the whole long saga.
<--- Back to the first part of the entry
I wanted to know why I hadn't been valedictorian. You'd think at this point in my life I have better things to worry about, but I'm not mildly obsessive-compulsive for nothing.
As if anyone would know why at this point, right? It has been (eeek) 16 years. (And by the way, if you're trying to figure out my age, I graduated the youngest in my class. By a sizeable margin.)
The person I wanted to ask was also the only person from high school who I would go out of my way to see, my favorite teacher. Anyone who was in my class probably knows who I mean, but for the rest of you playing along at home, his name is Douglas H. Grant and he made a very large impact on my life, starting very early on.
I met him because he was my sister's teacher when we started at the Convent. Deirdre was a freshman; I was in 6th grade. He was the high school algebra and calculus teacher. He also had the school's computer in his classroom.
I was in his classroom a lot as a result, years before I was going to high school.
When I was in eighth grade, Debbie Hussey and I decided to get the hell out of eighth grade math and get into high school algebra. No one had ever done it before--I'm sure they teach algebra in eighth now--but we did the entire year of math in a few weeks and asked if we could move on to algebra. Mr. Grant said sure, and he gave me the book and assignments. I came back on Monday with them done. He turned to my sister and said, "She did an entire quarter of algebra in one weekend."
If you want to get a teacher's notice, do something like that.
I also spent a great deal of time on the computers, learning to program BASIC on a PDP-11. Making programs run. Helping others to get their programs to run. This was a time in my life I actually thought computers were fun. I spent the summer in between sophomore and junior years at the school, writing programs to do things like grade calculation. And of course I took calculus and AP calculus (at a time when I think you only had to take 3 years of math, not 5), and I got personal lectures whenever I made some incredibly egregious screwup on one of my tests (which wasn't often, I have to admit, but did on occasion occur).
Senior year I'd finished most of the classes available and signed up just for the ones I wanted to take. I turned in my class schedule to Mr. Grant (since the class schedules had to be arranged by computer) and he said, "Oh, no, you don't," and he rearranged my schedule so that I had a full complement of classes. You might not think that's particularly noteworthy, but he was the only person who took note of what I was doing in high school. My parents didn't really say very much--they were proud of everything I was doing, they just weren't very involved. I had my room on the top floor of our house, and I usually had the door closed, and I was in there working or reading or writing stories. Nobody bothered me much. I went my own way, you might say...except with Mr. Grant.
So, after graduation, I headed off to Stanford University, a 5 on the AP Calculus, completely certain that I was going to study math and computer science for the rest of my life.
Whereupon I failed miserably. And literally, for the first time in my life.
I could not hack math at Stanford. I was not a good computer programmer. Mind you, I was hanging out with the people who would go on to found such companies as Cisco Systems, so it wasn't like I was comparing myself to pikers or anything. But I couldn't do it, and for the first time in my life I did not know what I was going to do. I ended up moving from Mathematical Sciences to Philosophy to Linguistics (with a couple of other stops in-between). I never took math after freshman year.
This is by way of explanation for why I did not keep in contact with Mr. Grant after graduating high school. For one thing, I didn't think about high school at all--too busy trying to keep my head above water in college, I suppose--and for another I felt as though I had failed him. What was I going to say? "Oh, by the way, all that promise I showed? Well, boy, aren't you in for a surprise." After freshman year I had come to the conclusion that math really was hard (me and Barbie: we're like this), and I couldn't handle admitting it.
I stopped by high school once, sophomore year of college. I now think I caught him on a bad day, but at the time I thought I'd done something wrong--I came bounding into his classroom to say hi and he gave me this really annoyed look and told me to quiet down.
The next time I saw him was after my ten year reunion. You know, after I'd already quit my first career at Apple Computer. I didn't get much of a chance to talk to him--another alumna (from the year ahead of mine, in fact) had also stopped by. The one day I stop by. Sigh.
That was 6 years ago. I don't do anything in half-measures. No hanging around for me.
Since Darin and I were going to be in the Bay Area this week, and I'd been thinking about high school of late, I decided I'd stop by and say hi and ask the question. Doug Grant is still there, all right--he's the Principal now. Which is why, when I tried calling to find out when he'd be around, I always got his voicemail--he's a busy guy.
I left one of my typical Diane messages on his machine: "Oh hi this is Diane Patterson remember me? I'm in the Bay Area this week I wanted to stop by and say hi but I don't know when you'll be there and I'm staying at the San Jose Fairmont but I don't have the number I'll try calling again."
(If, as I suspect, I morphed back into what I was like in high school at the thought of talking to him, I must have been even more severely maladjusted than I remember.)
Couldn't get a hold of him at all and decided to just try it. So after leaving Lucy I drove up to the City and stopped by the Convent. I tried calling: voicemail. I then called Patricia Glasser (née Patricia Barrios), who works at the school now and was in my class, and she wasn't in her office. Then I called Celine Curran, former student who was Dean of Students when I was there and still is, and she was in. When I said, "This is Diane Patterson," she squealed and told me to come on up and see her.
(I couldn't believe she remembered who I was. This is a pretty typical reaction on my part to people remembering me.)
