Earth Day

For six years the Anaheim Union High School District had the pioneer sex education program in America. During those six years I was a student in that district, three years at Ball Jr. High and three at Loara (pronounced lo-WARE-uh) High School. What you may have heard about politics in Orange County was true. We had strivers after right-wing absolutism. We had blocks without streetlights because all their residents were against socialism. Public schools are also socialistic, but many folks were practical enough to realize that the better course was not to be against public education but to hamper it. School board meetings were generally long and loud. At one such meeting in summer 1970, sex ed ended.

Loara was also the name for a street (still there) and an elementary school (gone now) on the northwest corner of Loara and Broadway. On the southeast corner was a field where bra�eros picked strawberries. East of there, across the railroad tracks, was a barn that had become a dance club ("Harmony House," I think it was called) where Richard Berry wrote "Louie Louie." Back when passenger trains stopped at many more places than they do now, there was both an Anaheim station and a Loara station. Loara could have been the name of the city. The story they told us at school was that it was an "Indian word" meaning "the lost child." The local Indians had a big horse corral at the location of the high school (that part can't be right since the other locations in town had the name earlier), and when a horse would run off with a kid on it, the cry would go up "loara, loara!" There was a guy who owned a restaurant and called himself "the flying Viking" or something like that who claimed that he wrote "Louie Louie." He didn't.

     Our English teachers at Loara developed a program of options in their classes. Unless you were really dumb or a hood (short for "hoodlum"), you got to pick what English class you wanted to take four times a year. Giving options to children being a particular manifestation of evil, this program received special attention at a couple school board meetings. The social studies (history, geography, government) teachers were on average a few counties to the right of the English teachers, but after a couple years they, too, offered options. But since they were all against public education anyway, they did not thus give up proving their point by making their classes deadly boring and assuming that we were all about to riot at the slightest opportunity.
     In spring 1970, the first Earth Day was observed. One of our English teachers offered a class in which the students would research different areas of environmental concern and then prepare a report to be offered to the school at large. Eventually the plan was developed of suspending all normal classes on that first Earth Day, April 22, for us to make our presentations at different locations around the campus. All this was worked out in detail, which was amazing considering the size of the school, the usual (and warranted) concerns about students hiding out for a smoke or strolling away from school before the appointed time for that, and the vocal opposition of most of the social studies teachers.
     I took the class, and I and another student (whom I later married) tackled "solid waste," which included both poop and trash. We interviewed some professionals in those two fields and prepared some sort of presentation. Actually I think my colaborator did most of the work (cf. The Ball). At any rate I don't remember much about it past the fun part of the interviews.
     April 22 is also the birthday of Vladimir Ilych Ulanov, whom we all know better as Lenin. Even apart from that, it was clear to many people that Earth Day was Communist-inspired. This was long before U.S. News & World Report made it okay for conservatives to care about the environment. There was absolutely nothing good about environmentalism, and this among conservatives who were neither big business types nor necessarily militant theists.
     So well into the night before Earth Day the longest and loudest of those school board meetings debated whether Loara High School was going to do what was planned for the next day or not. All eighteen or so of us in the class had to wait for a phone call to know whether we were on or not. It passed, but with a few people convinced that a few others were Soviet-paid agitators (do you know by now that that's not an exaggeration?) and with it clear to all that there'd be hell to pay before anyone ever suspended the normal schoolday for a Communist holiday again.
     As part of the build-up to the Day, we had encouraged people to get to school without the use of fossil fuels. Normally there were two people (out of school population of about 1500) who were uncool enough to ride a bike to school. I was one. But that morning there were hundreds of bicyclists. About halfway to school, my front tire found some gravel near the curb and I sprawled out on the sidewalk chin-first. I laid open about two and a half inches of skin at the contact area and bled like a stuck pig. I knew no one was at home, so I biked on to the nurse's office at school and freaked out lots of fellow bikers (who all knew that I was one of the two more experienced riders). It was a while before they could get me to the hospital because of the unusual lack of cars on campus. There was an old Plymouth that was kept around "for emergencies," and because of its age and the occasional unauthorized probing it received from auto shop students, it was generally feared. But a key and an adminstrator with some nerve and no pressing appointments were found. I had to wait for a while at the hospital while they tried every phone number I knew to get ahold of my dad, but eventually he came in to sign and I got sutured up. In the meantime, I missed all of Earth Day, all of our Communist-inspired presentations, everything. And I lost the cleft in my chin.