The Eighties: A Bitchen Time To Be a Teenager!
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Kate insisted we say our goodbyes the night before Tiffany was to leave–she didn’t want her daughter driving to Los Angeles in tears.
We had a teary, exhaustive, goodbye the night before.
The next morning Tiffany was to leave at 7:30 a.m. Against Mother’s Orders, I drove over and parked a block away, next to an empty lot across the street from her house. The front door opened and Tiffany quickly slipped into the side door of the garage with her parents in tow. Her dad saw me instantly and waved. Kate jabbed him in the ribs and put her hands on her hips in disapproval.
I didn’t move.
As the shiny red Fiero backed out of the driveway, Anthony waved me over. Tiffany climbed out of the car and we held on to each other like we’d never see each other again. I breathed in the smell of her skin. Tears mixed with our saliva at yet another tearful goodbye. It was one of the purest moments in my life.
As we held each other tight, our perfect summer was over.
Things would quickly change.
1986 Fun Fact #1:
On live television, talk show host Geraldo Rivera wastes two hours of our lives opening Al Capone’s vault. What did he find? Absolutely nothing. Andrew Dice Clay would later use the Geraldo flop in his stand-up routine. Gotta love the Dice Man for that.
CHAPTER 13
Leaving the Stoner behind, this is classic Prep–note the knit tie and sweater. If this were a color picture, you’d also see that the shirt is pink.
I knew that I had some final year makeup to improve my GPA so signed up for three Honors classes (where A’s were worth five points instead of four): Humanities Honors, Civics Honors, and World History Honors. Rounding out the schedule was Geometry, Computer Programming, and Student Council. My resulting grade point average (4.3) meant I shared the highest GPA of anyone in the school that year. (Doing the math, I was only able to earn a B in Humanities. The rest were straight A’s.)
Seriously, I wasn’t a total screw off.
Mrs. Land’s Humanities class was the closest thing to college there was–research papers, oral presentations, and essay tests. We feared, loved, and respected this woman. I spent more than one all nighter cramming for her exams. We couldn’t fake our way through questions like: Compare and contrast the Athenian way of life vs. the Spartan way of life and Discuss a typical day in the life of the great Greek historian, Thucydides. The day became infinitely easier after first period.
I repeated Geometry and understood it just fine from a teacher who cared to impart her knowledge. As an added bonus, thirty-something Mrs. Samperson (blonde hair, blue eyes, always smiling) was the prettiest teacher I’d ever seen. I didn’t even mind that she was pregnant. With only three seniors in the class, I took the liberty of referring to her by her first name, Laura. She never corrected me but no one else followed suit. I was usually late for her fourth period class since Student Council activities kept me occupied during the fifteen-minute “brunch” between third and fourth period. One day, she announced to the class that I was to be punished with detention. Had I known that simply meant spending the lunch hour flirting with her at her desk, I would have begged for the punishment a lot sooner.
Hans Budnarowski taught Computer Programming, and two of my best friends, Kellie and Brock, joined me in the class. Hans, like Spanish-teacher Briscoe, was also a Clark W. Griswold-like character (lovable, interested, and clueless), except that Hans had a huge brown beard. Computers in 1985 were nothing like they are today–with small monochrome monitors and five and a quarter inch floppy drives, we learned how to write computer code. Known as strings, computer programming was a combination of math, logic, and typing accuracy–the challenge being to write commands that executed simple programs. (My best example is my year-end project where I wrote a slot machine program that was a simple random number generator. It took about twenty five taps of the return key on the bulky keyboard for all three numbers to arrive at seven at which time the screen flashed in monochrome splendor: Congratulations! You’ve just won a 1986 Porsche 944!
On weekends, I led a small contingent of friends who decorated houses with toilet paper in the dark of night. A dozen of us would meet at Joe’s house and determine the night’s targets. From there, we’d caravan to Smith’s Market where an instant line formed of kids purchasing multiple packs of whatever toilet paper was on sale. We’d say something like, “Grandma’s feeling real sick” and the clerk would just laugh. Subtlety wasn’t our strong point.
