David Merrick

Profile Updated: September 6, 2010

Class Year:	1970

Residing In:	San Francisco, CA USA

Occupation:	Hotel Desk Clerk

Comments:

SHAKESPEARE MERRICK HAS REVISED THIS COMMENTS AREA 9-3-10

Da-yamm I sounded bitter in the first draft.....Thank you for not taking up a collection at our reunion [and having me committed...]

Some of you may have figured out that the reason I appeared a bit "strange" in high school was because at some point in 1967 I became aware that I am exclusively gay

Don't worry, guys. My center of attention was one of our teachers. And for those of you who shared the showers with me in gym class, you can rest easy. I undoubtedly looked "down south" on any of you less often than most of you str8 guys that would sneak an occasional glance to see how you "ranked" amidst your peers may have glanced at each other. I could hardly describe ANY of my classmates below the naval.

Why?

Look at it this way. If someone in gym class called you a fag, you could just snap a towel at him and curse back. But if somone accused me of being queer you could probably have heard the tinkling of urine slowly filling my gym shoes as a panicked voice in my head chanted: "Is he only teasing or DOES HE KNOW"

Remember that in 1970 The American Psychiatric Association still considered homosexuality a mental illness.

I remember a comment made by Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane: "I have met the enemy AND THE ENEMY IS ME."

As with most homosexuals, I can remember exact moment I realized I was gay, along with the Kennedy assasination and Buzz Aldrin's and Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon.

And I have learned since then that everyone has some kind of cross to bear. Others much more than I.

But, using my intuitions and judgements, I have not once been in a position to be mistreated or maligned for being gay. Not once.

Although you could not know the secret I was carrying as a senior, a confidentiality I have since discovered several of us Pacific High School seniors carried...and I suspect there are more, I can say something that not everyone I know can say of there high school experience.

I AM PROUD TO HAVE BEEN A PART OF THE PACIFIC HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATING CLASS OF 1970 AND WOULD GLADLY LIVE THAT YEAR OVER AGAIN! WE WERE A DYNAMIC CLASS. WE HAD A SPECIAL ENERGY.

My best wishes for each and every one of my classmates!
___________
GO VIKINGS!
___________

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School Story:

STEINBECK MERRICK was horrified when I re-read what I first wrote here, too. More editing to SCHOOL AREA here too, puh-leese...

And unlike I inferred in my first draft of this, my senior year was not a gay soap opera... I did actually, occasionally, stumble upon a textbook and take a quiz.

I do have alot of fond memories of my teen years.

I was not as social back in the 60's as I would later become, and I suspect a number of people may have confided in me because they assumed I would not remember much about the 60's as time passed.

Although there is a memory of our blonde-haired, grey eyed, John Muir Junor High School boy's P.E. Teacher, Richard Spears, who earned his teaching credential in Texas, who would often yell "pump!-pump!-pump!" during our stretching exercises, oblivious to the snickering of adlosecent boys who were trying to keep running in place without doubling over in laughter at the potential double meaning of that, who favored khaki or gray slacks, loafers and solid colored, pastel cotton shirts, and drove a battleship gray 1965 Volvo P8100 with the license plate "SOU 222."

How could a man ever forget that his first gay crush was on a man named..."Dick Spears..." [Years later, a seond teacher who did not know I had a crush on him, also first name "Richard," became friendly enough,at one point, to formally invite me to call "Dick," too. [Oh, Dick, if only you knew....]

And our quirky English teacher, Nona Vaala with the metallic blue 1967 Mustang, who lived in an apartment off of east 14th Street, was Norwegian, with relatives in Minnesota, was unaware that one of her favorite dresses had a small hole under one arm, was a friend of Rosalind Russel, and who some of us saw acting in the role the strong willed, protective maid in Alameda's "Altarena Theatre" [Theatre in the Round] in the play "Night Must Fall," who advocated travelling by train rather than the increasingly popular jet "to get a sense of how vast is this country," and whose memory I am now gently teasing by having composed this last paragraph as one, long, run on sentence, dangling participles and all, which by starting with the word "and" does not even qualify a complete sentence at all but, which technically speaking, is merely structured as the second half of what should be a compound sentance!

But don't worry if you confided in me back in our youth, because, as you can tell, my memories are sketchy and vague...

