by James Wallace Harris, 7/2/23
Ed Czlapinski is a guy I knew in high school. I last heard from him about fifty years ago. A while back, an “Ed Czlapinski” left a comment here on my blog. I thought, “Could that be the same guy?” So I googled his name and discovered there are several guys named Ed Czlapinski out there. I called my old friend Jim Connell and told him about the comment. Connell also knew Ed after me. We both thought it was fantastic that a guy we hadn’t seen in decades could accidentally pop up on my website. I doubt Ed looked me up, there are just too many Jim Harrises in the world. But Ed kept posting comments and it indeed turned out to be the Ed Czlapinski of our memories.
Ed, I hope you are amused that I’m using you for the topic of this essay. It’s really going to be about remembering people from high school and remembering people in general, but then that’s a favorite topic of yours too.
My 50th anniversary of graduating high school was in 2019. In 2018 I started thinking about going to the reunion. Ed Czlapinski was the classmate I hoped to see most. But I didn’t go, and it turns out from his comments Ed didn’t go either. Evidently, we are having our reunion here.
Back in 2018, I thought a great deal about going to the reunion. I joined Classmates.com and studied the 1969 yearbook they had online for Miami Killian High School. It was an intense dive into old memories and it inspired the essay, “How Accurately Can I Remember 50 Years Ago?“
With the return of Ed Czlapinski, I’ve been thinking once again about my high school days. This time I’ve been even harder on myself by digging into my personality. I have found over my lifetime that about half the people I know fondly remember high school and half could only remember hating it. My friend Linda, who also graduated in 1969 did go to her high school reunion and she had the kind of experience I wished I could have had. Not only did she meet with her senior-year classmates, but she had a reunion with her first-grade classmates. I was incredibly envious of her.
I went to three 1st-grade schools, three 7th-grade schools, one school for 6th, 9th, and 12th grades, and two schools for all the other grades. I only attended Miami Killian High School for three months of the 11th grade, and all of the 12th grade. For most of that time, I was working 25-33 hours a week at a grocery store after school. I participated in no after-school activities or attended any school events because as soon as I got off from classes I rushed to Coconut Grove to work at the Kwik Chek.
I realized I didn’t go to my high school reunion back in 2019 because I could only remember the names of four senior classmates: Ed Czlapinski, Steve Miller, James Keith, and Linda Hodges, out of around eight-hundred seniors that graduated that year. I could only remember the name of one teacher, Mrs. Charlotte Travis. I would have gone to the reunion if I had known she would have been there. She was my favorite teacher in my K-12 career.
This past week while contemplating writing this essay I’ve thought deeper and deeper about what I must have been like in high school. My picture wasn’t in the yearbook. I didn’t attend my graduation ceremony. I remember now how I refused to participate in anything school-related activities. I remember walking down the outer hallway and the principal coming up to me and screaming at me, his face inches from mine, and walking away completely indifferent and detached. (He hated my long hair.) I loved my English class with Mrs. Travis, and I loved my Creative writing class, with a teacher I’ve forgotten. Ed Czlapinski was in both of those classes. In my four other classes, I refuse to participate in class, did no homework, and passed them simply because I sat in class and listened to pass the tests.
Why was I like that? I remembered that I also quit my job that year because they demanded I wear a costume the week of Thanksgiving. I was dating a girl who worked at the store, and my quitting ruined that relationship. Why was I such a butthead? My mother was furious with me for quitting my job. My parents grew up in the depression and believed you should never quit a job.
I was very unhappy with the world. I was fighting with my retired Air Force dad over the Vietnam War. My parent’s marriage was going through its worst meltdown (there had been others.) The world just sucked in 1968 and 1969 and being a butthole teen was my way of dealing with it.
Yet, I remember being happy during that year. Isn’t that weird?
My coping method for dealing with alcoholic parents and being moved around the country every year was to become intensely selfish and introverted. I had two friends outside school, Jim Connell and George Kirschner. And I had science fiction and rock music. And I loved the space program. One of the few special things my father ever did for me was to take me, Connell, and George, to see the launch of Apollo 8 around Christmastime 1968.
The reason I don’t remember my classmates at Miami Killian Senior High is because when I was in school I mostly kept to myself and thought about what I’d be doing after school. I would go to class — I didn’t skip them. And I enjoyed listening to the other students talk before the teacher came in, and sometimes I might say something, but I don’t remember saying much.
