weird but I told Mrs Caples it helped me learn Logarithms really well.  At the time I could teach anyone about Base 2, Base 10, and any other Base of counting.  I don't know that I remember enough of it to still do it, but it was really fun at the time!   One of my awesome quirks, to learn as I go and turn around and teach it to someone else practically in the same day. 

I had Mrs Craig for Drawing & Painting.  I loved this class!  We painted still life, had to learn perspective drawing and shading in pencil medium which is probably my favorite medium we used.  And weekly we had to draw with pencil in our Sketch books anything at home and show we understood use of space and shading on the page.  I loved the notes Mrs Craig wrote on the back of my pieces.  I do have that Sketch book still.  I have a lot of the stuff I created in my Senior year.  It all meant a lot to me.  I also met one of our Exchange Students in this class, her name was Anki short for Anne Christine in her native Sweden.  Very lovely person.  I didn't pay much attention to her skill in the class.  I was then and always have been a sucker for learning new cultures and meeting people from other lands and who have learned English and can tell me their life story.  I don't remember Anki's full story, but I know she liked being an Exchange Student and had a lot of admirers in our school the year she was here.  

My other art class was completely different and that was Commercial Art, with Mr. West.  He was my most favorite art teacher in the department.  He kind of reminded me of Grizzly Adams with his thick beard all over his face.  We learned some calligraphy and stylized print for advertising posters, and also stenciling, and screen printing on Tshirts.  I am almost sure I was teacher's pet in this class.  I was given a lot more freedom in the class than some of the others.  Mr. West always struck up conversations with me about college ideas, really encouraged me to continue taking art in college.  I was so afraid to do that, because when he told me one of the classes involved drawing the nude human figure, I freaked out and said I couldn't sit and look at a nude body and draw it.  He laughed, he said it was no big deal, and usually you spent a lot of time on learning to draw one section of the body, not the entire thing.  I was naive and immature to say the least then.  If I had to take an art class and drawing a nude body was part of the coursework NOW, I wouldn't be freaked out about it at all.  That's actually funny thinking about my reaction then on this subject.  LOL    The human body is gloriously made, and nothing wrong with putting the sight of it into art work.  It's been done thousands of times by many of the great artists. 

One other noted story about art from this point in time of my life.  Sometime towards the end of the semester in Mr West's class, there was a fire that broke out under the theater, I think under the stage, and it was on the same floor as the art classes.  Although none of the classes I reported to had any fire damage, everything that was exposed to the general air in any room, got smoke damage or soot on it, and my favorite art piece from the class, a poster for the Fall Play, "The Pink Panther" was ruined.  It smelled like soot...and if I still have it in my portfolio, I am sure it still has a sooty smell to it to this day.  No one was injured in the fire that I know of.  But it really upset me that people's hard work got smoke damage, something nearly impossibly to remove from paper or other similar types of fibers.   My poster was used as the main poster on display outside the theater entrance on the nights of the play's production.  I was honored to say the least.

I was in one of the first Computer Programming classes my school district had.  This was 1984, and Apple was already a known computer entity.   But we used Radio Shack computers, called TSR80s.  We studied "Basic" programming language, and from then on, I was hooked on computers.  Blame my school district for lighting that fire, if hadn't been exposed to it then I might not be writing online and posting this blog.  My instructor was Mr Beltz.  He was absolutely the nuttiest teacher I had.  I remember programming a bowling game, and he helped me with one part of the code to get my program to work.  Some of the real geniuses in class came up with some clever extras to their program, and I being witness to what different things one can do in writing programming code, always kept that idea in the back of my head.  It is still there.  I would for years practice with lots of code in other classes in college and learn how to do it outside of class and tweak things as I learned ideas not in our textbook.   I loved that I had found another creative outlet besides drawing, painting, and music!!

And then there was Spanish I class.  My all-time favorite class that had nothing to do with my general academic requirements.  I simply took it because it was fun.  And Senora Murdock made it so much fun.  She was my 3rd mentor in high school.  And I would keep in touch with her for many years after I graduated.  She is a dear friend and mentor to me.   My name was Susana in Spanish class.  My friend Lori was in the same class, her name was Louisa.  We had to use our Spanish names, and Senora Murdock only called us using those names.   She made that class so much fun....learning another language was integral to my personality.   I realized midway through that year that I should have taken more Spanish than Chemistry and Typing.  But 20/20 hindsight just taught me to consider everything the next time a situation arises. 

When I joined the Spanish crew, I learned that there was a Foreign Language Club, and so I decided to join that.  I had so much fun in that club!   We got out of class a few times during the school year, and most memorably during Christmas season.  The Latin, German, French and Spanish FLC members went carolling in our respective foreign language.  We sang many well known Christmas carols and some that were only known from in the language they were sung in.  Being a Catholic girl I already knew the Latin hymn Adeste Fidelis (O Come All Ye Faithful).However, I think the French speaking kids sang some stuff I had never heard of.  I don't remember what we sang in Spanish....I just remember it was the most fun I had....and skipping class was fun in itself, but doing something with others with the joy in our hearts, that was just so much fun and memorable. 

Two other things I remember doing with the FLC group.  Going to Jaycee Park and having a barbecue and being so close to home, and hanging in the park I grew up playing in, that was really cool.  The other was going to Brentwood and ice skating on a rink there.  I tried hard to figure out how to stand on ice skates, failed often.  I tried to skate on the ice, fell often.  I finally got up and held onto the wall of the rink, got half way around and cut my finger nearly in half on some sharp metal thing sticking up I didn't see.  I bled like a stuck pig, and ended my skate journey.  But I had a lot of fun.  The drive to and from the rink was fun, with a bunch of girls being silly. 

.... we all have a life journey, and in our life journey are many shorter journeys, to different places, in different spaces, with different people, and with different modalities. We learn about ourselves, we learn how to interact with others and society at large.   We just scraped through the first 18 years of my life, get ready, there's a lot more about which to tell.