Phillip Phinney:
CLASS OF 1978
Mark Keppel High SchoolClass of 1978
Alhambra, CA
California State UniversityClass of 1987
Los angeles, CA
Monterey Highlands Elementary SchoolClass of 1974
Monterey park, CA
Phillip's Story
Life
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing youll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I dont feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. Theyre quitee touchy about anything like that, especially my father. Theyre nice and all - Im not saying that - but theyre also touchy as hell. Besides, Im not going to tell you my whole goodam autobiography or anything. Ill just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out and take it easy. I mean thats all I told D.B. about, and hes my brother and all. Hes in Hollywood. That isnt too far from this crumby place, and he comes over and visits me practically every week end. Hes going to drive me home when I go home next month maybe. He just got a Jaguar. One of those little English jobs that can do around two hundred miles an hour. It cost him damn near four thousand bucks. Hes got a lot of dough, now. He didnt use to. He used to be just a regular writer, when he was home. He wrote thizs terrific book of short stories, The Secret Goldfish, in case you never heard of him. The best one in it was «The Secret Goldfish. It was about this little kid that wouldnt let anybody look at his goldfish because hed bought it with his own money. It killed me. Now hes out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute. If theres one thing I hate, its the movies. Dont even mention them to me.
Where I want to start is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is the school thats in Agertown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard of it. Youve probably seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing...Expand for more
some hot-shot guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at Pencey was play polo all the time. I never even once saw a horse anywhere near the place. And underneath the guy on the horses picture, it always says: Since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men. Strictly for the birds. They dont do any damn more molding at Pencey than they do at any other school. And I didnt know anybody there that was splendid and clear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that many. And they probably came to Pencey that way.
Anyway, it was the Saturday of the football game with Saxon Hall. The game with Saxon Hall was supposed to be a very big deal around Pencey. It was the last game of the year, and you were supposed to commit suicide ou something if old Pencey didnt win. I remember around three oclock that afternoon I was standing way the hell on top of Thomsen Hill, right next to this crazy cannon that was in the Revolutionary War and all. You could see the whole field from there, and you could see the two teams bashing each other all over the place. You couldnt see the grandstand too hot, but you could hear them all yelling, deep and terrific on the Pencey side, because practically the whole school except me was there, and scrawny and faggy on the Saxon Hall side, because the visiting team hardly ever brought many people with them.
There were never many girls at all at the football games. Only seniors were allowed to bring girls with them. It was a terrible school, no matter how you looked at it. I like to be somewhere at least where you can see a few girls around once in a while, even if theyre only scratching their arms or blowing their noses or even just giggling or something. Old Selma Thurmer - she was the headmasters master - showed up at the games quite often, but she wasnt exactly the type that drove you mad with desire. She was a pretty nice girl, though, I sat next to her once in the bus from Agerstown
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