I remember talking with Ed some, but the main reason I remember Ed is that whenever he walked into a classroom he would go over to the chalkboard, draw a rectangle in the upper-right corner, and print in a quote. Sometimes I’d go to classrooms I didn’t attend with Ed, and one of his quotes would be up on the board. It was Ed’s version of Kilroy Was Here. Ed made himself memorable.
Ed dressed so he looked older like he was in college. He engaged in conversations. He had opinions and often talked about things he had done. He tried to convey he was mature and experienced. However, he always seemed somewhat nervous, so I figured things weren’t what they seemed. Ed, I hope you elaborate on my impression. But Ed made an impression that Connell and I have talked about all these years. I doubt my classmates remember me, but I bet many remember Ed.
This is not the first time that Ed Czlapinski returned to my life. I moved away from Miami in August 1970. I think I might have run into Ed at Miami Date Junior College in our Freshman year (1969/1970), but that memory is vague. I think he told me he was writing for an underground paper. I vaguely remember him saying it was called The Daily Planet. (Now there’s another story for you to tell, Ed.)
Then a few years later, Connell called me and told me he had met Ed again. He had been away to college in Gainesville, and I think Connell told me he came home and Ed living at his mother’s house. That’s another story for you Ed. That was a big surprise. Sometime later, when I was visiting Connell at his mother’s house, Ed showed up with some friends. Ed had left a VW Karmann Ghia in Connell’s backyard. We all went out there to get it started. The car’s tires were all sunk in the sand. I have a memory of all of us guys lifting it out of the sand, but is that even possible? I think that was the last time I saw Ed. I may have talked to him on the phone one time after that.
I know Ed stood out in high school, but why didn’t any of my other classmates? I have a few memories of Bruce Miller and James Keith, but they were from outside of school. I remember Linda Hodges coming to my house once, but she was really my sister’s friend.
Even though I was an introvert I wasn’t shy. I had no trouble talking to people, although I think I mostly listened because quite a few memories I have of high school are of people telling me stuff. I don’t remember their names — but I do remember them telling me personal things.
Now that I’ve spent so many hours thinking about it, I don’t think I allowed myself to get involved with my classmates. I think my lifelong experience of always moving once a year taught me that people came and went. I don’t think I made an effort to make bonds. I regret that.
I’ve always wished and fantasized about having a normal life, or at least what I thought imagined was normal. It would be like Linda’s, where I lived in one house my whole childhood, went to the same schools every year, and had a cohort of friends and acquaintances that developed over the years.
What I wanted was an Our Town childhood. I don’t know why, because that story kills my soul. Just thinking about it waters my eyes and stuffs up my sinuses.
Like the play, I wonder about going back as a ghost to haunt myself in 1968 and 1969 at Miami Killian. Thorton Wilder warns against returning. Thomas Wolfe says we can’t go home again. But I would try.
Looking at the photos in the 1969 yearbook I’m shocked by how young we look. My memory of Ed from 1969 has him looking ten years older than the photo.
When I flip through the yearbook I’m also shocked by all the activities and events that I ignored. One picture showed students with a wall-sized computer. I would give anything now to have worked with computers back then. Of course, I started computer classes at a tech school in 1971, so it would have only been a two-year headstart, but that would have meant a lot. I first learned about computers in 1968 when my dad briefly took a course and he explained about punch cards to me one day.
Ed, do you think about Killian very much?
Do any of the rest of you think about the past like I do?
Now that I’m old and my memory is acting up I find I’m dwelling on what I can remember and what I can’t. I feel like I’m Philip Marlowe on a case looking for clues. I know not to trust memories. I know that I’m revising memories by recalling them. I know I would go back in time even though Thorton Wilder warns against it because wanting to know what really happen is more important than enduring the suffering.
Ed, I hope you don’t mind me using you for this essay. I believe you are also obsessed with memory. And, if memory serves me right, I think you once told me you used me for one of your stories.
I wonder if between the two of us if we could validate any specific memories? Do you know anyone else from that time?
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
Now I’ll have to check the comments and see if Ed comments. Interesting take on memories. I’m interested to see if Ed had no idea it was you when he commented.
yeah,man i knew it was harris as soon as i saw the photo on his web site; eyes never change.
I made it to my 35th reunion. Unlike you I probably remembered 30-40 classmates but there was only 65 in my class.
