For this week's Manic Monday,I will be doing some more time travel using The Way Back Machine, courtesy of Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman, and turning the dial to 1951. Now 1951 was one of those Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year's for a child as it was one of those years when all the adults around decide to indulge in delinquent behavior. As a result I went from Fresno, California to Los Angeles, California to Phoenix, Arizona, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and finally got dumped in an all girls school in Pasadena, California. To this day, I love the whole idea of private schools ... they may be institutional but when your parents and relatives belong in an institution, it's nice to have one of your own in which to hide.
San Marino Hall School For Girls no longer exists. It was one of those anachronisms in Los Angeles where the doyens of Pasadena tried to mimic the East Coast nabobs. It had houses and house mothers, the grandest of which was reserved for the Senior Class girls to ensure that they were "finished" and ready for society. There were lessons in posture, deportment, tea service, voice, and piano all of which were displayed at the annual Maypole dance in long gowns during their final year. The claim to fame: One of the first of Lawrence Welk's champagne ladies, Roberta Linn graduated from San Marino Hall. I recently googled the school and came up with only two citations: A Classmates listing of nine former graduates and an old newspaper article about the suicide of a former San Marino Hall girl.
So what does this have to do with Clouds? The year book for the 1951/1952 school year had a theme of popular hit songs for those years such as "Pack of Wild Horses" "Wheel of Fortune", "Unforgettable", "Wish You Were Here" ... and a pictorial of all the drama department productions including the talent show where the winner did an imitation of the one and only Johnnie Ray complete with the tearing off of coat and tie while falling to her knees in full scream. His hits included Walking My Baby Back Home, Please Mr. Sun, Cry, Just Walking In The Rain .... and for today's theme:
The Little White Cloud That Cried
For more Manic Monday info and participants, please click here.
