The Chair/Desk Escapade — Chapter 3 (“….fellows like him could be King Lobo.”)

Whatever posture those associated with Cisco and Cisco High School during the 1960’s took concerning the M-4, many were traditionally critical about our timing the chair/desk escapade, as we executed the prank just in time to put our status as King Lobo candidates in jeopardy; as these critics logically point out, had we waited a couple of weeks or so, the King Lobo Coronation would have been over, and even if retroactive punishment concerning the Coronation was dealt out, it would have been too late to tarnish any social accolades from the Coronation coming our way.

To be King or Queen Lobo was and is the highest honor that could and can be bestowed upon a CHS senior. “Court” was held for the crowning of the King and Queen in the community gym (the same one into which Coach Bates had moved the football field house — {Chapter 1} and the only building on the block of the bonfire {The 1963 Cisco High School Homecoming Bonfire — No Sleep and Almost Torched into Martyrdom[August, 2013]}), and couples representing grades 1 through 11 were in attendance , along with senior couples representing king and queen candidates. Each grade voted for its representatives and all of the high school voted on king and queen. Once you were a grade representative, your eligibility to participate did not return until you were a senior. For example, Berry represented the first grade for our class with Kay (Wallace) Morris, and I represented the second grade for us with Ann (Brunkenhoeffer). It is not difficult to imagine that mothers in Cisco “lived” for the year their child would be in the Coronation.

The Coronation was timed for the end of the basketball season, usually sometime in late February or early March, during a “lull” of extracurricular activity and before spring prom season. Prom season at CHS back then was held in the form of a Junior-Senior Banquet and Dance — held just after the Coronation — a facade-like concession to the influence of anti-dance churches in the community, I suppose; thinking of it as a banquet instead of a dance was more palatable to certain sensibilities.

Originally, the main criterion for being King Lobo was that he had to be an athletic letterman, almost always a football letterman, as well as an outstanding contributor to the school off the field, and he got to select his “queen” to be crowned with him. By the 1960’s this sexist component had been removed, and the Queen was voted upon just as was the King, but there was no athletic requirement for her. Between our freshman year (1960-1961) and this, our senior year (1963-1964), the athletic letterman requirement had been relaxed, despite opposition from leading teachers such as Mrs. Edward Lee (Mrs. Lois Adling, Mrs. Edward Lee, and the Big Afternoon [June, 2012]). In my opinion, this changed was brought on because of unfortunate cases such as Larry Johnson’s. Larry was a Senior 1961 who had been head football manager my freshman year (1960-1961); he taught me all I needed to know about being a manager, knowledge I was to later pass on to Berry; for me, he was a “perfect” candidate for King Lobo — campus leader, class advocate, great student, talented artist for school art displays, and coordinator of administration/faculty/student relations; I watched him carefully as an example to follow when I ran for offices in the Student Council after he graduated; most of all, he was my friend — I wish I could have been in high school with him more than one year. Yet, he could not be a candidate for King Lobo.

So, by the time we were Seniors, non-lettermen such Berry and I, could be King Lobo candidates. And there began the “rub.” Both of us were cynically seen as being “handed” the privilege of being candidates, as if the change had come about because of us, not because of people like Larry Johnson. Neither Berry nor I felt comfortable about this situation, and when we began individually saying we did not think the change had anything to do with us, it seemed to fuel the rumor (to be fair, often in a good-naturedly or joking manner) that our mothers had “bribed the school” to make the change so that their “little boys” could be King Lobo. We could always say, and we did, that if they felt we were “set up,” then don’t vote for us as a candidate (The guy and gal receiving the most votes among the candidates were the new King and Queen, the results not being revealed until the Coronation itself, when it became time to crown the “royals” before the assembled “court.”). Though we did not talk about it together in private, Berry and I later concurred that the situation made us feel uncomfortable; our egalitarian sensibilities were “rubbed the wrong way.” The two of us were hard-working leaders, not elitists given fine things, deserving or not.

Another change that was made about the same time, one pushed by Supt. Roach’s new administration, was that king and queen candidates must meet some minimal academic standards, as determined by transcript grades. This, for our class, affected people like Earl Carson (see Adling’s “ode”), who was an outstanding football player (He went on to become a successful high school coach.) who struggled in the classroom. Apparently, in the past, you could have had some real academic “dummies” as King Lobo!