Mr. Bud’s house on West Grand Avenue had a massive tree in his small front yard which made the long, dangling strands of TP semi-permanent. One night it rained TP in that yard. The following Monday, I said with a smile, “Mr. Bud, I drove by your house this weekend and it looks like you’re doing some redecorating. Can’t say that I fully understand your vision, though.” He looked at me with a smirk but there was a glint in his eyes.
The next day, my desk was covered with toilet paper. “Tom, I see that you’re decorating your desk, but I don’t really get the big picture,” he quipped in his thick German accent.
Touché, Mr. Bud.
Brock and I walked by a table where a stodgy young Marine stood giving his best recruitment speech to a few nervous looking guys. I turned to Brock and said, “Looks like we better join before we get drafted!” (One of my favorite lines from the Bill Murray comedy, Stripes.)
Brock looked at me with wide eyes and whispered, “What the hell are you doing?”
The Marine snapped, “What did you say?”
We broke into a run, the safety of Mr. Bud’s door loomed fifty feet ahead. The Marine gave chase.
We ran in and slammed the door just as the bell rang. The door flung open behind us and the steely-eyed Marine walked in without hesitation. A bewildered Mr. Bud said, “What’s going on here?”
I shrugged innocently. Brock fled to his desk.
Our lovable teacher turned to the Marine. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, Sir. Seems I have some business with this gentleman right here.” He nodded at me.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said.
The class sat in silence looking between me, the Marine, and Mr. Bud. I looked at Mr. Bud with pleading eyes and shook my head subtlety. No, please, no.
The German broke into a wide smile. “Yes, perhaps you do have business with this gentleman.” He shoved me out the door. “Take all the time you need soldier.”
We bestowed “1986 Male Teacher of the Year” on Mr. Bud as nominated by yours truly.
Free from yearbook duties, I went from behind the camera to in front of it. With football season in full bloom, one of the main responsibilities of the student council was Friday pep rallies.
I have to say that speaking–and motivating–1,500 people was a rush and my ego knew no bounds.
The best rally of the year was our Christmas production. I conjured up a scene out of the movie lighting up the box office, Rocky IV, in true David and Goliath fashion.
Steve was the hero at 5’ 5” and 125 pounds. In the opposite corner, our favorite German exchange student, Philipp Gutzwiller, at 6’ 6” and 240 pounds.
The mural at the center of the gym became the boxing ring.
I stepped to the microphone.
“Can you believe that Porterville High is talking trash again?” (The word “smack” wasn’t yet invented.) A couple hundred students booed.
“I said, ‘can you believe that Porterville High is talking trash about our glorious Monache High School?’”
The boo’s intensified.
“We’ve put together a little boxing match to decide who the better high school is, once and for all!”
The crowd cheered.
“I’d like to introduce Porterville High’s athlete. His name is Philipp Dragooooooooooooo!” As Philipp bounded in front of the crowd, wearing the orange and green of our cross town rival, the boo’s rained down on him. Holy crap, the guy was huge.
“And now give it up to everyone’s hero! Our champ, Steve!”
As they squared off in the middle of the gym, Philipp towering over Steve, it couldn’t have been more ridiculous. I stood back and laughed. Good God, it was brilliant.
In spectacular fashion, the little hero and the gargantuan villain boxed three quick rounds as I improvised commentary.
They weren’t really throwing blows but little Steve was getting knocked around pretty good.
“And Steve’s taking some serious abuse now! Oh no, he’s down! Steve’s down! Can it be possible? Is Porterville High the better school? Philipp Drago thinks he’s got the win! Say it isn’t so!”
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
“Can Steve get up? He needs the crowd’s energy to get off the mat! Can he do it? Let me hear you Monache!”
ROOOOOOOAAAAARRRRRRRR!
“Steve needs a knockout for the win! Can he do it? CAN HE DO IT MOOOOO-NAAAAAAA-CHEEEEEE?”
