Andrew Harris:
CLASS OF 1964
West High SchoolClass of 1964
Minneapolis, MN
Andrew's Story
2013 - things haven't changed much, except age, time teaching, like that. 2005 - Life After I left West I lived up to everyone's expectations and flunked out of the U. I went because I was told I had to; I discovered how interesting a place the campus was to hang out, but classes were not interesting - West didn't prepare me for the expectations of college. Mainly I was a Holden Caulfield, without the charm. I started working for a man named Red Goldstein at Flowers Inc. and was learning the trade, the design and marketing skills for small business, the craft of it all, but the draft board came after me, almost before I got home from my last day at the U. So I cheated the Army out of their two years by joining the Coast Guard for four years. From boot camp I went to the icebreaker Mackinaw on the Great Lakes, where I spent actually a semi-enjoyable year (none of us wanted to be there, but had been forced in). I was a navigator's assistant (Quartermaster) and the helmsman during icebreaking, river, docking and rescue operations. Driving such a huge machine and learning navigation was exciting and fun, more than I had ever had. On a whim I applied for weather forecasting school, went (learning what a horrible mess the Navy is) and was sent to the Rescue Center in downtown San Francisco in the summer of '67. What an eye opener - men didn't cut their hair, women didn't wear brassieres, and there was a mild pot haze over the city every day. I knew I was home. Knowing that the service would always be more about form than substance, I went back into the flower business after discharge. I managed two shops, making enough money to live decently, but working 70 hours a week burned me out, so I bailed, went to truck driving school, got my class 1 licence, and drove semis cross country for almost ten years. What a marvelous adventure that was - I got to drive every interstate, most of the old US highways, and go in the back doors of every imaginable industry and business and manufacturer. Lynn Dehemmer and I were s...Expand for more
till together after West, and married in '68. We hung in for 15 years, have a beautiful son (6'2", independent as hell, loving, intelligent, a master mechanic). Three years later we divorced (such an ugly word), and she remarried shortly after, divorced some years later, and lives nearby. We managed not to hate each other, a blessing. In '87 went back to school at Dominican College in San Rafael, graduated Magna Cum Laude (Do I brag? The counselor at West laughed in my face when I talked to him about college), in English and Religious Studies, and began teaching at Salesian High School in Richmond. I've been there for twenty years now, and love it like no other work I've done. I see all that came before as preparation for this work. My first year was miserable - I tried to be a nice guy, and kids hate nice guys because they don't set boundaries, and then became a tyrant, and of course kids hate tyrants because they can't be trusted. But through grace, determination and the intervention of one teacher and St John Bosco, the founder of the Salesians (Do I believe? No, but certain things at 60 are hard to deny [I'm 66 now, just received my first SS check, still wondering what comes next]), the last thirteen years have been good years. So here I am in Oakland, single, wondering how the hell I became 60, or 66. Hanging out with high school kids makes me forget I'm not still 17 (where I'm emotionally stuck I think), but my hips, my knees and looking in the mirror in the mornings and saying "Dad, what are you doing here?" continually remind me. It's all a great shock, and figuring out what to do about it weighs heavy at times. Having all the adventures I've had has filled me, grown me, given me more than I could have imagined. I had dreams of West for 2 weeks running one summer a long time ago, and that fall my Dad informed me it was torn down during that period. Being together in that kind of intensity is a form of interconnectedness that lasts a lifetime. I would love to hear from the class of '64. Be well.
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