In a recent Sue
Grafton novel, a character ruminating about her bittersweet high school days
says “There’s only so much room at the top of the heap. The rest of us are fill dirt”. I suppose I was part of that fill dirt,
though comfortably ensconced at that angle of repose that judiciously kept me
from sliding to the very bottom of the heap.
I had my close friends but we were all dwellers on the fringe, observing
the campus dynamic and using it as fodder for our cynical humor. I was the kid
in the back of the room who was making comic books deriding the social order. So
I find it strange, fifty years after the fact, that I now feel such an affinity
for the people I went to high school with.
I have alluded to this phenomenon before, I know, but the
older I get the more I feel in tune with these people who went on to become
doctors, lawyers, mushroom farmers, graphic designers, contractors, alpaca
ranchers, wildlife biologists, IT specialists, and more. Liberal or conservative it doesn’t matter,
because we all survived the 60s. We were
all in shock the day JFK died. We were
all in awe the day a man landed on the moon.
And I suspect most of us were glued to the television set when the
Beatles made their American debut. But
there is more to it than those high profile events. There was the setting itself.
Los Altos was a safe and sunny place that nurtured us as
it did the surrounding apricot and walnut orchards. It was an affluent “village” with a quaint
and busy downtown with mid-century modern facades and a large, remnant live oak
lording over the junction of Main and State Streets. It had Hal’s Record Den where we could absorb
the latest vinyl releases at listening stations. It had Clint’s Ice Cream Parlor with the giant
concrete cone on the roof. And a movie
theatre with a deco marquee out front, the smell of stale popcorn within, and
kiddee matinees every Saturday. It was a
bastion of sanity and security for several sweet years.
By the time we all graduated in 1965, the Los Altos
Knights were tilting at the windmills of change both nationally and
locally. There was Vietnam, of course….the
elephant in the room. And rumors that
beatniks were getting high in the hills near La Honda. The old Vasona railroad line, whose weathered
ties we would walk on to the outskirts of town, was replaced by a four-lane
expressway. The apricot orchards were
being turned under at a furious rate.
The Whitecliff Market burned down.
The old Main Street oak tree finally died. And most of us moved on along with the
bucolic ambience that had made our hometown such a sanctuary for flowering
youth.
In recent years I have made it a mission to get to know
the people I ignored or who ignored me way back when. And I never fail to be rewarded by their
stories of extraordinary accomplishments, dreams fulfilled, sorrow endured, love
lost, and adventures lived. We all bear the burdens and the joys of where
and when we grew up. And we are all stronger because of that. We can all hearken back to those halcyon days
when emotions ran high and possibilities seemed endless. And nearly 70 years later, I can still feel
the rusty iron rails under my feet and smell the scent of warm eucalyptus
leaves on the edge of town.
