Belmont Beauties

Belmont Beauties is my name for the gal pals I knew at Belmont High School from 1963 through 1966. How lucky we were to be together at an inner-city school where the mix of Asians, Africans, Hispanics and Anglos was more balanced than other schools surrounding our Second Street Campus very near downtown. 

Annet and I met in Mrs. Perry's Girl's Foods class in seventh grade at Thomas Starr King Junior High School. We learned to “make” fruit cocktail and leaden biscuits, which, if dropped on the floor could've surely broken a hole through to let us see the guys one floor below, working on projects in Metal Shop, taught by Mr. Merril, where I would much rather have been. Annet made it possible for me to continue with the inanity of opening a can of fruit cocktail and spooning equal portions into ceramic bowls. She's a no-nonsense kind of gal who is a master gardener and currently watches her twenty month old grandson while her daughter and son-in-love teach school.

I met Judy in one of my classes, Cheryl in Drill Team, and Patsy in another class.

Cherry was in some of my classes too, and active in the service organization groups at Belmont as were Cheryl and Patsy. I was not involved with Maydens, Ladyes, or Chatelaines, which is what the girl's service organizations were called.

It wasn't until the second part of tenth grade that I was bumped up to the AE (Academically Enriched) course load where I met some of these gals who, except for Annet and I, all went to the same Junior High School.

It's not that King Jr. High was inferior to Virgil Jr. High or at fault for my lack of the usual knowledge, but rather I was out to lunch for a lot of my middle school years due to family disruption. Mom remarried. My little brother was born when I was fourteen. I got ulcers for some reason and missed a lot of school because of huge swollen tonsils and strep throat. Then, during the summer between eleventh and twelfth grade, my father died. 

There was a sixth Belmont Beauty, Wendy, who, with her partner Anne, used to come to some of the gatherings we'd hold - just to stay in touch with and add to our enjoyment of one another's company. Wendy was with us only for our junior year at Belmont. Her home was in Yellow Springs, Ohio and she came to spend a year across the way from my house in Echo Park with friends of her father's - just to see what Los Angeles was like. We immediately became besties. We took our driving tests together at age sixteen. She'd gotten to be in New York City also for a year during middle school. We used to call her our "Worldly Girl."

This past weekend, I hosted a slumber party for the four who could make it to Oakland. They came from Santa Rosa, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. We had a blast. We ate, drank, laughed and recollected those who were dear to us in school and who are now trying to dodge the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Ernie is recovering from a stroke. Other class mates have triumphed over cancer. Some have died. We lost so many during the Viet Nam conflict.

Our dear Wendy started showing signs of dementia about seven years ago and slipped down hill so fast her partner Anne couldn't care for her in home, so Wendy's in a memory care facility in LA. 

Cherry is on a tour of China with her husband, celebrating her retirement from the editorial staff of The Los Angeles Times newspaper where she worked for more than thirty years. She had to research, verify and sometimes contextualize "facts" shared in some of the editorials. Brilliant mind with a memory to hold all the random facts and fill in parts of stories we might never have known. We wish the timing worked better so she could have come this past weekend. I look forward to hearing her travel adventures when she returns.

Cheryl has stayed in our home from time to time as she made her transition from Southern California to Northern California where she has two grandsons. Her third grandson is in Idaho. She's as at home here as we are with her. She's settled in Sacramento and commutes to care for the grandies here in Oakland and occasionally to Idaho to see the oldest boy.

Judy moved to Santa Rosa about six years ago for a job at Sonoma State Hospital from which she is now retired, because the entire Developmental Center has been emptied of what used to be 1500 clients. I wonder what they'll do with the immense expanse of acreage and historic buildings that was SSH's campus for decades. 

Judy, Wendy and I  formed Triumvirate  a sometimes rocky shape for relationships when two got together and the third was unavailable. We maintained the three-way friendship - even after Wendy moved back to Yellow Springs, Ohio. Judy and I traveled by Greyhound Bus to Dayton and spent two weeks with Wendy in her iconic Antioch College town of Yellow Springs. Our Wordly Girl also introduced three of us to Hawaii when her dad, head of the Drama Department at Antioch took a sabbatical to travel to Japan, China, and Greece to study Theater and taking his family. We went as far as Honolulu with Wendy who then flew solo to Tokyo.  It is very sad to see our dear Wendy so at the effect of this mental affliction. 

Judy and I traveled to Ireland and Italy in 2001. We trauma bonded when we couldn't get home in a timely way after September 11 - the day we landed in Rome. We saw all the sacred sights in Umbria thanks to a Benedictine Monk from India who took us under his wing to show us all the churches and to ply us with Grappa.

Patsy and I were quite close during those formative High School years, making huge memorabilia scrap books for other class mate's birthdays. We lost touch when she married and moved to Canada and eventually to Santa Rosa where she and Judy are unlikely neighbors but geographically close. Patsy is a teacher and heavily involved with her church. As she was leaving Saturday evening, not wanting to stay for the slumber part of the party, I noted how perky and bright she still is in her white hat and white cardigan sweater. Judy went through some rough patches and had been known to drink heavily in the past, be gruff and tell it like it is, sometimes stepping on nerves that were shattered on the floor as she spoke. As friendly as they are, they are opposites on the scale of how they present themselves. We three have met for lunch on occasion because we're only an hour's drive apart and still enjoy "cultural outings" to Sausalito and the like.

Each one of us has let our hair grow its own sweet version of gray/silver/white. Cheryl keeps her tight curls close cropped; Judy's hair is completely white and beautifully frames her face which is set with sapphire blue eyes. Annet is letting her hair grow longer, as am I. We all complain about chin whiskers, but can let our hair(s) down together - no matter the length. 

The length of friendship makes it safe to be who we are and still fit together like old slippers on older feet. Comfy.

Having the occasional gathering to re-cement friendships and celebrate our aliveness feels like a privilege and I cherish the opportunities to do so.