Meeting Miss Moo

So what is the meaning of bittersweet?

Is it when you see the girl you had a crush on throughout most of your high school years looking beautiful as ever, and apparently happy in the arms of the guy who was something of a rival of yours way back then? Is it when you are sincerely happy for the both of them all the same?

Or is it when you find yourself sitting across the table from some very familiar (and some, not so familiar) faces that you haven't seen in decades, and you find yourself feeling the years in between slipping ever so comfortably away?

Or maybe it's when you come face to face years later with a person who had a profound impact on your life. Someone whose influence, profound as it was on a young, impressionable kid,--wide-eyed with both innocence and the thrill of possibilty--probably didn't even realize it at the time. And you find that despite this person being in her twilight years she is still as sharp as ever, and that she still has that twinkle in her eye.

That she'll probably live to be one hundred years old.

Well, I experienced all of those things and then some--as well as the wellspring of emotions accompanying them--today.

For those of you who enjoy reading my written pearls of whatever wisdom I have regarding music and the like, you are probably just going to want to skip past this blog entry.

This one is personal. Deeply so.

You see today, after something like thirty some-odd years, I met "Miss Moo".

Again.

Dorothy Mootafes (or "Miss Moo" as we all used to affectionately call her) was my high school journalism teacher. But she was not just any journalism teacher. Besides being the best damned teacher I can remember from my high school years (and West Seattle High had more than a few good ones back in the seventies), "Miss Moo" also was one of the very first people I met who convinced me that I actually had a talent for writing. She actually said I had a "gift".

And for Miss Moo, schooling a kid like me could not have been easy.

You see I was one of the "bad kids". By saying that, I don't mean that I was "bad" as in cruel, unkind, or anything of the sort. But I did have a knack for getting myself into trouble. Take the time I showed up to school drunk on my 18th Birthday. That day began when some of my pals from drama class took me out drinking that morning, and ended with me passed out over a type writer in the back room (or "City Room," as us young, aspiring journalism students called it).

By the time of my senior year, I already had enough credits to graduate and was basically slacking my way through anyway. But I could have been expelled for this.

Instead, after Miss Moo (at least to the best I can figure) saved my ass, I got a birthday cake in class the very next day. Can you say embarrased as hell?

The other thing was that in a class of kids who took this whole journalism thing pretty seriously, I had a rather unique way of making myself stand out.

As most of my written work in my adult life has subsequently bore out, I was a rock and roll junkie even back then. I wrote a column called "Rock Talk" for our high school paper The Chinook back then. And even though there is no possible way "Miss Moo" could have possibly understood what I was talking about in those columns most of the time (what's that line from the Lovin' Spoonful about "trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll?"), she not not only put up with me, but nurtured me as a writer. I don't know exactly how she did it, but she saw right through all of my "rock-speak," and did her best to develop what I believe she saw as a possible diamond in the rough.

Which again, couldn't have been easy.

As detailed in my article on the Doobie Brothers, I was one of those seventies rocker kids who embraced both the music and the accompanying lifestyle with equal gusto. Which meant I not only proudly wore the uniform of shoulder length long hair and platform shoes (hey, it was the seventies), but drank the booze and smoked the cigarettes (including that "wacky tobacky').

"Miss Moo" knew all of this of course (not that I made much of an effort to hide it anyway). Today, she even commented every time I went outside of the restaurant for a smoke. Damn. She keeps track even now.

Yet she took me under her wing anyway. Seeing that sweet lady today all these years later confirmed forever in my mind that hers were the wings of an angel. Which I've basically always known anyway. It was just nice for me to finally be able to say so to her face.

So speaking of that reunion, I've peppered this article with several pictures from that event earlier today.

You may recall that girl I said I had the mad crush on all through high school (and tough rocker dude that I thought I was, never had the balls to do anything about). That was Karen Anaka, pictured here with Mike DeFelice, her mate of some fifteen years now. "Deef" as we called him back in high school wrote a jazz column called "Jivin With Jazz", and was something of my arch nemesis on the old West Seattle Chinook. I'm sure there is some poetic justice in there somewhere that "Deef" finally got the girl I so pined for in high school (and at 50 still looks stunning). Nonetheless, I am sincerely happy for the both of them.

John Carlson is a guy who was schooled under "Miss Moo" a few years after me, who later went on to make something of a name for himself as a conservative commentator and Republican candidate for Washington State Governor. John and I have never seen eye to eye politically, but when he's not in front of a camera I've always found him to be one hell of a nice guy. Here, I have to give him a long overdue punch in the nose for being wrong about so many issues. But like I said, he's a hell of a nice guy.

And John, as far as your very early early connections to the "liberal media" in the form of "Miss Moo's" particular think tank, your secret is safe with me.

Oops, I guess I just published it on the Internet.

Sorry, dude.

But back to Karen Anaka.

Before she finally found her true soulmate in Mr. Deef (and I really do believe that), she dated this guy named Scott Janzen all through high school.

Scott was that all-around sort of great guy that real men gravitate towards as drinking and sports buddies. He was also my first editor at the Chinook.

Scott was also a guy I just couldn't escape for my first few years out of high school. In my one year of college I commuted with him from West Seattle to Highline Community College daily. When I later dropped out to pursue my dream job at the time of managing Penny Lane Records in the West Seattle Junction, Scott was right there doing the same at the paint store just up the street.

And when Karen Anaka divorced her first husband, damned if Scott wasn't the first guy to call me to let me know she was free and to go for it. Scott my brother, your heart was in the right place. But unfortunately my attempt to capitalize at long last on my high school crush just wasn't meant to be.

Bev Hauptli, pictured here with Scott on the other hand -- well damn, how can a girl still look that good at 50? I always liked Bev in high school, but I guess I never really, well you know "noticed" her. She is currently a producer and writer for the Northwest Indian News and may just be my future wife. Just kidding there of course. But Bev, if you're reading this -- call me and let's do lunch or something okay?

Finally, lest I neglect it--we have the obligatory group photo up above. Most of the players seen elsewhere on this page have already been covered there, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Al Bornstein, who is the other guy you see in the group shot. When I was"Mr. Rock Talk" at the Chinook, Al and I would go round and round about the fact that I loved the music of David Bowie (Al favored the Doors at the time). Al eventually came around, as I knew he would. But we used to have some great debates before he did.

But the other thing I remember Al for was the great investigative piece he did on the JFK assasination as a freaking high school journalist! Not only did that take considerable balls back in the seventies, but some of the things he pointed out in that original high school paper article have long since proven true.

Al also more or less picked up the tab today, which being between jobs myself right now (I start my new one on Thursday), I was quite grateful for.

So today was a great day, and to anyone who was there, may I suggest this become an annual event as long as "Miss Moo" is still with us?

You already know the lady was and is a saint.

Big "ups" to Mark Neuman for putting this event together as well (likewise to Scott Schaffer--and I hope I have the spelling right here--for playing chauffeur today to our beloved Miss Moo). Mark's a guy I bump into occasionally these days playing trivia at the Rocksport. Mark is also one of the very few writers I know (again, from Miss Moo's class) who have interviewed no less an iconocastic figure than Richard Nixon.

So how do you color "bittersweet" again?