Not close to being Susie S
I entered my high school freshman biology class in a state of terror. Mr. D had a reputation for being a tough teacher and I expected myself to excel in school. As I wondered how I could accomplish that in this class, he singled out a girl sitting in front of me. Susie S. She was slim, cute, bubbly, perky, and a total extrovert. And her boyfriend was a boy I had a secret crush on since sixth grade. Mr. D pointed out how Susie constantly jiggled her leg as she sat at her desk. Somehow, this accounted for her petite figure. I was not sure what that had to do with biology, but it made a huge impression on me, so I tried jiggling my leg as much as I could. All I wanted in high school was to be Susie S.
My journey through high school from 1959 to 1963 was more about what I wished I could be than about actually becoming my own person. For me, that didn’t happen until I left home for college.
Well, that didn’t happen, although I did become one of Mr. D’s favorites and earned my “A.” I was an introvert with an average figure and a small group of BFFs, so I studied Susie S. and wondered how she could effortlessly collect so many friends. She was always smiling and her laugh was contagious. Her status was enhanced by the fact that she was a cheerleader. Every Friday, she wore her cheerleading sweater and short skirt to school while I was stuck wearing a boring sweater or blouse from Hudson’s basement and a skirt that had to be well below my knees. Measuring how many inches our skirts were from the ground was one of the jobs of the Assistant Principal. Saddle shoes, bobby socks, and short bouffant hair, produced by sleeping in rollers and lots of teasing, completed the picture. I looked like most other girls of that era, but not like Susie S.
My cousin and me practicing being cheer leaders
Susie was also a class officer, an elected position to which I aspired but never achieved. I did run for class treasurer once against the incumbent, encouraged to do so by several student government classmates. I never knew if it was a serious invitation or an inside joke, but I lost. I also hoped I could be an actor in a school play but, as a member of the Drama Club, I was behind the scenes or part of the crowd in plays. I did get to be a student director for Rebel Without a Cause, but in my dreams, I would have had the lead role. The only time I really performed was in my high school “talent” show. There I sang and danced to Honey Bun with a girlfriend, complete with sailor caps and long sailor tops obtained from an army surplus store. I guess that was pretty brave for a couple of altos from the school choir.
I realize I’m painting a bleak picture of a “wannabe” girl, but I was actually pretty content in high school. I had my close friends and was invited to my Junior and Senior prom, the first by a guy who was a friend and the second by a guy I barely knew. I dated a bit, but was never really into any of those boys. I also went to another prom with a boy a year ahead of me who I dated for a bit. My mother was devastated when I broke up with him. “I just don’t like him that much,” I wailed to my mother. “He’ll grow on you,” she replied. My response: “Then you date him.” Truth be told, he was boring and not that smart.
Being smart was my thing. My high school was rather provincial. There were no honors classes and no way to measure myself against my peers. I was driven to do my personal best, perhaps in the hope that my father would notice my good grades and praise me. Sadly, he only commented when I received a “B” in gym. Still, I did all of my homework on my own or, in the case of math, by phoning my friend Joel. I was blessed to have been selected for a pilot of Beberman Math, a program which came to be known as New Math. Tom Lehrer’s parody of the same name summed up what I learned – nothing that made sense to me. Wish I had learned algebra, geometry, and trig instead of this:
You can’t take three from two
Two is less than three
So you look at the four in the tens place
Now that’s really four tens
So you make it three tens
Regroup, and you change a ten to ten ones
And you add ’em to the two and get twelve
And you take away three, that’s nine
Is that clear?
Despite struggling through three years of this incomprehensible (to me) math program, I was surprised to discover at graduation that I was third in my class behind Alan, the obvious genius in my grade, and my friend Joel. So smartest girl, but still no Susie S. By the way. Susie S. married her boyfriend and moved to California where I like to imagine they lived happily ever after.
My journey through high school from 1959 to 1963 was more about what I wished I could be than about actually becoming my own person. For me, that didn’t happen until I left home for college.
Laurie LevyBoomer. Educator. Advocate. Eclectic topics: grandkids, special needs, values, aging, loss, & whatever. Author: Terribly Strange and Wonderfully Real.
Laurie, your recall of so much of your high school life is amazing, looking back I remember so few details of those years until a prompt may evoke a memory!
And for all you know, Susie S may have been admiring little Laurie!
I think you are right about high school memories and who thought someone else had it better. I remember trying to ruin my eyesight by lots of reading because I wanted glasses like a girl named Carol. She probably wished she could have had my 20/20 vision.
We all grow into the people we are supposed to be, Laurie. I love the photo of you and your cousin, practicing cheers. I think you did just fine for yourself, but I understand the draw of trying to be like bubbly, cheerleading Susie S. She seemed to have it all, that ineffable “something” that made her the “it” girl of your class. I just have a feeling if you found her 20 years later, her life wouldn’t turn out as you suspected it had, and yours was much better!
I hope she is having a good life now, but I did find out through a mutual acquaintance that her home life in high school was pretty bad. So, in retrospect, I don’t think I would have traded places. My cousin didn’t make cheerleading either, but we really practiced a lot the summer before high school.
You do a perfect job of describing the experience of so many–how many of us fit into what is deemed to be the perfect mold? I certainly recognized this story. I think it must be harder with all the social media and Disney princesses these days, or in any case no easier. It is often not until college or post-high school that you get grow up enough to realize your gifts and the myriad ways life can be worthwhile. So glad you are sharing them on Retrospect.
Thanks, Khati. You are so right about how much worse things are for teens today. Ig I was missing fun parties in high school, I didn’t know about it. My teen granddaughters, on the other hand, see pictures of kids they know doing something together and know they were left out. They are both relatively happy with the friends they have, but it still stings.
I had ‘Pamela’. She was the smartest, funniest, most creative girl in class. Since I attended a 4 year, all girls’ high school, Pamela was with me for 4 years. I learned to love her and actually learned to love all the dominant influences she had on me. Until one day, she showed up at school with red-shot eyes and tear-stained cheeks from crying all night because her fabulous, good-looking boyfriend had broken up with her. By the end of the day, I had produced a gift for her, my first poem.
“Pamela” was so lucky to receive your gift. I’ll bet it ended up being more important to her than her good=looking boyfriend.
Laurie, what a sweet piece about your wanting to be Susie S. I had these kinds of daydreams about wanting to be guys like my cousin Bob, whose popularity in school seemed to come effortlessly for him. He was my role model, but — like you — I was too much the introvert who enjoyed solitary activities. Later i life, in my late 40s, Bob and I became very close friends and even lived together for a time. He had hit a rough patch in life and I was able to help him get into a grad program and change directions with his career. During our conversations then, Bob told me he had always admired me in school and wanted to be the kind of independent guy I was instead of the groupie that he was! He said he found it very hard to stay popular in school, and that he only did it because he thought that’s what his dad expected of him. So Bob helped me find comfort in my own skin. Strange how life goes. Thanks for your story, though. Loved it!
Thanks for sharing your story about Bob. Life is strange and maybe Susie S longed for the stable home I enjoyed in high school. Who knows? Time can be the great equalizer in life.
I was too much a misanthrope to want to be like anyone else, especially anyone I knew. I definitely wanted to be someone else, but I never knew who that might be.
I was surprised the New Math had a real name other than @&%!@)**!
I could have wished to be any number of famous people, although the choices for women were more limited than they are now. But Susie S had what I thought of back then as everything I was not. Sad.