1 Chapter 1
Belmont Hills School District Student Report Card
A Short History Of Me
A Humpty Dumpty World
Note To Teachers: Post In Every Classroom
Hands in Pockets
Announcement: To Be Read In All Homerooms During Freshman Orientation
Is It a Race or a Religion?
Saint Sebastian Homeroom Rules
St. Sebastian’s Most Important Rule of All
The Fate of an Unborn Child
Nota Bene
Freshman English Quiz (15 Points)
Word Power
The Lull Before the Storm
Taking the Pledge
Notice: To Be Read In All Homerooms
Saint Sebastian High School Mid-Year Grade Report
The Kindness of Strangers
I Am Not My Penis
The Storm
Aftermath
Belmont Hills School District Student Report Card
Grade 8
Student Name: Philip Noland
Date of Birth: 10-27-1944
School Year: 1957–1958
Teacher: Mr. George Healy
Room No: 201
Days Absent: 5
Days Tardy: 2
Grades:
Math: B+
English: A+
Social Studies: A–
Science: B
PE: C
Music: A+
History: A+
Teacher Notes: Philip was an absolute joy and an asset to my class. Good luck, Phil, next year at St. Sebastian’s. I’ll be rooting for you.
Teacher Signature: George S. Healy
Date: 6/14/58
School: Belmont Junior High School
A Short History Of Me
Who was I in 1958?
Who was Philip Noland?
Will the real Philip Noland please stand up!
This is my story, at least what I remember, filtered through years of trying to forget about Molinari, Richards, Fontaine, O’Riley, and Carlin. But, like Casablanca, Smith was my Paris, and I’ll always have Smith tucked away in a safe place in my heart. The years have colored and clouded my memory, and what’s left are scattered details. Was St. Sebastian’s the worst part of my younger life? Probably not, but it’s right up there on the list of “Things I’d Like to Forget.”
What happened to me then was a subtle kind of thing; it happened in increments over days, weeks, and months until it became unbearable. So let’s travel back to that time and what I remember. I promise it will be a short trip. I don’t want to stay there too long.
* * * *
My last name says it all. Noland. No land. Get it? Most of the time at St. Sebastian’s, I felt I was from nowhere and going nowhere. Fast. Up to that point, I thought I was a pretty good kid, brought up by a single mother who did her best to keep the two of us together. Mother always said we were different, like Gypsies. In my early childhood we roamed up and down the San Francisco Peninsula, always shifting addresses and one step ahead of creditors and outraged landlords. We took pride in cheerfully ignoring our bills, especially those pink third-warning utility ones. It was just my mom and me, and I was crazy about her. The childhood homes I remember were a series of furnished studio apartments, overlooking back alleys leading to a Lucky’s supermarket, a U-Save department store, a neighborhood movie theater, or a Chinese take-out that specialized in American food. But Mother always made it work, even if I had to stay a while at Grandma’s or with a foster family—I didn’t know that’s what they were back then. Yet Mother never failed to come back for me.
Even though we moved a lot, Mother made sure I had a stable school life at Beresford Grammar in San Mateo and later at Belmont Hills Junior High. I was a good student, too. I worked hard and had great teachers who helped me along. Teachers who knew I didn’t have the advantages of an intact 1950s family, the typical setup: a mother, father, sister, brother, cat, dog, etc. (Oh, I had a dog, a Maltese poodle. A dog counts, right?)
Before my eighth grade graduation, I started to plan ahead. Most students would be going on to public schools, many to a nice, new one in the Belmont Hills, but not me. I was different. I was going to St. Sebastian’s where all good Catholic boys on the southern Peninsula went if they had the grades and the money. With Grandma committed to paying my tuition and fees, I was set to go. Nothing could have stopped me. I was ready for a new adventure.
And that’s just what I got.
A Humpty Dumpty World
How I survived is a mystery. Sixty years later I still wonder what my life would have been if I’d let the boys at St. Sebastian’s have their way with me—I don’t mean this in a sexual sense, though sex did play a part in my story. You’ll see soon enough. No, I mean something different, related to the random variables you brush up against in life that change your path and shape character, things quite separate from those genetic directions implanted in our DNA.
