Tyee High School 66-68
Highline Public Schools
South Seattle, WA.
It seemed like our time in Virginia ended without warning. One day we were in Hampton the next in South Seattle. Unlike the drive from Long Beach to Hampton, there were no social stops driving to Washington. In fact, my dad sharing a very rare joke was the only thing I remember from the trip.
(He swerved he said to avoid an accident between a Ford Mustang and a Ford Falcon. When we said we hadn't seen anything, he asked if we were blind and wanted to know how we could not have seen the pile of horse shit and feathers on the side of the road.)
Tyee was a four year high school(though it would change to a three year high school at the end of my first year there) and only a few years old at the time I was enrolled. The buildings were round with the classrooms shaped like pie wedges. Chinook Jr. High was located next to Tyee which is where my sister attended and my brother went to Bow Lake Elementary just down the road.
Our new house was barely a block behind Tyee High School. A quick walk past the track and out the back gate made it a short 5 minute walk and like the house in Hampton it was located on a cul-de-sac. Like the house in Kent, it was a rambler and Dad converted the back of it's garage into an unfinished room for me.
The neighbors to the west of us had a couple of cats and a St. Bernard. I remember being asked to come over and sit for their pet's one night as one of the cats was due to have kittens and the owner's had plans to go out. I sat there trying to study while both cats sat on the living room window sill howling their heads off. When they finally quieted down, I observed not only the cat that wasn't pregnant but the St. Bernard both carrying kittens into the bedroom closet from the room the mama had just delivered them in. I followed them both into the room and watched them carefully set them down next to the new mama and then go back and get the remaining kittens. So much for cats and dogs not getting along together.
Two houses to the east was one of the two classmates I knew the best which wasn't all that well - Roy B. He along with Steve C. who lived two streets further east were always together and I occasionally got to hang out with them. Roy had a head of red hair and was taller than I was. I remember once accidentally getting him into trouble with his mom. Along with Steve, the three of us were in his bedroom and he pulled out a wad of money from his dresser to show us. At the same time his mom came down the hall calling to him. He shoved the money at me and said to hide it as he wasn't supposed to have it out. I wasn't sure why he couldn't put it back in his dresser but I quickly shoved it in my back pocket. A week later I was talking to him and he mentioned how much trouble he was in for losing his money and he'd cleaned his room a half dozen times looking for it. I felt the blood drain from my face and I ran from his house home. I went directly to the laundry hamper and pulled out the pants I'd been wearing earlier in the week finding the wad of bills still in the back pocket. Grabbing them I raced back to Roy's house handing him the money and reminding him how I ended up with it. He laughed it off saying not to worry that his room was the cleanest it had ever been but I've always felt badly that I'd gotten him in trouble.
Steve was just as easy going as Roy and always had something going and I was often included. His dad was building a boat in the garage and when it was finished they invited me out on it. They had it moored at Shilshole Marina and they had entered it in a race. Things went well while jockeying for position at the starting line but the last tack to have us lined up ready to start snapped the bracket that fed the lines to the rudder leaving the boat without control of the sails. His dad asked if I would try and crawl between the double hull and see if it could be repaired. I was in to about the length of my body when he grabbed my ankles and started yelling and laughing. Definitely not funny at the time.
The first time I had dinner at someone else's without my family was at Steve's. They had fried chicken which at home we would eat with our fingers but I wasn't sure about that being proper in someone else's home. I was told to go ahead and start but forced myself to wait until his family had all started to eat. Thankfully, they all used their fingers too.
He used to have Roy and I over for game nights which were fun. Risk and Stratego were the most popular though there was an occasional late night Monopoly marathon. Like with Roy though, I managed to get Steve in trouble too. Steve and Roy were having a pillow fight in the family room and were putting a lot of muscle into it. I called out several times for them to stop but they were to focused on hitting each other to hear me. I picked up a rubber shower shoe and tossed it between them hoping to get their attention. With the force that would have made Babe Ruth proud, one of them unintentionally connected with a the flip-flop and sent it into the large plate glass window that was in the family room. The shower shoe didn't bounce off or go completely through the window. Instead, it lodged itself into the window sticking out both sides. Neither of them had realized what had happened at first and it took me a few moments to get words out of my mouth to explain what I had done. Steve's Dad wasn't all that happy but didn't lose his temper. Before sending us home he mentioned that he had an old pane in the garage that he could use to replace the damaged one. It was the last time the incident was ever mentioned.