Steve bobbed. He weaved. He leapt up and connected with Philipp’s big, square chin. On cue, the big German flopped in spectacular fashion.
Fifteen hundred students leapt to their feet. The cheers, deafening.
Steve’s corner men carried him around the gym on their shoulders. He waved, he blew kisses, the crowd freaking loved him. Philipp and his crew slunk away in mock defeat.
I hugged the big German later that day.
“Philipp, that was a thing of beauty. You deserve an Academy Award!”
“Yah! Dat was fun!” he beamed. The guy had the biggest smile I’d ever seen.
We talked about it for months.
Tiffany found the aeronautical engineering classes at USC to be anything but easy. She was no longer the smartest in the class–every kid in every class was the valedictorian from their high school. I have to take the blame for her distraction–in the days before email, we wrote and called each other on a daily basis. She also mailed cassette tapes of one-sided conversations–things like, “I hope you had a nice day” and “I have so much homework that I don’t know what to do” and “Some geek asked me out today but I told him I had a boyfriend.” I still have the cassette tape of her singing Crazy For You in a $10 recording studio–the pre-cursor to today’s karaoke. At the end of each Crazy For You wail, she added the word Thomas.
On Saturday morning, October 5, I tiptoed out of the apartment and left Mom a note: Took the car. Be home later tonight. I didn’t bother elaborating that I was going to Los Angeles. Navigating the L.A. freeways–in the days before GPS–was not for the faint of heart. Somehow I managed to find the university in the rough East Los Angeles neighborhood (but not before stopping at a Chevron where no one spoke English).
We went to the homecoming football game and blended in with thousands of cheerful students making their way to the Coliseum. I knew the venue from the 1978 Warren Beatty movie, Heaven Can Wait, and was thrilled to see it firsthand. The electricity of 70,000 screaming fans was amazing. All of Porterville times two could fit in this stadium.
We sat in the hot sun enjoying each other’s company and watched the Rodney Peete-led Trojans destroy Oregon State, 63-0. After the game, I drove the three hours home and simply told Mom that I had been “out and about.”
On November 2, I took my second trip to USC–this time divulging my intention to spend the night since Tiffany’s roommate was gone for the weekend. Mom frowned but said nothing. If she had an opinion, she kept it to herself. USC crushed Washington State, 31-13, that day.
Tiffany’s shared dorm room on the eighth floor of Pardee Tower wasn’t much larger than a single car garage at twelve feet by fifteen feet. The eighth floor was all female, meaning I had to sneak down to the all male seventh floor to use the community restroom. While brushing my teeth, a guy walked in and eyed me suspiciously–three months into the school year these students knew everyone on their floor.
“Hell of a game, huh?” I mumbled.
His eyes narrowed. “Uh, yeah. You new or just visiting?”
“Just visiting. My girlfriend’s upstairs and her roommate is out of town. We’ll try not to keep you awake, if you know what I mean, hyuck, hyuck, hyuck.”
He laughed and walked out.
Though it was the first time I spent an entire night in the same bed with a member of the opposite sex, it was clear that sex was not on the agenda. From the start, she was clear that being Catholic meant a lot of things, one of which was no premarital sex. I didn’t have a problem with it. Unfortunately, neither of us knew how to share a twin bed (spooning was completely unknown to us) so we had a miserable night of tossing and turning.
We spent the next day at a Golf ‘N Stuff miniature golf course (the one in the movie The Karate Kid) before I drove home bleary eyed and exhausted.
Sidebar #3:
The Hit of All NFL Hits
The hit inspired the blockbuster movie, The Blind Side, and made multimillionaires out of professional left tackles in the NFL.
On November 18, 1985, Anthony and I were watching the Giants take on the Redskins during an otherwise routine Monday Night Football game. Tiffany was at college and Kate was in the kitchen making lemon squares.
Just after Lawrence Taylor, the most feared linebacker of the day, smacked Redskin quarterback Joe Theisman from the blindside, Anthony and I bolted upright in our chairs.
