Chapter Two: A Taste of Fame

The Emporium High School Fashion Board: Our leader, Karin Johnson in dark outfit, top row center. Me, second row, second from right wearing a pendant. Lee Meriwether pokes her head between Susan Evans and Jacquie Hughes in the third row from the bottom.*

My next job was handed to me. After working as a counter girl and shipping clerk during the summer with Ken Tilles at Ronson, I started my senior year at Mission High. One day, early into the term, Miss O'Neill, the Dean of Girls - - a tiny, pinch-faced woman who wore severe colorless suits - - stopped me on my way to class and led me into her office. I thought I was in trouble, but I couldn't think for what. She gestured to the hot seat in front of her desk, then stared at me through rimless glasses for a long time before she spoke. I tried not to fidget. Patting her brownish-gray perm, she said,

"I received a call the other day from a woman who heads the 'teen fashion board at The Emporium. She asked me to give her the name of a senior girl who had excellent academic records, was engaged in school activities, held a student-body office, and had been selected for some honor since her sophomore year. We, your teachers, myself, and others in administration, went through several names. Only a couple of you fit all categories." She looked down at a paper on her desk, adjusted her glasses and read out loud, "You are an A student, in school plays, were voted Girl of the Month as a sophomore, and this year you're a cheer leader and vice-president of the student body." She looked up, "A consensus was reached that you should be the school's representative."

I could't believe it. "Oh, thank you, Miss O'Neill - -"

" - - I'll be honest dear," she leaned forward, "I held out because - -" she hemmed and hawed - -"because I don't think your living situation - -"

" - -My what?"

"Let me finish, dear. I brought up the fact that you live alone with your father in a rather undesirable neighborhood and didn't think that is a healthy environment . . ."

She kept talking; I couldn't hear her; my ears were ringing. I felt nauseous. I got up to leave.

"Congratulations, dear," she said, "Someone from the board will call you with the particulars."

I mumbled "Thanks," and fled.

At home that afternoon, Karin Johnson, the head of the fashion board, called to welcome and congratulate me. "We meet this Saturday at 9AM in the conference room next to the Personnel department," she added. A few days later, Miss Marichini, my Spanish teacher, held me after class. "We all think it's wonderful what you've achieved . . ," she said, "We had no idea . . . most of us know that gifted students like yourself need not come from the stereotyped ideal American family . . ." She seemed as though she wanted to say more, but just touched my shoulder and said, "Congratulations. Good luck." Her words were like a balm to those of the Dean's. She confirmed what I knew: most faculty at Mission were open-minded. They had to be. Its students were Latino, African-American, Samoan, Caucasian (Italian, Irish, Greek, etc.), Asian, Indian, and others from the diverse Mission District of mainly working class families.

Nineteen of us "white" girls from Bay Area public and Catholic high schools (Looking back, I am positive none other than "white" girls were given a thought, regardless of their achievements) met every Saturday morning in a glorified dressing room. The head of the Board was Karin Johnson, a sweet, dark-haired, petite woman who treated us like sisters. Her side-kick was Sandy Rosenfeld, a tall, slender man with slightly crossed eyes, behind dark rimmed glasses. Besides being a buyer, Sandy ran our fashion shows, picked out the clothes we modeled, and threw hissy-fits when something was slightly “off,” like a belt not fastened right. I hung out mainly with a small blond, Jacquie Hughes, from Lowell, who had an English accent, and Lee Meriwether from Washington High, a very friendly, tall, willowy, brunette. We reported to Personnel for actual sales training which included an apptitude test: "What makes moth holes? Multiple choice: eggs, larvae, or moths?" Convincing someone to buy was "How to make a customer walk the plank." We passed and were awarded badges proclaiming us official Board members. Mostly, we were primped and pampered, and given free stuff; one day it was "Fire and Ice" lipsticks from the visiting "Revlon Lady." Another perk was a Christmas brunch at Karin's place on Telegraph Hill near Julius' Castle. We attended a lecture on "fads and fashions throughout the US" given by a rep from Seventeen Magazine and former Emporium employee. According to Karin, she was impressed by by our "charm and graciousness;" later, she sent us all silver charms.

Some of us modeled at the Set the Stage, back to school show at the Emporium (now defunct) in Stonestown. Actors Roddy McDowell (a favorite) and Sally Forrest made an appearance, but left before we got a chance to meet them. When not sashaying down the runway under the Emporium's famous glass Dome (which was left intact when the building was remodeled in 2008 as a four-story shopping mecca with a Bloomingdale's and a multi-screen movie theatre), or in Stonestown, or going on field trips, we worked Saturdays as salesgirls in different departments, and, as my mother did at Mier and Frank's in Portland, we wrote up sales slips and brought them to a cashier, relieving me of the stress of dealing with a cash register and making change.