Those numbers sound like my grandmother’s class. I think she was part of a class of 35. When it’s that small, people can get to know each other. My grandmother’s class even had a tontine, but I don’t remember what everyone was holding out for. She lived in Miami and would go back to the reunions I think every five years. She died back in the 1970s, and I don’t think she was the last. I now wish I would have asked her more about her classmates.
i always hated that picture. maybe because it was too good of a likeness. i don’t necessarily think of killian that often (it was , and i expect still is, a crummy building; the roof leaked and there were always puddles in the cooridors, rather like a third world penitentiary), as much i recollect certain individuals. the blonde a couple frames to the left ,sharon. i remember calling her, summer of 1968, asking her if she wanted to see the who with me. she replied sweetly, ‘o, i’d love to go. but not with you.’ it would have been interesting to learn where she wound up. you out there, lady? ( i remember being unimpressed with live at leeds and thinking TOMMY was pretentious and inferior to what the kinks did on ARTHUR;i’ve always had an affinity for songwriters out of left field: randy newman, ray davies, townes van zandt,warren zevon, to name a few. the who made some good rock’n’roll,nonetheless, i’m wondering this afternoon how much being shunned by ms.c. influenced my reaction to their work. a sidekick of mine, the late and lamented dan crippen, RIP,(killian, class of 1968) whose favorite putdown was ‘textbook case of arrested development’ as in ‘he/she is a’ ; that phrase comes to mind. i don’t know about maturity and sophistication; around the time of the VW incident(circa 1974,springtime by my recollection, i was keeping company with a lady named Jeanne who lived on bayshore lane, a couple blocks from connells mothers house, and at some point told me i ought to read a novel by norman spinrad titled BUG JACK BARRON. the trip with her lasted about six weeks before she cut me off, telling me, ‘ i’d rather you didn’t come around any more.’ unwilling to take no for an answer, i got her to meet me for breakfast at a diner on grand avenue (herb’s place? ask connell next time you talk to him,eh), figuring that if my rap had been good enough to get me into her pants six weeks previous, i could talk her into realizing that she was writing me off too quickly. i got a fifteen minute lecture on my shortcomings, essentially that i was a coward,a failure,and a liar,summed up by the conclusion that ‘ it’s bad enough that you’ve lied to me, but you keep lying to yourself because you haven’t got the balls to look at yourself and admit what a fuckup you are. you’re nothing but a bum in hip clothing.’ guess she told me! depending on my mindset when i awake in the morning, i’m inclined to say that she had me pegged pretty well, or that i was just too authentic for her. it probably stands out because i got around to reading BUG JACK BARRON in the summer of 1975 and one of the characters relates that a social worker used that phrase to describe him. considering that up through the midseventies we were pretty much all wearing jeans and chambray shirts (maybe a pair of earth shoes if we were lucky enough to have a steady job), spinrad seemed prophetic. i reckon that’s at least part of the reason that conversation resonates with me all these years later. i’ve generally assumed that no one changes all that much after high school; on some level i’m still a nervous seventeen year old who got old waiting for a revo-lution that never went down,and trying to put an image across to the world. i recollect catching PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID at a midnight movie in the autumn of 1976; as pat garrett told one of the old federal marshals who criticized his decision to take a sheriffs post where he had to answer to the big cattle ranchers, ‘ a man gets to a point where he doesn’t want to spend time figuring what comes next.’ the flip side to that being that sometimes it feels better to lose on your own terms than to win on someone elses.’ no doubt somebody else will be along to tell me, ‘big deal,hotshot, yer still a loser.’ (which brings to mind the penultimate scene of THE LONG GOODBYE which i saw with jeanne at a theatre on miami beach that spring.) meanwhile, it’s depressing to think that my graduation picture is still in circulation. i feel like captain ahab on the deck of the pequod, telling the mate at the wheel, ‘they don’t understand me,’ and hearing starbuck reply, ‘maybe the problem is, we understand you too well.’ you might see if yoiu can post a picture of linda hodges. as for the other names you mention, last time i crossed with bruce miller, he was selling tupperware and balling a lot of frustrated housewives;that was at least fifty years back. jim keith, i never much cared for. something about that fucker made my teeth itch; i got the feeling he had the soul of a pimp. meanwile, as i mentioned in another reply, i’m looking forward to our seventy-fifth reunion. see you in 2044,man. i hope ny ramblings today are at least semicoherent , if not intelligible. i started out from nowhere and have been working my way back since; as yogi berra said,’ if you come to a fork in the road, take it.’
I was just rewatching THE LONG GOODBYE the other day. And I’ve been meaning to reread some of those Norman Spinrad classics, including BUG JACK BARRON and THE IRON DREAM. I’ve also just reread two Raymond Chandler books – FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, and THE BIG SLEEP. I should reread THE LONG GOODBYE.