I am, however, considering the establishment of a small Swiss bank account for any charitable contributuions by those former clasmates who would like to assure my memory remains sketchy and vague...

For those of you who might remember stealing my gym clothes, or teasing me for nearly drowning in swimming class, or taunting me for crossing my legs whilst sitting in math class, what are the chances I would ever remember who you are?

Like what are the chances I would remember that my John Muir Junior High School locker combination was 32-6-25, or that the license plate on my dad's 1961 Ford was LKS 315, or that the top selling single for 1969 was "Sugar, Sugar," by The Archies, the first commercial stereophonic record was sold in 1959, that Neil Armstrong told no one what he was going to say when he stepped on to the moon, causing some Americans fear he might claim the moon as U.S. territory and trigger WWIII. And I would never remember those who tried to sell us Pacific High sophomores tickets to what turned out to be only a SERVICE ELEVATOR, near the lobby, or the ones that flicked their pencils up to stick in the soft ceiling of the acadmic building, only to find out now that this was RAW ASBESTOS you were sprinkling down onto the linoleum floor at our feet. And I can barely remember the fellow who, upon trying to back out in front of me on the student parking lot, before I could get in front of him in my car, accidently popped his clutch in his '64 Mustang, sheared off his drive shaft, sliding it out between his back wheels. And you can assure I would never remeber the regret of having no corners to hide in DURING THAT FOOD FIGHT that broke at lunch our senior year beause our cafeteria was ROUND!

+ + + + +

My senior year was hardly bad, though. Some may remember that the two family cars I has access to were a '62 Thinderbird and a '65 red Cadillac [with a white leather interior]. Not once did any classmate ever refuse a ride with me!

I was one of several who visited Mr. Linford at home periodically throughout my senior year. One night he and his wife, Suzanne invited me to stay for dinner. Suzanne Linford [who spun her own wool and played the cello professionally] made awesome spaghetti sauce.

As a result, I reciprocated by inviting Linford to my parents home for dinner. He and my mother hit it off so well that I sat there for most of the evening, in awe, just listening. Linford had to call his wife to explain that he was going to be late getting home. The 'link" was that both my mother and Linford were born and raised in the pacific northwest. Small towns. Until she passed away in 2006, my mother would still refer, affectionately, to that teacher she insisted on continuing to call "Mr. Linford."

I and several other students also visited Mr. Aldridge in his apartment. For such an unorhodox person (was he siimply a socialist or really a registered communist?) he had a very mundane looking apartment. He awarded me the "Top German Language Calss Student" award for 1970. It was our own little inside joke. You see I was THE ONLY student still taking German our senior year!

But my most fond school memory is surely is chronologically, my last:

As I stood outside the gym, next to David Bunch, the night of our graduation, in the warm June dusk light, near the student parking lot, my green and gold, vinyl- bound diploma clutched in my hand, I turned to ask why it was taking so long for David's parents to pick us up to take us to the social club my dad had reserved for our joint graduation party, The "Man Friday" Club, at The San Leandro Marina.

David turned to me and said that he had told his parents that MY parents were driving us to the club. I told David I told my parents HIS parents were taking us to the party. David thought my parents were driving us to the party. I thought David's parents were driving us to the party. So as our parents cars each faded out of the parking lot into the sunset, - without us - there stood David Bunch and I with our thumbs stuck up our mortar boards ready to strangle each other.

As all the other students piled into their respective cars, with their respective families, headed toward their respective graduation parties, David and I stood on the sidewalk, watching the cars go by, trying to look, desperately, as if we knew what we were doing, but evidently failing to do so.

Because it was at that point that a car pulled up, and a window rolled down. It was Jean Segal, our civics teacher. She asked why we looked so lost, and we told her. She leaned over to her boyfriend, who was driving, then leaned bacl. "Get in," she said. We'll take you!"

And that is how David Bunch and I were delivered to our graduation party, to the company of our confused parents, from the back seat, a spiffy, new, forest green 1969 Dodge Charger - - by our civics teacher and her boyfriend - - in style and fashionably late!

Ah, like they say. If life deals you lemons, just grab them and make lemonade!

+ + + + +

Had a blast at our 40th Class Reunion. Looking forward to our 50th. I HOPE WE WILL ALL BE THERE!

+++++
GO VIKINGS
+++++

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