Stephen Armstrong:
CLASS OF 1969
Mira Costa High SchoolClass of 1969
Manhattan beach, CA
Center Junior High SchoolClass of 1965
Manhattan beach, CA
Stephen's Story
Life
I think I've managed to cock up everything I've done in the past forty years, but like the song says, I've tried in my way to be free. After I left Mira Costa in 69 I moved in with my sweetheart, Karen Lang, and we eventually moved up to Berkeley, CA where we lived for about a year and a half (it was one crazy time, fraught with mayhem and mischief). Karen eventually flipped out and I came back to the South Bay where I've been living ever since (well, I should say, SoCal, since I now live in Long Beach, CA).
In 1974, I started working at the South Bay Community School, a small private "alternative" school located in Manhattan Beach, CA. I didn't have a teaching degree, but I worked as a teacher's aid in the beginning. Eventually I was hired on as a member of the staff and worked there until the school's close in 1983. It was like being in the Peace Corps (something I always wanted to do, but had no viable skills to qualify -- that is to say, no degrees). The wages were low - I made more money working as an under-coater - but there were other rewards and I didn't mind living on a shoe string budget...I had survived Berkeley living on the wages of a crossing guard!
During this period I began to take side jobs as a handyman and soon was supplementing my paltry salary with the good old do-re-me. A lot of my former hippie friends got sucked into the whole capitalist mind-set in the early 80s, but I suppose having families and going down that old middle class road (mortgages etc)is bound to make you want to earn more. Thank God I didn't fall into that trap...lol.
Believe it or not, I also worked, well, volunteered, at a counseling center in Manhattan Beach for six years. My supervisor suggested that I go to college and get a degree in Psych so I could help the neurotic for a living, but I stupidly said I'd rather make my living off people's structural problems than their mental ones. I'd probably be in much better straits now if I had followed his advice.
Due to my increased "wealth" I was able to become a drunk, spiraling downwards until I eventually ended up on the streets of the South Bay for a year in 1984. As I saw it back then I had ruined all the relationships I had: one with my lover, one Georgia Cox; one with my landlady and one with my school/work. I drifted through t...Expand for more
hat period, living out of a "house" truck, living off the odd jobs I picked up. Eventually I was able to sober up and went on a 20 year sobriety jag which ended in 2004 when I began to drink again.
I've been working odd jobs and being a handyman since 1975. It covers the bills and has allowed me to do what I want, which seems to amount to being a bum and marching to a different drummer. I became a coffee House entertainer in the mid-nineties and started writing poetry around then. I've actually got a nice little rep as a poet and have been published in numerous underground mags. I also published a small poetry & arts mag for almost 11 years and am now doing it online
(you can Google me by looking for Lummox
press or Raindog) -- one of the few things I haven't messed up.
As I recall now, I was pretty much an oddball back in 68-69 and I guess I've never outgrown that. Besides essentially taking a vow of poverty for my whole adult life, and goose-stepping to a different drummer, I'm just a regular guy, no different from the next drunk over.
College
I never went to a real college, unless you count the school of hard knocks. I tried going to El Camino Jr College in Gardena, CA but I ended up on probation after one semester (off a three class schedule, no less) and decided I didn't need to continue what had been an awful experience in High School.
Workplace
I started out as a crossing guard in Berkeley, CA. Then I was a janitor in a machine shop. Next I got a job spraying undercoating on RVs. Then I worked nine years as a teacher in a private school. During that time I also began a career as a handyman/carpenter/painter which has lasted right up to now. I worked as a dishwasher in a coffee house and later became its night manager and booking agent. I also ran a very small Lit-Arts mag which was profitable until 9-11, which screwed everything up for all time. I'll have to work until I die - and what a lovely thought that is.
Military
During Vietnam, the SSS decided to implement the lottery system so that the draft would appear more equal and less oriented towards the children of the lower class. During that time I applied for and got my status as a Conscientious Objector but my lottery number was something like 354 so I was never called up to clean bed pans or work as a medic.
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