But another traditional criterion that wasn’t changed became controversial simply because it wasn’t changed while all the others were: candidates for king and queen had to be in the district for a minimum number of years. Since Berry and I had been in Cisco schools “from the beginning” this non-change was perhaps seen as another component of our “set-up.” This “veteran” criterion at this time meant that Adling was eligible, as he had arrived on the scene in the sixth grade. But Cole (even though the new non-athlete rule was in his favor) was not, and nor was Macon Strother (Play Rehearsal Night, With a Side of Greased Flagpole [May, 3013]), an outstanding and popular athlete against whom I ran in the race for Student Council President the previous spring, as both of them, like so many others, had arrived in the district “too late.” (Clearly, being a student leader was not affected by the “veteran” criterion, as Macon could run for Student Council President, and Cole had been elected as Senior class representative on “my” Student Council — not to mention a Council that also included Berry as our Senior Class President and Macon’s brother Anthony, a Junior class representative.)

One weekday evening very early in 1964 Adling came by my house to see me for a very unusual reason; I knew this right away because he wasn’t griping about our homework and he did not immediately tell me a joke he had just heard, or talk about a new rock ‘n’ roll song he just heard on the radio, or a goofy story he had just made up to which he knew I was about the only one who would listen. He said there was a large group of CHS students, mostly Juniors and Seniors, who had gathered at Woody’s, “the” hamburger and jukebox hang-out in Cisco (on W 8th Street, next to Westfall’s service station just before one gets to Front Street) to discuss the changes in the election of King and Queen Lobo, an election coming up in just a few weeks.

I probably asked if Berry was there, and Adling answered negatively. I did not blame Berry for not showing, for the reasons stated above. But I was President of the Student Council, of the student body, so Adling reminded me I needed to show too, despite the fact the new rules for king put me in “a conflict of interest.” It was a very lively group at Woody’s when Adling and I arrived, one that included Macon and Anthony Strother and other athletes, like Earl Carson, David Waters (Play Rehearsal Night, With a Side of Greased Flagpole [May, 3013]), C. B. Rust (V.P. of the Student Council), Tim Bennie, Richard Coats, Jimmy Brown, and Nicky Lopez. There I was, “up to my neck” in controversial and conflicting issues concerning the election of King Lobo; once more I envied Berry’s absence. I tried to be the moderator between the group’s strong concern that it seemed the school was dictating who should be king and queen, when it should be left up to the students themselves to make that determination, and the reasonableness of the new criteria. I agreed that it should be up to the students, but that I had confidence that despite the new restrictions, which arguably did not treat people such as Macon and Earl fairly, the students would elect Kings worthy of those elected in the past. (Politically, I got “more than my money’s worth” from my leadership experiences in high school!)

Then the group asked me if I would go with a committee of them over to Supt. Roach’s house that very night to lay these issues before him, so there would be clear communication to him of their concerns. I agreed, and the committee members joining me in the three-or-four block trip to the Roach house were Adling, Macon, C.B., Anthony, Tim, and Richard (3 Srs. & 4 Jrs.). It was still “prime-time” in the evening, so Supt. Roach, though very surprised to see us at his front door, graciously invited us in air our concerns. Gathered in his den, many of the same things said a few minutes before at Woody’s were presented to our host, just about all of us chiming in, as I recall. (Remember, I was the only non-athlete in this ad hoc student committee.) Mr. Roach responded, of course, in defense of the changes in criteria, calling them “necessary” to insure the “best” of the students would be candidates for King Lobo. Then he stunned me by continuing to call them necessary, saying, as he pointed directly to me, that they were needed so “fellows like him could be King Lobo.”

I was immediately uneasy; I do not know what was going on in the minds of the rest of the committee, but I felt certain they had just received “official” verification of the rumors that had been circulating about Berry’s and my candidacies. I hated right away any tarnishing of my reputation with my fellow students, my peers, caused by Supt. Roach’s words, which I knew would be spread school-wide by the end of the next school day on the morrow; I wished then, and I wish to this day he had never said those words. Within seconds I was resentful of what I saw as an attempt to “shove a silver spoon in my mouth.” What really hurt was the cavalier way in which these words were said, as if I welcomed them, as if I deserved them, as if I should be grateful to the “rules makers” for my “social promotion.” As the meeting broke up and we left the house, what could I say to my peers? It was one of the few times in my life I felt speechless. They could not think of anything comforting to say to me.

