Being a teenager was a very hard time in my life. I never felt accepted and that probably had to do with grade school which is another story that I might tell someday. Until my sister Betty came to High School, I was lost with very few friends.
I remember plowing into school as much as possible because my people skills were nothing. My Aunt Eunice forced my cousin Gloria to include me in social activities until one time we went to a dance at the Presbyterian Church and Jimmy Wandschneider asked me why I was there. Why was I there? I was there because my cousin Gloria was the social butterfly and was forced to bring me along. I always envied Gloria. Everyone liked her and she was pretty.
I tried to join a lot of clubs, the science club and the Latin club but for some reason, I never seemed to fit in.
Our High School didn't have foreign language classes so I took Latin. It was the first time that I had to really work for my grades and then I didn't do well. The vocabulary and I just had problems but I learned so much about English. I passed Latin with a D. It is the only time that I remember the exact grade that I made. I think I would have gotten an F but my Latin project was outstanding so he had to give me a D.
What did I learn? I learned that one doesn't die from a D in school. My daughter once told me that when you flunk a class, they never take into account what you did learn in that class. She was right. My English classes were a breeze after taking Latin.
Finally when I became a Junior in High School, my sister Betty was a Freshman. She had a group of kids that all hung out together and they included me with them. Betty taught me how to dance and her friends treated me like one of them. I felt like a part of something for the first time. Oh yes, I always felt like a part of my family but to be treated like a good friend was wonderful. I no longer had to be the ugly cousin.
Betty and I joined Job's Daughters. This was interesting as it had a lot of memory work. I even remember some of it today but haven't been able to find what I remembered in a bible. When I look for stuff like that, I start to question a lot of things and this is good.
Betty and I sang at Job's Daughters doing duets and later we did this in Church. I sang harmony and Betty sang the melody.
When I was a freshman in High School, I told myself that unless I was forced to study math, I never wanted to see math again. In grade school every year they just added another column to whatever you were doing such as 1 + 1 and the next year it was 11+11 and the next year it was 111+111. Math was so boring but when I became a sophomore, I heard about algebra, an abstract version of math. Now this was exciting. So in the next three years I took all the math classes that were available except basic math. To have an unknown quanity called A that could represent anything in the whole wide world and if you worked it right, you could figure out what the value of A was. Hey, this was exciting stuff. I love abstract thinking.
I took a lot of science classes and in most of them, I was one of only three girls. I really didn't care because I found science that interesting.
I remember in my senior year, three of the guys in my Physics class were clowning around and they cut my hair with the tin shears on one side only. Mother was really upset and we headed down to the beauty parlor to get it evened up. I had my hair styled short then in what was called a DA. I liked it but my dad told me that it had better grow out because he wanted people to know that he had a girl graduating and not a boy.
As much as I love art and drawing, Science and math were more exciting to me. I just couldn't imagine learning how to make an apron or breakfast in some home economics class. Because of this, Mother taught me how to sew. My first project of making pajamas turned out to be very interesting. I like to sew, don't get me wrong but I wanted to learn something that I didn't know. I never did learn how to make breakfast until I was expecting my daughter and decided that I have better learn to cook. I took a cooking class at Los Angeles City College.
So with my sister Betty, Job's Daughters, and Betty's friends, I came out of my shell. I remember some teenagers telling me once after spending a day with them that I was a lot of fun. They didn't expect me to be fun because I looked like I would be stuck up. This helped me to learn a lot about myself. I learned that I give the impression that I am not very social so I have to always be the first to reach out. "Hi, I'm Phyllis." I have followed that to this day.
For some reason having my sister around was very good for me. It gave me the confidence to tackle anything. For some reason I was always chosen to be one of the presenters at church on Youth Sundays. Rodney Johnson, Pauline Ainsworth and I would give the sermon. I even remember one of the poems that I memorized to close my portion with once.
I guess I would have to credit my sister for helping me find my first real boyfriend. Oh yes, I had crushes all through high school but they never noticed me. My sister and I went to the fair the fall at the start of my senior year. She met a cousin of her boyfriend's. They started to talk and while talking, I got into a conversation with his buddy. He asked me if I would like to ride the buckets that we were right next to us. We did and I screamed the whole time. When we came off the ride, I asked him who I had been screaming at. That was the beginning of a lifetime friendship.
I don't remember experimenting as a teen, except with cigarettes. My girlfriend stole some from her mother and we tried to smoke them. I didn't like the experience and decided then and there that I could look silly without them. I never did try them again.
As for Alcohol, Mom served wine to us on holidays so it wasn't a big deal. She had these multicolored wine glasses and we each could pick out our color glass. It was a treat. She mostly served Mogen David wine, which is sweet and we liked it.
As for sex, I guess if I had been close to someone, I might have experimented but I really didn't know anyone that well. I was still working on my social skill
When I think back on High School and it wasn't the best time of my life. It was something that I had to get through. If I had a choice of going back to being a teenager, I wouldn't. Being a teenager is hard work.
I did like learning and being in school. Having to learn about myself was probably the hardest part of it all.
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