I really don’t remember much about Bruce Miller or Jim Keith. I remember Jim had a sister Wendy that I thought was cute. How long did you stay in Miami and keep in contact with the Killian people?
And, how did you stumble onto my blog?
I’m not sure I’ll be alive in 2044. God, we’d be ninety-something.
Ed, you sure do have a good memory, especially for people, events, and dates. Your writing style reminds me of Jack Kerouac’s, especially in the examples I’ve seen of the original teletype roll of ON THE ROAD.
See if this link takes you to a photo of Linda. https://www.mediafire.com/file/088j5pjnoxubo1z/LindaHodges.jpg/file
access was denied. seems like i remember catching jerry jeff walker at the old assembly coffee house in south miami along with you and bruce miller circa 1969, maybe late winter, early spring. don’t recall a hell of a lot about the music (was it just jjw and his guitar? was david bromberg with him. haven’t seen jjw since that evening; caught david bromberg a couple times over the years). it’s interesting that i don’t recall much about wendy keiths looks one way or the other; i just thought that she was even more annoying than her brother was, and brother, that’s going some. she could make barbara walters sound intellectual. i split miami in the late summer of 1974. by that time, i had pretty much lost track of just about everyone i was acquainted with at killian, with the exception of dan crippen and ken rawlinson, who graduated a year before you and i did. connell told me about your blog twelve or thirteen years back. complain to him. as i’ve said before, if we’re not around in 2044, a class reunion will likely be the least of our worries. i’m not sure what’s more daunting: the afterlife (recalling george carlins query: do they have short-timers in purgatory? ‘i’m here for an eon.’ ‘i can do an eon standing on my head,man.’) or reincarnation ( a line in one of woody allens films: ‘great, i’ll have to sit through the ice capades again.’) i’m not proud of everything i’ve done in my life; i’ll never ask,’what did i ever do to deserve this?’ as laura nyro wrote: troubles are many/they’re as deep as a well/i can swear there aint no heaven/ but i pray there aint no hell. speaking of wendy keith, i can re-member her insisting one evening at tim greens house that david clayton-thomas had written those lines. she’s probably a registered republican/moms 4 liberty type by now.
I remember that Jerry Jeff Walker performance. We were in a very small place and sitting right up front. I don’t remember you and Bruce being there, but then my memory is very faulty. In 1975 I was living in Dallas, and Jerry Jeff was very big by then. I think I wanted to see Jerry Jeff in 1969 because I had read he wrote “Mr. Bojangles.”
Since you kept journeys that probably helped you to remember, plus they are a source for validating memories.
Did we read the first book of The Divine Comedy in Charlotte Travis’ class? And didn’t she teach us about purgatory?
i recall ms. travis mentioning that she once attended a lecture by john ciardi, who trabslated divine comedy into english; i don’t remember reading it in twelfth grade english. (i don’t remember remember reading it ever,in fact.) my concept of purgatory comes from eleven years of catholic school. by the way THE FIEND is still up on the bukowski web site (ADAM february 1970); it should be a part of every high school english textbook. (so burn me in effigy,already!)
If you loved the space program and are a fan of streaming, do yourself a favor and sign up for Apple TV and watch “For All Mankind.” Its an alternate history of NASA and the space program with many of the true characters (played by actors of course) and it’s what might have been scenario. I’m only on the first season and so far there is 3 seasons. It’s a fabulous well done series that goes on into the future. I think you’d really like it. They use some old footage too.
Also another good SciFi there is “Silo”.
I think it’s just $6 or 7 a month..well worth it.
I loved FOR ALL MANKIND and have seen all three seasons and I’m anxiously awaiting the fourth. I’m even thinking about rewatching the first three seasons. I’m currently watching SILO. Evidently we have similar tastes.
If you love FOR ALL MANKIND then you might want to read The Lady Astronaut series
This song I love. It made me sad, as it’s back when our country had hope for a grand future for all and was filled with much more cooperation and acceptance of others. We took a wrong turn somewhere..enjoy the song.
Thank you for sharing all those memories! It was especially fun because I was only a few years behind you in high school. You mention looking at your yearbook and seeing interesting activities you missed out on. Same! I looked through my yearbook recently and enjoyed testing myself to see if I could put names to faces. But then I started noticing all the extracurricular activities and there I was, wondering … how did I not know? How I could have been so oblivious!?
I don’t recall ever hearing about all those activities. Which is crazy because I pored over the yearbook at the end of every year … apparently I was so focused on my (very small) circle of friends that I was blind to the lives of people I didn’t know well. By which, I kind of mean people who made an effort to experience life more fully!
