Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 16:42:59 -0800
From: Gary Claussen <garyclaussen@earthlink.net>
Subject: More reflections
To: Jo Ann Schneider Farris <joann@blading.com>
Dear Jo Ann...
Your message today is so appreciated. The unfolding saga of Hollywood Professional School is more sensitive and revealing than any story Spielberg, Spelling or other producers could ever conceive. This is obvious in reading the daily messages.
HPS, its creative and talented faculty and fellow students (some in the business, some not) was my second family. From my first day as a sophomore in 1956 through my 1958 graduation and for many years after, I had deep feelings for the two-story building. I just knew it would be there forever. I guess we do that as a teenagers. No force, regardless how great, could change HPS, let alone hurt it.
When the day of demolition arrived, I quietly wished that those students who graduated in the '70s and '80s could have experienced the high energy, caring, camaraderie and daily effervesce which filled the halls and classrooms in the 50's and 60's.
Time took its toll: A disintegrating Hollywood (which began about 1970), a changing entertainment business for pre-teens and teens, the exodus of upper and middle class families to distant counties and even states, and a very difficult period for the Mann family. We attended Maurice Mann's funeral. Then the services for Joel following his untimely and fatal auto accident in the Marina. Then the ultimate slow and painful closing of the school when Bertha Mann passed on. Losing her husband and only child so close together was devastating to her. But she was tough and continued to persever. I was out of touch when the school fell into the hands of the heirs.
My mother Mildred was a close friend of Bertha's and was the school's piano teacher from the late '60's through the '70's. Younger sister Candace went from K thorough 12 (class of '72) and my sister Sue Raney graduated in 1957. So many wonderful memories of Miss Anderssen, The Manns, faculty members Snell, Doss, Scherich, Cadish, Sommers, Darraugh, Gray, Clarke, Orb, Stevens, Fetterly, Goddard, Daudette and so on.
My deep praise to Karin, Joy and Elaine for getting me involved over a year ago to help on the project, and to you Jo Ann for lighting a high tech fire under the idea for a future web site and current funnel of facts, figures and memories.
To take a little literary license with a quote from the film Stand By Me..."I was only fifteen going on sixteen the first time I entered HPS. It happened in the summer of nineteen-fifty-six. A long time ago. But only if you measure in terms of years. I was living in Hollywood on Harold Way. There were slightly more than one hundred students going to the school then, but it was the whole world.."
Thanks for your great caring, creativity and direction.
I'm attaching an interesting piece that arrived recently from a friend with the Governor's Office.
I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an
adult. I have decided I would like to accept the
responsibilities of an 8 year-old again. I want to go
to McDonald's and think that it's a four-star
restaurant. I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud
puddle and make a sidewalk with rocks. I want to
think M&M's are better than money because you can eat
them. I want to lie under a big oak tree and run a
lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summer's day.
I want to return to a time when life was simple. When
all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and
nursery rhymes, but that didn't bother you, because
you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't
care. All you knew was to be happy because you were
blissfully unaware of all the things that should make
you worried or upset. I want to think the world is
fair. That everyone is honest and good. I want to
believe that anything is possible. I want to be
oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly
excited by the little things again. I want to live
simple again. I don't want my day to consist of
computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing
news, how to survive more days in the month than there
is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness,
and loss of loved ones. I want to believe in the
power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice,
peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making
angels in the snow. So, here's my checkbook and my
car-keys, my credit card bills and my 401k statements.
I am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you
want to discuss this further, you'll have to catch me
first, cause????????????"Tag! You're it."
Be well,
Gary