The question caught me by surprise. One of my oldest buddies had made the drive from Pittsburgh to Latrobe to spend the day drinking, joking and generally ditching the world of common responsibilities.
So it was pretty much like we’d time traveled back to high school for a day of carefree hookie.
Then he asked me if I’d ever suffered a trauma in high school.
In fact, I had. I’d been victimized by an indifferent barber who gave me a haircut so horrific I blamed it for forestalling the loss of my virginity by about 7 years.
Sure, there may have been other factors in play, but let’s just say it took a really long time to grow out.
I asked my friend why he thought I’d been otherwise traumatized.
“You’ve never once written about us,” he said. “I’ve read all your books and there’s so much stuff about OU and I keep reading and wondering, man, when’s he going to write about all the great times we had in high school. And you never do.”
I’d never thought about it, but he’s correct. And it’s striking. I can’t think of one story I’ve written about an era that involved some of the greatest times with some of the best friends from my life and it all happened in high school.
We had the greatest group of guys. We got along with everyone, and skated easily through the mine field of cliquish hostilities. We chased girls in one direction and ran from the police in the other. Whenever we were together there was laughter, hi-jinx and some illegally obtained Wild Mustang malt liquor.
I’m proud of my Wild Mustang friends and consider those times foundationally crucial to all I’ve become, which I’ve been told, is a warm, generous, supportive, ego-free author of books that make people happy.
The only thing I can figure is it isn’t the high school or the people who went there that’s the problem.
The problem is where they built the school.
It’s in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. That’s what I always say when people ask where I went to high school. And it’s true. The South Hills is a proud and ethnically diverse community.
But as answers go, it’s deliberately vague. So, if pressed, I say, “The house I grew up in was about a 5-iron from Castle Shannon.” Also true and most people know Castle Shannon is part of the gritty Keystone Oaks School District.
If they persist in seeking specificity, I tell them I went to school at 155 Cochran Road.
And with that I’ve exhausted all my evasions and all their patience and I’m at last forced to confess I attended — spoiler alert! — Mt. Lebanon High School.
This is the point at which I fully expect the questioner to threaten to beat me up unless I fork over that day’s lunch money.
Yes, my trauma is that I grew up and was edumacated in one of Pittsburgh’s most affluent neighborhoods. I was classmates with kids who drove Mercedes Benzes to school. Their fathers were titans of industry who were on the tournament committee at Oakmont CC.
They had pools, au pairs, valets and spoke fluent French.
In France!
Me, I was the son of an optician who moonlighted as a bartender at some of the very clubs where my classmates frolicked. He never had money and was often complaining that he felt like a failure because he never had the loot that his neighbors had.
Dad, you weren’t a failure.
You just raised one.
Sometimes, that’s just how it feels. I know that’s wrong, but I feel the same stresses to provide as the old man did.
I wonder if being raised in Mt. Lebanon, amidst so much easy wealth, is the trauma my friend hinted at. Because many of the values I fall short on were instilled in those gilded schools.
When people find out I grew up in Lebo, they call me a cake-eater and make assumptions about me having all the barriers they had to overcome removed in advance by Jeeves.
Then they threaten to beat me up if I don’t hand over my lunch money.
And that’s the story of my trauma.
I grew up happy in a warm, safe place where kind, witty people let me know I was truly loved.
And who’d ever want to read about that?
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Grew up right there with you in the Sunset Hills section of Mt. Lebanon, and your article brought back a flood of memories. My parents both worked multiple jobs, while my dad was at Duquesne pursuing his Ph.D. As the oldest of five, I was the one who took care of my siblings after school everyday, until my parents would get home from their second jobs, after we were all in pajamas. It was the same everyday, get home as latch key kids, watch Gilligan's Island, do our homework during Big Valley, and then watch Star Trek while I heated up dinner for me and my siblings. My parents put themselves through all that so that they could afford to live in the cheapest part of Mt. Lebanon, just so we could attend Mt. Lebanon schools. My mom tried to apologize later in life for me having to bear so much of taking care of my siblings while they both worked - but I wouldn't hear it - I don't remember it as any kind of burden or hardship on me at all, and in fact those were some of my happiest days of my life and helped shape me into who I am. Thanks for your awesome article about your experience growing up in Sunset Hills section of Mt. Lebanon and for making me reflect on that part of my past!
ReplyDeleteWhat wonderful reflections, Rob, some of which mirror my own. I'm so grateful to you for reading my post and sharing those special memories. Did you grow up on Jonquil?
ReplyDeleteI am still in lebo and raised my children here. I often told them that there are always people who have more than you and people with less. Be happy with what you have, work hard and be a be a good person. Over the years l have learned that many of my high school impressions were all wrong.
ReplyDeleteClearly, you were well raised and it seems like you're doing the same for your children as your parents did for you. Bravo! I think some of my feelings stem from the contrast of where I've spent the past 30 years, and thsat is defiantly blue collar, Latrobe. Tough crowd. Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas!
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