And My Father Still Thought My Hair Was Way Too Long

LaSalle Freshman Homeroom 406 @ 1.14.69

Started LaSalle Academy high school in September 1968. Any morning I forgot my tie (often) and needed to get my back-up-shitty-tie in my locker on my neck before Brother Michael or a snitch saw me in front of the school, I'd spy which of the two entrances Brother Michael was closest to and work my way around the cars to the other entrance and shoot in there up to the 4th floor.
I remember my first day at school, September 1968, I split a locker with Kenneth Ropiak. To our right the locker belonged to a senior with a buzz crew-cut, he wore his school sweater every day (I smelled his armpits five feet away) on that first day he opened his locker and there was a Nixon for President poster, in my head, WTF. The guy looked like he hung out with Eddie Haskel and picked on Theodore Cleaver every day unless parents or teachers were looking.

Between our freshman and sophomore year, the summer of 1969 deeply changed our look and the point of view for most of us and our teachers, too.

Al's entry in my yearbook

There were six homeroom classes for each of the four years at the time I went to LaSalle, our graduation total was 212)The coolest guy in our homeroom class was Albert Gomez. A world class anarchist. Sat there as cool as James Bond while instigating three alarm mischief fires on Beyrer, Ernie Kovacs, Cullinan and Gully. To name a few. Gomez never ever got caught. Didn't smirk at you when you were getting slapped or punched. Held his poker face. Getting the thing started was all Gomez needed.

Really pissing Dad off... after four years at LaSalle, my I.D. entering Hunter College in September 1972.