LETTERS TO MY HIGH SCHOOL NEWSPAPER

Cathy

When I was 4 or 5 years old, I went to a large day care facility on the corner of Jadwin and Lee Blvd., across the street from the C.C. Anderson department store.

Rode the bus back and forth with my sister Judy '62 and neighbor, John Coons '63 every weekday. We were probably kind of young to be riding across town like that, three little kids, but that's the way I remember it; and, anyway, I wasn't the one in charge of where I went and how I got there, back then. My Sister and John and me.

So...

This day care center was huge, as I remember it, surrounded by a white wooden fence there on the west Jadwin corner. And there were more kids, at least a couple hundred, swarming around inside the grounds and in and out of the side-by-side quonset huts, than I'd ever seen before.

But I never knew any names. Just Judy, John and me.

Gaynor Dawson '65 just recently came forward to tell me he'd been there during that time frame too. And I remembered seeing a couple familiar faces at Jason Lee and wondering if I'd seen them at the day care center. But by then we were all caught up in the swift current of 1st and 2nd grade, and there was no time for seeking out old friends.

But tonight, snug within my 74th year, I gotta ask:
Does anybody else out there remember that place?

And, as it turns out...

I got this email today from Cathy Mouton (65) in reference to the day care center on Jadwin, across the street from CC Anderson dept store, when we were growing up in the 50's.

She also mentions Diane Murphy (65), who lived 3 houses away from me on Potter St. and was leading lady in my romantic fantasies 1st grade through 6th at Jason Lee.

Cathy moved to LA after college at WSU and became a successful studio publicist.

(I'll let that sink in for a minute here: She managed somehow to wedge her foot in the doorway of one of the toughest trades in Hollywood—and then went on to make a career out of it for 4 decades). Thassa big deal.

When I very first got hired on St. Elsewhere, this new hospital drama for MTM Studios, I was broke and I didn't own a car. I'd been working as cashier on graveyard shift at Lollipop Adult Bookstore on Vine Street the night before the day I got the call from my agent that changed my life. Please understand how dizzying my world had suddenly become.

I had my own parking space with my name on it inside the gate on the MTM lot, but I didn't have a car to park in it. I was still 3 weeks away from getting my first paycheck from the show. In fact, as part of the odd circumstances governing my abrupt change of fortune, I actually had come home from my first day of filming on St. E and taken a 3 hour nap before going into work at Lollipop to finish out my last midnight shift behind the till. You see, it was all so new and unreal and too-good-to be true (ish) that I wanted to make sure I had a job to go back to, in case this dream-come-true at St.Elsewhere didn't work out.

So in the first month of my first job as a professional actor on St.Elsewhere, I rode the city bus back and forth to work.

But of course I didn't want anyone to know.

But one late afternoon during my first week or so of employment, as I stood at the bus stop a discrete 3 blocks away from the studio entranceway and the prying eyes of my fellow castmates Howie Mandel or Denzel Washington, I looked up to see—literally out of nowhere—my old schoolchum Cathy Mouton grinning at me through the windshield of her shiny new car.

And in the words of a writer more accomplished than myself:

"The world where I stood was set spinning
round and round."

Here is Cathy's letter to me today.

It was fascinating Terry. What tickled me was the reference to CC Anderson. I was talking to Diane the other day and she said they were ever in a department store. It had a large electronic horse in the shoe department to entertain the kids while Mom went shopping. The ones outside grocery store these days are small compared to that one. I'd get 2 dimes and "round up them dogies." One day I was overe at the coke machine at the edge of the department and Mo came up to me and held my waist for a minutes then said "you are making a scene." Yeah a good one.

Diane bought a subscription to Daily Sandstorm and I must admit it's very entertaining. Still in Los Angeles but weary of the city. Best part was going to movies in theaters which I really miss. Did PR for the French film festival at the Directors Guild for 12 years before they went higher tech and went to millennium staff that had no savoir faire, offended most of the journalists and were fired after one festival. It was a good run and a retainer for 9 months out of the year

Pandemic is so surreal, huh? SoCal had a big spike for three months. Too many folks who didn't take it seriously. I miss Diane. Haven't seen her since September 2019. We usually see each other 2 x a year. Hope you are well, Terry.

TDK '65''

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