As much as I enjoyed their company, it did little to alleviate my confusion with my identity or sexuality. I continued to cross-dress wearing things that my sister had outgrown under my regular clothes. I took to wearing a nylon windbreaker during classes thinking it might hide the outline of the straps from her discarded training bras. No one ever commented on me wearing a windbreaker during the warmer weather though at times I would sweat like crazy just sitting in a classroom.
By the 10th grade, I was an emotional mess. My dad was in Thailand and I was trying to hide my thoughts and feelings from my mom. I felt that she had enough on her plate taking care of us and the house with Dad gone. In addition to identity and sexuality issues, my body was now starting to respond to girls I thought were attractive. I hadn't had a health class and the one I would have in the 11th grade did nothing to explain gender vs. sex or sexual attraction. It certainly did nothing to explain puberty or an erection. I hated the thing between my legs so bad I wanted to cut it off. P.E. drove me even further into depression. It was bad enough having to wrestle with guys but showering with them made me feel dirty. Ironically, not only was I talked into going out for J.V. wrestling by my Science teacher but I found myself taking multiple showers a day trying to scrub off anything that might be perceived as male on my body. Though it didn't help - I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed until I cried.
I took isolating myself to a new level by going down to our little community library in the evenings to do my homework. Most of the time I was the only person there other than the librarian. If I finished it before they closed, I would just find something to read until it did close. The librarian introduced me to historical fiction that was appropriate to my age. To this day, I remember that first book - Johnny Tremaine. Over the years, I drifted away from the historical fiction to science fiction and finally mysteries. I couldn't get enough of Phoebe Atwood Taylor (Alice Tilton, Freeman Dana), Erle Stanley Gardner (A.A. Fair), or of course Agatha Christie. I managed to collect mostly complete sets of not only their books but also the original Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, the Dana Girl's, Trixie Belden, Donna Parker, and Judy Bolton.
Doing my homework at the library gave me the opportunity to wear a few more items of a more feminine nature that my sister had outgrown. Mostly, tops and her one piece gym-suit. Walking home in the evening after the library closed was my most favorite time of the day. I was able to leave my jacket open so the blouses were visible.The library was also responsible for finally answering some of the questions I had about who I was and what I was.
Some Answers
I had been sitting in the living room one evening and the news was on the television. Like when the radio was on and only a Country and Western station could be played Dad had the same rule for the television but instead of a popular program it had to be the news and not just any news but Huntley and Brinkley and Walter Cronkite. Though he was was still stationed overseas at Korat A.F.B. my mom followed suit with the news being on even if he wasn't there. This particular evening she was in the kitchen when the news announcer started talking about a woman named Christine Jorgensen who had had sex reassignment surgery from MTF. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Jorgensen). I flew into the kitchen and asked my mom if she had ever heard of a woman named Christine Jorgensen. With her back to me, I got a curt yes followed by her asking why I wanted to know. I told her it was something they were talking about on the news. She stated that it was nothing I needed to know about and go find something else to watch.
With a name to focus on, I spent even more time at our little library. Those were the days of books being listed on file cards and the cards being stored by titles, authors and subjects. I was terrified to ask the librarian for help in looking up Christine Jorgensen so I taught myself how to find things on my own. From Christine Jorgensen, I found the term transsexual and then a doctors name - a Dr. Money if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, this new knowledge did little to calm my mood swings. Gender issues were still something that was unknown for a lot of people so even with this new knowledge I had nowhere to go with it.