Not even Adling could make me feel better as he drove me back to my house; he was very sympathetic. When Berry found out what had happened, he empathized with me; he knew exactly how I felt; he confessed he was glad he was not part of that visit to Mr. Roach’s house.

My spirit was not down long, and for me, the fun of the senior year returned to me within a matter of hours. But Berry, Adling, and I never forgot that night at the superintendent’s house; we never put it behind us. For the sake of what we had developed among us (Chapter 2), what Mr. Roach’s words had done to me, and, through me, to Berry and Adling, could not be forgiven. That probably was not true for everyone else in the school and community (with the exception of, perhaps, Cole), especially when the results of the candidacy elections were announced.

Candidates for King Lobo for the school year 1963-1964 were Robert Mitchell, Gene Darr, Bill Adling, Bob Berry, and Ronnie Hastings. For Queen Lobo were Alice Ann (Webb) Holliday, Kay (Wallace) Morris, Shirley (Page) Strother, Leannah (Leveridge) Darr, and Betty (Reynolds) Cooper. All our mothers, at the very least, were elated.

Critiques of the timing of the chair/desk escapade, which came within weeks of rehearsals for the Coronation, after all the votes were in for King and Queen, often are made in ignorance of all this background of this particular Coronation — another layer of circumstances placed upon all the others (Chapter 1), mixing into the “perfect storm.” We were so busy before the prank we never got to tell each other our feelings concerning our three King Lobo candidacies, but after the prank, and years and decades beyond, we have had the chance to understand what we did with those candidacies and why. Our mothers would never understand, and that is understandable; they would, at some level, never forgive us. We never asked anyone, including our dear mothers, to understand. We can only pass on our “why,” knowing that possibly most, if not all, our critics might think what I am about to say is mere weak rationalization.

In retrospect, what Mr. Roach said that fateful evening “cheapened” the candidacies in our minds, if you define them as honors bestowed upon us “from above” by the school authorities. True to the sentiments expressed at Woody’s that night, we saw the candidacies for King Lobo as saught-after affirmations, as honors from our peers, in no way “cheap,” from the only “authority” we truly respected in our seventeen-year-old brains. To be voted as candidates was as good as being crowned for the three of us, for, thinking of it that way prevented us from having to compete and compare with each other as the vote would do, however it turned out. So strong was our special bond (Chapter 2) that for one of us to win as King (as I had done as Student Council President and Berry had done as class President) would be a leadership and popularity label “gone too far,” making an “alpha male” or an elitist out of one who was to go on to be part of the M-4; those who pulled off the chair/desk prank could not have done it harboring any elitist sensibilities. Not that we thought this exactly per se, but all three of us did feel that, as we approached the Coronation, we had all three already won. That feeling was primary, so that “going through the motions,” as our mothers and the school were anticipating, was secondary or even tertiary. Whatever the school was going to do for us in a ceremony was “small potatoes” compared to the statement made by our fellow students; the student body had spoken — that was sufficient.

When planning time came for the prank, then, risking King Lobo candidacies was risking merely another in a long list of secondary or tertiary items of our “resumes.” What was primary was not what the school thought about us, but what our peers thought about us. The special conditions placed upon our senior year were compelling us to behave and react as expected, to conform, to accept, to comply. To conform, to accept, to comply, would have been to us pitiful admission that, as so many in the school administration and faculty and so many in the community saw us, we were “just another class of high school seniors.” At least for four of us, we were not going to conform, accept, or comply; we were going to seize “our day.” To be proactive instead of passive was the hallmark of how we lived out our friendships.

Special students respond to special conditions in special ways. Our friendships (Chapter 2) made us special students; Cisco schools in the 1960’s (Chapter 1) made the special conditions; now would come the special ways.

RJH

P.S.  For readers who prefer a simpler explanation, we did have early on an explanation for our critics as to why risking King Lobo candidacies was nothing to be concerned about, an explanation as equally valid as the long one above.  Because of our careful planning, “leaving no stone un-turned,” we were so damn overconfident that we would never be caught and never be found out, there was no need to “sweat” risks!  As it turned out, our prediction of not being caught and not being found out was half-way right.

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