VAN NUYS HIGH SCHOOL, My 'American Graffiti'

I went to Van Nuys High School for all three years, 1956 to 1959.  It was like American Graffiti.  Drag races on the streets, girls in wide skirts with poodles, lots of books under the arm going from class to class.  But even at that there were things I never did in high school.

I never went to the prom, in fact it never entered my mind to go.  Probably because I wasn’t much of a dancer.  Even though I went to a lot of Van Nuys Wolves (School mascot) football games while I was in Junior High, I never went to one game while I was in high school.  

I did have girlfriends, some that didn’t even know they were my girlfriend.  I guess you would call that having a crush on a girl. I was shy and introverted, as I am even today.  So it was hard for me to even get to know a girl much less ask her out on a date.

Speaking of dates, one of my favorite places to take a date, when I finally had the nerve to ask, was Disneyland.  It had just barely opened and was a long way from home.  On one date I lost my keys to the car and had to call my dad to bring other keys.  That was embarrassing. Of course I reported to loss to Disneyland and, sure enough, the keys came in the mail a few weeks later.  I thought I would never see them again.

It’s funny how you can remember some people’s names and others not, I mean with my girlfriends.  One girl I remember is Susan Mengle.  She’s one who did know I liked her.  I think I did go out with her once, but not more.  I also had a girlfriend that I did take out several times but I can’t for the life of me remember her name. 

When I was fifteen  and a half my dad bought me a 1954 Corvette . All Corvettes in that year model were white, except mine had a red bottom panel.  It also had a soft top and a hard top, which was rare because the new ones only came with a soft top. The hard top was removable, so to take it off I had to unscrew it and then store it in the garage.  GM probably didn’t make them with the hard top because they were promoted as sport convertibles.  So the soft top was the only way you could buy one.  

Because I was so shy then I didn’t even want to drive it to school because I didn’t want everyone looking at me, which they did whenever I did drive it to school. Finally my dad saw that I wasn’t happy with the car, he took it and gave me another one, a ‘57 Chevy, my all time favorite car. The Corvette was the beginning of my Dad's love for the model.  He eventually purchase varios model years after that.

I played basketball all three years at Van Nuys High.  The first 2 years I was on the junior varsity and then went to varsity the last year.  Seniors couldn't be on the junior varsity teams for some reason so seniors automatically were sent to varsity. I wasn’t good at basketball.  About the only thing I could do was rebound.  I was a bench warmer in varsity.  I never understood how I got on the team or why the couch kept me.  The couch was Jim Mercer, a really mild tempered man and I really liked him, as did all on the team. We practiced everyday, last period and on to after school.  In the spring, no basketball games in the spring, we would go out for track.  I wasn’t good at track either.  But still I really tried.  I found that pole vault was fun for me. It’s a wonder I didn’t break my neck at it.

I was not a good student in school. I usually got by just barely.  I had  a problem with algebra. I only took it because it was required for graduation.  Even so, I got a ‘D’.  So, I took it over again with the same result, ‘D’.  I gave up.  I did take geometry and passed ok.  Geometry seemed so much more logical than algebra.  Algebra was all ‘unknowns’ and geometry was based on facts.  Another class I took was physics.  I really liked the class but that was the one class that I failed, yes, an "F".  So much for math and science. 

Back then, when you wanted to graduate you had to have a ‘major’ and a ‘minor’.  There were no SAT tests to evaluate students, merely your report card.  I wanted to make Spanish my major so, when I went to the councilor in my junior year to review my progress I was told that Spanish couldn’t be my major because I took the first year in junior high school and that didn’t count toward my credits.  So reviewing my past school classes he determined that my major had to be history.  It was interesting because I hadn’t taken a history class in the previous two years of high school. But, history it was.  So, in my senior year I had to take history to complete my major and I really didn’t like history, but I think I must have gotten a "C".My senior year wasn’t too difficult. I took the easiest courses I could, seeing I wasn’t planning on going to college.  I just wanted out.  And out I got.  

In your senior year they take the senior photo of the whole senior class.  My class consisted of over 900 students so the photo was huge and almost impossible to see who was who.  I wasn’t even in photo because I skipped classes the day. I’m not sorry for that.  I would bet that most of those students wouldn’t be able to even find that photo almost 60 years later.

So, those are some of my experiences in Van Nuys High School, Samurai, class of 1959. It was really like American Graffiti only about 20 years to early.