Shirley, I Jest!: A Storied Life Read Free Page A

and my sister, Carol, to attend—the First Methodist Church of Reseda. I joined the Methodist Youth Fellowship. The MYF, among other things, helped to sponsor the church’s ice-cream social. This particular year, they wanted to put on a talent show. With the vast experience I had garnered from our stupendous garage productions, I volunteered. I poured my soul into the show—writing, casting, directing, and, of course, acting. I wrote a Soupy Sales parody, which was a real crowd-pleaser. We sold out both performances at fifty cents a ticket. When church camp rolled around, they asked me to help out with that talent show, too. It was so encouraging.
    High school was a game-changer for me. First of all, I made a great friend—Lorie Gorenbein. She was very bright, with a wicked sense of humor. We were each other’s confidante, as girls will be. She was strong in ways I was weak and vice versa. We each had mothers who were strict about our sugar intake and eating habits, but in different ways. Where my mother’s kitchen was stocked with Brewer’s yeast, alfalfa sprouts, unpasteurized milk, and bran, Lorie’s mother, Natalie, kept her refrigerator filled with actual edible foods like bagels and cream cheese. What neither of them knew was that we would sneak off on Saturdays and go to the local McDonald’s. We’d each buy a bagful of twenty-two-cent cheeseburgers and twelve-cent fries. Then we’d mosey over to June Ellen’s Doughnuts, which was right across from the high school, and buy three doughnuts each! Then we’d swing by the Orange Julius for a beverage. We’d take it all back to her house, hide in her bedroom, and eat really fast, praying we wouldn’t get caught. My sister once warned us to watch out, because one day we’d wake up and be blimps! But that junk food was no match for our teenage metabolisms.
    Lorie and I were involved in high school politics. I was voted in as the Girls’ League vice president and she was voted in as the Girls’ League social director. Girls’ League was a school organization that handled functions such as dances, homecoming, fundraisers, and dress board. Female students who had been ticketed for dress-code violations such as skirt above the knees, improper grooming, or inappropriate hairstyle (too much ratting) were called before the dress board. These girls would then be chastised for heinous fashion infractions that if left unchecked would surely lead to a life of crime and degradation. As Girls’ League vice president, I had the dubious honor of conducting this crucible. Anyone with three tickets was automatically suspended. One of my jobs was also to collect the tickets and deposit them in a box in the Girls’ vice principal’s office for her to review.
    These “tainted” girls were instructed to come to the auditorium at lunchtime on Wednesdays and stand before the board for questioning. The first time I conducted this meeting I was upset to see some members of the board eating their lunch while our quarry stood before us. I thought it was rude and asked them to stop. Some became indignant and wanted to know just when they were supposed to have their lunch. I said I didn’t care, as long as it wasn’t until after we finished with dress board. I must confess I didn’t really care about eating my lunch, since my mother had recently discovered alfalfa sprouts and was now including large handfuls in my warm and wet tuna salad sandwiches.
    See, here’s the thing. Each week the same girls were called in. Girls who didn’t come from a family that had the kind of money to afford matching sweater-sets. They came from homes filled with financial and emotional strife, or worse. You could see it in the way they cast their eyes down in embarrassment and humiliation, or clinched their thumb in the palm of their hand for something to hold onto. This group of girls just couldn’t see past their own lunch to observe the trauma they were inflicting. My friend Lorie felt the