There was a Notions Department. They no longer exist. The so-called drugstore chains are now just monster Notions Departments. We all dreaded being sent to Notions. Notions were things that wouldn't fit anywhere else: sewing supplies, "sensitive" linens (meaning women's specialty underwear, known now as "incontinent briefs"); some braces and trusses not carried in stores specializing in medical corsets and other corrective, elastic undergarments, and prosthetic devices; femine hygiene products, etc. Today, an entire medical supply industry has sprung up adjunct to hospitals; retail stores carrying everything from crutches, canes, pressure socks to electric mobile scooters for our fast-growing older, infirm population, the war-wounded and disabled, and people suffering from obesity, diabetes, high-blood pressure and other ailments that can be diet controlled. I digress.

The Plus Size Department (now simply called “Women’s) was not one of my favorites, either. There, we had been instructed to tell customers how great they looked in the outfits they tried on, no matter what. In other words - - lie. Tell zoftig women how beautiful they were in tent-like print dresses or two-piece outfits that bulged here or sagged there. So I was relieved when my next assignment was in Haberdashery (from the word "haberdasher" meaning "a dealer in men's furnishings"). Who uses that word any more? Now it's the Men's Department. I was there for two consecutive Saturdays.

My first Saturday, a handsome, blond, Don Johnson-type (in his Miami Vice days) salesman (an equivalent, back then would've been Tab Hunter [whose name my dad said meant "inept typist"]when he co-starred with Natalie Wood in, "The Burning Hills"), whom I couldn't help but notice, left his station behind the counter at Dress Shirts and sauntered over to mine (wallets, belts, leather accessories). He smelled nice and was impeccably dressed, of course - - a job requirement (we girls had to wear white blouses, black skirts and black heels or flats. During Christmas we rebelled and wore RED. Karin was chastised soundly by Personnel). "How do you like working at the Big E?" blond man asked. We checked each other out the rest of that day. The second Saturday, he told me he lived up on Twin Peaks, had a fantastic view of the City, the Bay and the East Bay hills, "especially at night with all the lights and a moon . . . ." He slyly slipped me his address and phone number, written on a strip of register tape, and invited me up to his apartment after work. "Danger" signs flashed in my brain. I knew where this was headed. From then on, I went out of my way to avoid Haberdashery.

One of the girls on the board acted like a prima donna; she was a holdover from the previous year to assist Karin for a couple of weeks in transitioning us from mere schoolkids to models. She deigned to tolerate our presence. Granted she was beautiful, resembled Marilyn Monroe a bit. We were all a little envious when she landed a swimsuit modeling job for the women's sports outlet, Koret of California. Still, we congratulated her, but she barely acknowledged it. A month or so later, she stormed in, "I was sabotaged! Look what they did to me! They cut off my legs!" and practically shoved into Karin's face the Koret catalogue in which her swimsuit shot appeared. She stormed out leaving the catalogue on a chair. We grabbed it. The photo pictured her in a blue, one-piece suit, in profile, to mid-thigh. She was looking up into a blue sky, her arms raised, blond hair tousled casually. We couldn't understand why she was so angry. Karin wondered how she would have reacted if they'd cut off her head. She told us that next time she came in we should take a good look at her legs. She had no ankles. We felt better. But not much. Later in the year, we all got a chance to model Gantner bathing suits. My taste of fame came the day I bought a sweater (with an employee discount) at the Stonestown Emporium and the salesgirl gushed, "Oh, I know you! You're a model!"

When our membership ended in June, 1953, Karin and a small staff published an in-house journal of our year, calling it "Ship's Log: H. S. Board." It detailed holiday and scholastic events we were involved in, and a mother and daughter luncheon (I was glad that my mother happened to be visiting from Portland that week so I could take her). The log included field trips to clothing manufacturers, newspaper publishers, and a wire-photo service. The journal ended with a hypothetical look into our futures a year later: I was a private drama coach for Jacquie Hughes; Lee Meriwether ended up in Paris as a model for Schiaparelli. Both prophecies sort of worked out. Though not a drama coach, I am involved in theatre as an actor, movement theatre artist, and playwright; also, from 1995 to 2003, I had been a print-ad model and appeared in a film. Lee very well could have become a model, but rather followed her dream of becoming a successful, famous, actor. She went on to become Miss America and was the female lead in the TV series, “Barnaby Jones,” played Catwoman in the 1996 "Batman." She has been in several films and has returned and continues to return often, to her alma mater, City College of San Francisco, to perform and recently played the lead in the college's production of O’Neil’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

In up-coming Chapter Three, after graduation, I decide against college, want to make money to get my own place, but don't want to work at the Emporium. I end up in a wholesale/retail toy store on lower Market St. After being spoiled by Ken Tilles on Union Square and tasting the fame of modeling, the primping, pampering at the H. S. Board, I discover a seamier side of life.

*You can't help but notice that there are no mixed-race, blacks, or Asians among us. The board,if it existed today, would certainly look a lot different.