“I Was A Teenaged Nerd”
I can make that confession because the Internet is allegedly “anonymous.” Way, WAY back then there were such things teenaged werewolves--at least in the drive-in movies, which also featured adolescents described by a term we never hear any more: “juvenile delinquents.” There were also plenty of nerds and geeks and dorks then, but those weren't the terms for it. Even “weird” wasn't a catch-all word as it’s used today to describe everything that is slightly bizarre or different. Man, was I “different! ” At least I felt that way-- “out of it,” so I was told ad nauseam.
In the early to mid 1960s, no school official ever worried about students’ “self-esteem.”If anything, the nuns and priests did their er. . .darnedest to ensure that we didn't commit the “Sin of Pride.” In my freshman homeroom, Sister had hung up above the backboard a huge poster that said “Praising yourself to the skies won't get you there!” No chance of that happening, at least, not by me. If self-effacing humility guaranteed one a spot in Heaven, no doubt the saints were saving a seat for me. (Since then, of course, my admission ticket through the Pearly Gates has undoubtedly been canceled!) Back then, though, it wasn't the life to come that concerned me, it was the one in the here and now – a time of life that struck an hormonally- charged, angst-filled kid with pain as harrowing as any of the merciless tortures of Purgatory. For the emotional perspective of a teenager tends to exaggerate the trivial into the monumental.
Experts in adolescent psychology often cite the importance that teenagers place upon acceptance by their “peers.” When I was that age, I did have friends, but most were better described as acquaintances. I was the embodiment of a walking, er -- stumbling, cliché – the “misfit.” Most of my friends were at the “boy-crazy” phase, and the others were what used to be called “tomboys.” I didn't quite mesh with the former – though I would have loved to have a boyfriend, I couldn't bring myself to jump through the societal hoops – the flirtatious, girly-girlie wiles that allegedly attracted the opposite sex. Of course, there was the inevitable acne and the gawkiness which would make the Path to Attractiveness a nearly insurmountable route. I liked hanging around the “tomboys” because they weren't afraid to be themselves and felt less inhibited about cracking jokes. But they were also active in athletic pursuits, an area for which I never could qualify, due to an innate lack of physical grace and hand/eye coordination. (It turns out that I had and still have one of those “hidden” neurological disabilities, one that was never really addressed until much later in life when I had children of my own. Had this “primary bilateral dysfunction” been diagnosed back when I was younger, it would simplified a complex sense of inferiority, but, c'est la vie, kids!)
Anyway, both the girlie-girls and the tomboys unilaterally became swept up by the popular musicians of the day. Our age group was too young for Elvis, but provided the target market for the Beatles and their imitators. Right away, I felt alienated, for I liked Sinatra, Mel Tormé, Dave Brubeck so much better. I had a transistor radio, and I did listen to the Top Forty tunes, and I did agree that the Beatles were “cute,” but becoming a devotee of the cult of this British quartet never occurred to me. I wouldn't be caught dead with a picture of Paul McCartney on my lunch box, and unless I were confronted with an actual werewolf, teenaged or otherwise, I would never SCREAM to save my life!
I had a taste for other cultural phenomena which didn't gibe with that of my peers. Yes, just like my friends, I watched television, but cable had yet to be invented, and there were only three or four channel choices. Although the some of the rich kids’ families had a “color TV” by then, most of the programming was still in black and white. The shows I liked weren't the same as those of my schoolmates . For instance, I liked the original Dick Van Dyke Show because it was about. . . writers! One character on that show, Sally, was played by Rose Marie, reportedly a former child star. I felt kinship with Sally – she complained about “never having a date,” she tossed out zinging one-liners as swiftly as her male co-workers did, so of course, she was a role model for me. These were days before Women’s Lib -- but the fact that Sally had to do all the typing wasn't lost on me.
That period was the golden age of late night talk shows, which were quite different then than they are now. When people like Hermione Gingold or Oscar Levant appeared onJack Paar’s show, they weren't plugging a movie or a TV show. They actually “talked.” The level of discourse was sophisticated and witty. Everything I learned from the Art of Conversation I learned from Jack Paar in particular and the talk show in general. I also liked Steve Allen
(though I knew him from his prime time variety show.) And when the skinny kid from Nebraska took over as host of The Tonight Show, I was his first fan.
My mother had passed away when I was in sixth grade, and my father, perhaps overwhelmed in his new role as disciplinarian had his hands full tending to my siblings and me, as well as working two jobs. So I was “allowed” to stay up late at night watching television by default, although occasionally my father would wake up and complain that we were the only house in the neighborhood with the lights still on. From my late-night lessons in urbanity, I suffered few no repercussions or consequences at all until high school when the nun who was teaching French would say to me, “Mademoiselle, dormez vous?” She would then say, en anglais, that I would do well to eat breakfast in the morning or at least have coffee. No doubt my little soul thus threatened by the near occasions of sin was among those remembered in Sister’s prayers each night, as she probably thought that my drowsiness in class was the result of “drinking and carousing” the night before. Little did she know that it wasn't beer or boys that had kept me up late at night – it was Johnny Carson.
But even Johnny was no match for the one thing that allowed me to survive adolescence, the one place where I found salvation -- reading.
(Part 2 of 2 next time.)