We chatted for a while--the baby she'd just had when I was there is now a junior; time stops for no one--and then she sent a student into the AP exam Patricia was proctoring to get Patricia, who came up and squealed, "Diane!" We chatted for a long time--so much has happened: she's currently 3 months pregnant with her second child. We caught up on everything we knew, and then she had to start making her way back to the AP exam.
We ran into Jean Murphy, who was our history teacher and still teaches there. She recognized me immediately--she squealed, "The computer whiz!"--and mentioned the computer printout I did of the Kings of England. Which I didn't remember. She asked about my sister, who had majored in history at college; I told her that Deirdre went back to college and got a second degree in mechanical engineering. She seemed very disappointed by that, but what could I say: not a lot of call for historians these days.
Patricia also introduced me to a woman who's currently an English teacher at the high school, who asked me for references for professional script readers to read the script of a friend of hers, who needs serious script help. I gave her my card and told her e-mail is the best way to get a hold of me.
Through all of this, the door to the Principal's office remained closed. I began to wonder if he was, in fact, around. Celine leaned toward the door and said, "Oh, he's in there, in a meeting. He'll be done in a few minutes." She indicated that I should take a seat by his door. You know--the chair by the Principal's office. Most people's greatest fear in high school.
I had almost given up when the door opened and Doug Grant walked out. He said, "Diane!" and introduced me to the guy he was talking to, mentioning that I was one of the most outstanding math students the school had produced. (You can imagine the twinge I got inside when I heard that.) He asked me how long ago that was and I said, "Oh, you don't really want to know." He didn't, in fact, remember when, and he asked me again later what year I graduated.
We talked for about a half hour, which I appreciated (he hardly seemed to have the time). He's done wonders for the school--an actual newspaper (never had that), 6 sports teams (not bad for a school of 200 girls--when I was there, we only had basketball, which Mr. Grant coached), one of the Presidential Distinguished Schools, a million AP classes (I think we had 4 or 5, all of which I took), etc. It actually sounds like a pretty great school, except for the $10,000 price tag.
Surprisingly, he remembered my high school job, which was to be a shill in a magic act at the Mansion Hotel (which is now the Mansions Hotel)--I got plucked out of the audience and sawed into three bits every Friday and Saturday night. (Which reminded me of how Carlos, the waiter, used to serve me sherry at every show, which would have gotten their liquor license pulled so fast.) He said that he's told that story to so many people, and I was too surprised by his remembering it to ask why he would tell people about it.
We also talked a lot about movies. He seemed surprised by my interest in writing--had I been interested in writing in high school? (I guess he doesn't remember the conversations between him and the English teacher about what I was going to do with my life.) He asked me what movie he should go see, and I said Election--and then I said, "Um, maybe not, it's all about this high school teacher and this really annoying, overachieving student." He said that sounded pretty good to him. I couldn't have begun to mention some of the elements present in that movie without blushing furiously, so I said no more.
So I finally asked--apropos of nothing--about the valedictorian question. And he gave me this look like What? He thought that perhaps I was confused about my ranking in the class (perhaps I remember incorrectly, but I don't think so), or maybe there was a tie (I most sincerely doubt that, to be honest), or perhaps the Principal at the time simply made a command decision. But evidently class ranking is how my high school does it too--just not my year, I guess.
Mr. Grant was pretty sure that he was the Director of Studies at that point, and he couldn't imagine that he wouldn't have spoken up for me.
"I should certainly hope not," I said. I had no idea how serious either of us was being.
He said he would look into it. I don't actually expect he ever will, to be honest. But he did seem surprised by it.
As we talked about the valedictorianship, the funniest bit was:
MR. GRANT
You should write a screenplay about
that.
DIANE
Huh. That's a good idea. I wonder how
I'd explain it.
Of course, the valedictorian thing was the inspiration for my last screenplay. But I couldn't think of how to cop to that--"By the way, that's the impetus for my being here"--considering he then asked me to send him a screenplay to read. I was at a total loss as to what to say--partially because it's one of those "Uh huh, sure you do" kind of things and partially because as always I'm just a little embarrassed about being read by someone who knew me a long time ago.
We talked a little about Darin. I mentioned how Darin moved down to LA the minute I said I would need to live in LA for my career; he said, "You should hold on to him." He asked what Darin programs in; I said, anything they need him to program in: C, C++, Java... No, he said, does he use CodeWarrior? "Is that MetroWerks?" I asked. (I can't remember--so sue me.) Evidently it's the programming environment of choice, so Darin clearly passes muster on the Mr. Grant front.
I haven't the slightest idea why I'm telling you about this. I didn't realize until very recently how important he was to my growing up, and I'm a little sad that I lost that after I graduated. 16 years is a very long time. But I'm glad I stopped by--I enjoyed seeing him again, even if I'm only one out of the thousands of students he's dealt with over 30 (?) years of teaching.
(Actually, I'm quite sure it is slightly over 30 years--I remember quite clearly his talking about staying in college and becoming a teacher to avoid Vietnam. I also know his middle name is Howard. It's kind of scary how many things I remember about him. Which is weird especially how few other things I remember from so long ago.)
There are exactly two teachers I remember over the years as having a significant impact on my life: Len Schrader's one, and Doug Grant's the other. I have no idea what this tells you about me. But I definitely felt the impetus to tell you about him.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com