I wrote about Bruce Johnson a while back. Bruce, who is sadly gone from this earth, was a friend in high school and a tremendous influence on me. Howard H was a guy who was one class ahead of me. He was not a science guy go we did not share any classes. I think I met him through John O, who was a neighborhood guy and a very talented artist. Howard was an artist too so that may have been the connection. This is my story about Howard and me.
Cupertino High School had kind of a multi-purpose room that featured a bench along one wall that was reserved for Seniors. I guess it was a tradition for each class to paint the bench. John, being known at school for being arty, was given the job of painting the bench in the summer before our senior year. Somehow, I got involved as did Howard.
Howard and John came up with a fantastical design that was very much rooted in the hippie style of the time. Think R Crumb, perhaps, although that is not fair to John and Howard. They were both very original thinkers. I am not aware of any photo of the completed bench. We didn’t think that way then and I suspect that the powers that be in the school were horrified by it. The yearbook had nothing about it.
As I went through my senior year, I hung out with Howard sometimes. I don’t remember having any sense of Howard being in college. None of what we did was associated with any class he was taking.
One ‘project’ he had – my modern term, not his – was to make up a rock band to play for this very straight-laced group. In my memory, it was some kind of Mormon girls group. Howard’s hook was that nobody in the band really knew how to play their instruments. I sort of knew and I recruited my friend Tom, who really did know how to play, but no one else did. We borrowed large amplifiers and a drum set and ‘played’ for these people. It was kind of theatrical. We didn’t have costumes or even a real plan. I guess we had some tunes . . .
So, it was perhaps related that Howard and I and a couple of other people ended up over the hill at UC Santa Cruz one weekend. The singer was in school at Merrill College so we went over there to ‘rehearse’. Again, my modern word, not Howard’s. I don’t remember how we got over there. I certainly didn’t have a car. We slept in a classroom that someone got us into on the QT. I don’t remember how we ate, just that we were there. I also don’t remember what I told Mom and Dad about being there but it wasn’t an issue. I had a lot of freedom. There was no sex or drugs; not even any alcohol. Howard was a very clean liver.
But I had a good time and as I was thinking about where to go to college, my weekend at UCSC seemed like a good omen so I applied there.
Even though my heart was in music, my academic strength was science and math so I applied as a Math major. The thinking was that it was hard to get into UCSC and my science cred was my best shot. Amazingly in hindsight, I did not have any academic music goals. I was going to be a rock star and you don’t need classes for that!
Later, when I left UCSC to concentrate on my band, Dad told me he thought I had identified a music community when I went over there the first time. I hadn’t, really. I was in my own little world. He was disappointed, of course, and thought I was making a mistake, but he gave me that freedom.
I reconnected with Howard on Facebook but we are not close. Like Bruce, he brought outside-the-box thinking to my life at a critical time and it has stayed with me. Thanks, Howard!