“Did I just see what I thought I saw?”
Anthony said nothing but his otherwise dark Portuguese face was white.
The broadcasting trio of Frank Gifford, O.J. Simpson, and Joe Namath struggled for the right words. What are the right words to describe a compound fracture of the tib/fib on live TV?
I wasn’t a big Redskins fan but did like Joe–the only quarterback in the league with a single bar facemask–even in 1985, he was old school. There he lay, writhing on the ground while millions of people across the country tried not to projectile-vomit their Hungry Man dinners. The injury was gruesome. We watched his leg explode in slow motion from the reverse angle. Nice.
The Redskins won the game, 23-21, but Joe never played again. Poor Joe. Holy crap.
Tiffany came back for my Christmas Ball but the strain of being apart was taking its toll. We argued at the dance, made up, then argued some more. The joy of her prom, just seven months earlier, was a distant memory.
On the weekends she didn’t make the drive home, I continued going to church with her parents. Sulking in the back seat to and from St. Anne’s, her mom would say cheerfully, “I bet Tiffany’s at the beach right now!” or “Did you hear that she’s applied to be a Hellene Girl?12 I sure hope she gets it!” I tried my best not to resent Kate for her enthusiasm; after all, USC is not an inexpensive venture and Tiffany deserved to enjoy her college experience. At the time, I didn’t want her having any fun at all. I was 17, naïve, and a dick.
Sidebar #4:
The Army Recruiter
The strongly worded postcard arrived in January stating that I was required to register with the Selective Service. As I stood in the long line at the Porterville Post Office, postcard in hand, I mulled over the bad taste in my mouth. Everyone else was mailing packages. To me, I was standing in line for the draft.
Yeah, it was overly dramatic.
I wasn’t being drafted.
I wasn’t being singled out.
I’m not sure what mode of notification would have been all right for me; probably nothing.
Not long after performing my act of civil obedience, I returned home. The phone rang. David answered and, chortling back laughter, called me to the phone.
“Hello?”
“Yes, is this Tommy Harvey?”
“Uh … yeah … who’s this?”
“This is Sergeant Reeves, your local Army recruiter. I’ve called a couple times for you now, Tommy, and each time your brother tells me you’re very interested in enlisting. I’d like to setup a time for you to come in my office and sign up.”
I glared at David, choking back his glee.
I repeated w
hat the sergeant said.
“Let me get this straight. My brother told you I’m anxious to enlist?”
David burst out laughing.
“Yes.”
Thinking it would put the kibosh on the conversation, I lied, “You know, sergeant, I’m now thinking of joining the Navy, but I appreciate your interest in me.”
“Well you have to come in and see me then. The Navy’s for losers! How about you come in tomorrow after school?”
“How about I don’t?” I wasn’t used to being disrespectful to an adult but this actually felt pretty good considering the day I was having.
“Then I will keep calling you until you do, Tommy.”
David kept laughing and pointing at me. I waved him away.
“Fine. How about 3:30 tomorrow?” The final school bell rang at 3:15.
“Fine. See you then, Tommy.”
I turned to David. “Thanks a lot, asswipe.”
The military recruiting offices shared a small, common parking lot at the corner of Putnam and Hockett. The four offices–Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines–looked identical, and I opened the first glass door I came to.
A guy in a black uniform looked up.
“This the Army recruiting office?” I asked.
“Come on in!”
It only took a minute to realize that I was in the Marine recruiting office but the guy wasn’t in the least concerned about me missing my appointment next door. For the next hour, I learned all about the Marines, too intimidated to walk out.
That evening, the Army sergeant called again. I told him what had happened.
If he was at all miffed about me missing the appointment, he didn’t show it. We set up another meeting. Walking past the Marine recruiting office the next day, I glared at the guy inside. He looked back blankly.
When I walked into the Army recruiting office, there sat my persistent sergeant in his olive green, wrinkle-free uniform with polished black shoes. I thought, This is what a soldier looks like?