As if gender and sexuality hadn't been enough for me to deal with since elementary school, high school threw a completely new curve at me. Today it would probably fall under the category of child abuse though there was no sexual contact. I had replaced my sister in babysitting for a neighbor and developed a massive crush on the baby's mom (mid to late 20's). I didn't know how to describe the situation at the time other than to say it was embarrassing. Over the last 50 years I've learned a few terms that might have applied to the situation but I see no need to bring them up all these years later however I will say that the crush was bad enough that I would have done most anything to be around her.
Clover Park High School
Clover Park School District No. 400
Tacoma, Wash. 98499
Dad came home from Thailand in late 1967 or early 1968 from what I can piece together from my school records. Regardless, May of 68 found us moving again. This time just up the road to McChord AFB. The move was not without controversy however. Dad's original orders were for Otis AFB which caused my mom to go ballistic. At the time, the military had a policy that troops returning from Southeast Asia would be given one of 3 requested duty stations when possible. Dad kept it simple - anything west of the Mississippi - he got Otis. His orders to Otis were accompanied with the suggestion that he not bring the family as Otis was close to Hyannis Port, the Kennedy Compound, and housing was at a premium. Also on the downside - there was an Airman at McChord that had the same MOS and Rank as Dad and was from the Otis AFB area. How mad was Mom - she called the President. She didn't get through but it wasn't for lack of trying and it did get Dad new orders - to McChord.
Clover Park is also a blank - no memories when it comes to classes - students - or teachers. It's like an episode of the Twilight Zone. I have the physical proof I was there in the form of my report cards and can visualize our on base apartment but that's as much as I can remember. What I do remember is getting off the bus one day behind two beautiful girls and mimicking their walk down the entry hall while holding my books up to my chest - it felt so natural. A half a minute into the building I realized what I was doing and started shaking hoping that no one had noticed. I knew then I needed to talk to someone before things got worse. I went to see my school counselor and explained how I identified as a girl and really needed help in dealing with the all the emotions I was experiencing. He just looked at me and said he wasn't knowledgeable enough to help and I should talk with my parents about it. Devastated didn't come close to explaining how I felt as I left his office.
A week later I came home from school to my brother meeting me at the door and telling me I was in trouble. He stated my counselor had been there all afternoon talking to our parents and had just left. He said Mom and Dad were both upstairs in our room waiting for me. I'd been mentally numb since my meeting with my counselor so I felt nothing as I walked upstairs to the bedroom. As I walked in, my mom started screaming at me telling me what a dirty filthy person I was. She was holding up a skirt and top that my sister had outgrown and I had rescued from the thrift store bag. The mattresses were pulled off the bed where I had hidden the clothes. She kept asking if I had anything else hidden while continuing to look for more of my sisters discarded clothes. I didn't volunteer that I was wearing a bra and panties under my school clothes - like I said - I had shut down after my visit with the counselor and was at a loss of words which was probably for the best considering all the yelling she was doing. She stormed out of the room followed by my dad. He, however, paused at the bedroom door and quietly said to me that all guys go through what I was feeling and it would pass. A little later I was called downstairs and told that my bedroom was off limits when not sleeping and I would be doing my homework at the kitchen table and I would need to find something to do downstairs when not studying. The walking on eggshells started that day with no one really talking to each other.
A day or two later my brother came running into the apartment with the mail yelling I had gotten a letter from a hospital. I grabbed it and ran upstairs ripping the envelope open. It was a reply to an application for surgery I had sent to John Hopkins. I quickly read it then ripped the application into small pieces flushing them down the toilet. I hurried downstairs and was confronted by my mom wanting to know whom the letter was from. I told her it was just an advertisement and I'd thrown it away. That seemed to mollify her.
All this took place in late November of 1968. December 3rd found me and my siblings sitting in the living room watching The Singer Elvis Special. My parents hadn't said much since my counselor's visit and the special was half way thru when I sensed my dad standing behind us. I heard him say that he had never cared for Elvis but he was really enjoying the special. That was the most he would say to me for the next year plus.