When I saw those activities, it took me a day or so to get over the feelings of regret. Would I go back for the opportunity join some of those extracurriculars, YES. Either that or somehow magically “now me” would whisper in the ears of teachers and counselors, telling them “be sure ALL your students are aware of all the opportunities!!”
Around age 30 I took a French class for fun, befriending a young woman who inspired me to make a trip to England, as she had recently done. I saved up for a year and then spent 4 weeks traveling alone all around England; it was an amazing experience! That trip is like a “before & after” marker in my life: I went from shy and scared to someone who loves talking to anyone and everyone. Unfortunately though, the trip didn’t kick me out of my “living on my own little turf” lifestyle. I can’t help but wonder if participating more actively in my more formative years would have put me more in the habit of getting out of my small world.
some of us are just destined to be outliers. as charles bukowski wrote, ‘ i don’t hate people. i’m just happier when they’re not around.’ these days i try to be a good listener. some of the shit i overhear, i don’t feel quite so stupid. naive and uninformed,perhaps…
Your memory for quotes is impressive! And, considering what James said about your high school chalkboard quotations, a skill you never stopped practicing. While I’m definitely content being on my own, and I can tolerate only a few hours in company, I can’t say I’m “happier” being an outlier. I guess I want to choose from life’s “have it your way”* menu — I wish to enjoy company only when I want company and other than that, not at all!
*to quote Burger King. Which is pretty much as far as my skill for quotations goes! 😉
I’ve always like having things my way. My wife and I both like that, and we both let each other do their own thing. She has the living room and I have the den. We get together each evening to watch Jeopardy and the NBC Nightly News. Then Susan cooks dinner, and I do the dishes. Then we go our separate ways again until 9pm when we get together again to watch two TV shows together. I think of our house as our Hobbit hole. My fear in life is mother nature blowing our house down.
Ed, for some reason, I’ve always pictured you being a Charles Bukowski or Harry Crews kind of writer, and maybe living like them. Did you keep writing after joining the work world? Have you ever thought about blogging?
if they havent taken it down, see if you can locate a story by charles bukowski entitled THE FIEND; i remember encountering it in a stroke book (ADAM? CAVALIER? seems like there were a million of them in the early 1970s) that a hitcher left in my car in the spring of 1971. i remember telling a lady name of michelle that if i could come up with something that twisted and perverse, i’d feel i had a future as a writer. she read it, and re-turned it to me the following day, telling me, ‘you scare me sometimes.” as for harry crews, i remember reading CHILDHOOD like thirty some years ago, and KARATE IS A THING OF THE SPIRIT like fifty years back. i found a first edition of it in a second hand bookshop in san francisco , maybe twelve,fifteen years ago. i ‘ve got a lot of ramblings and jottings lying around that i keep hoping will turn into a novel.(working title: I AM A CHILD IN THESE HILLS OR I WAS A TEENAGE ASSHOLE, BUT NOW I’M TWENTY) hopefully to be followed by an autobiography: DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU OR THIS BOOK IS WHAT YOU NEED LIKE A HOLE IN THE HEAD. my first choice for a title would have been THE RAINMANS THIRD CURE, but peter coyote, who always seems to be in the right place at the right time. i’ve been keeping journals on and off for the past fifty years; a lady friends daughter some years back asked me what was the point of writing when no one else could read it (for a sixteen year old, that’s heavy!) i told her it was more a matter of keeping track of emotions and impressions at the time i wrote it out. i don’t know if she got my point; i don’t know how well i articulated my position.
should have read my first choice for a title would have been THE RAINMANS THIRD CURE, but peter coyote,bless his askenazic zen soul,who always seems to be in the right place at the right time, beat me to it.
Yeah, I saw several activities I would have joined. I think my problem was between work and my parents’ fights, I was just stressed out that year. I don’t remember feeling stressed. If I knew then what I know now I would have pursued a lot more opportunities.
When I was young I wanted to visit England. I was an English major, and I’ve read a lot of English novels, watched a lot of English movies and TV shows, and read a lot of English history.
Yes, I like living on my own little turf.
A good story. I attended my 50th reunion in 2019 and my wife and I attended hers in 2021. If not for the name tags, I would not have recognized many of my classmates. A few were hurt that I didn’t know their name, but we have all aged, and so have our memories. Good the Ed got back in touch with you.
Maybe you like the 📖 Chopper Bikes and Bell-Bottoms. It’s a story from 1973 in West-Germany in rural areas. Boredom? Never!
Available on Amazon.