Have you ever noticed how in virtually every fairy tale since the beginning of time, the oldest sister(s) are ugly harpies and the youngest is so clever, kind and beautiful – so gosh darn special – that she always wins Prince Charming’s heart? Sometimes older siblings have no plot function or personality at all – they exist only to make the hero a youngest child.
This blatant favoritism for the youngest sibling didn’t die with old-fashioned fairy-tales like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. It’s alive and well in contemporary fiction – Ron Weasley is the youngest Weasley brother and Ginny (the youngest) becomes Harry’s wife in Harry Potter. Ender is the youngest of three in Ender’s game. Alyosha, the youngest, is the most morally pure of the Brothers Karamazov.
The purpose of fairytales and myths is to teach children about life. What lesson is an oldest child supposed to take from this bias? No wonder I look so ticked off in childhood photos of the three of us. The subliminal message in myth and lit was I didn’t count in this story. I was a stage prop, meant to do something venal and stupid and exit to make way for the chosen one, the good one – my youngest sister Joyce.
UH-OH. LOOKS LIKE JANET JUST FIGURED OUT SHE’S GOT A SHIT PART TO PLAY TOO, SINCE SHE’S NO LONGER THE BLESSED YOUNGEST. HURTS, DOESN’T IT?
If you’re interested, there’s a list and explanation of this trope at
And if you’re in the mood for some sisterly snark, follow these links to either or both of these photo galleries – My Two Years and Two Days of Bliss (link) and Kathy Vs. the Alien Baby. Pictures don’t lie!
Naturally, I swore my close friends to secrecy which ensured the sordid truth spread quickly. Some people said I was stoned, drunk or dangerously disturbed. Oddly enough, many of them were the same people who used to say I was a dull, goody-two-shoes brain. Was it possible to be both?
The goody-two-shoes preacher’s daughter Kathy (in confirmation white)
A preacher’s daughter is supposed to be a good example. I should’ve been getting A’s in summer school or reading great literature at home, not sitting in a police station signing a confession like some juvenile delinquent.
The smoking sociopathic lunatic Kathy who doesn’t know when to shut up, appropriately clothed in black.
Fifty years later, it’s safe to say I’m more the preacher’s daughter than I am a smooth criminal. But it would be a lie to say there isn’t a trace of the social misfit (I’m loathe to use the word sociopath) that I repress. It’s the part that seeks out gory true crime books in an attempt to learn why they do what they do as if by understanding the dark motivations in others, I might understand the dark corners in myself.
Is that my Shadow? Like I said, I don’t really know him that well.
Jung referred to this as the Shadow. A crucial part of the process of individuation is coming to terms with your Shadow. I’m still getting to know mine.
Was I an optimist or what? From the sound of this entry, I sincerely believed that merely winning the outstanding English student award in 9th grade would be enough to give me confidence when my faith in a writing career – always a risky endeavor at best – faltered. Even my father, possibly my staunchest advocate, regularly handed me clippings he just “happened to see” about expanding career opportunities in library science among other liberal arts fields besides creative writing. It’s not that he didn’t believe in me, he just thought it would be prudent to have a real job to fall back on. To his credit, he never pressured me to choose a more sensible major than film-writing but that’s another story.
Apparently, I believed the 7th grade and my freshman year of high school were the nadir of my existence. Little did I know that all the things that made me so “neurotic” and turned the year “hideous” were trivial beyond belief compared to some of the real life problems awaiting me down the line.
Two of three female students in photo above (Literary Magazine) are named Cathy/Kathy. Cathy Hoover and Kathy Knutsen. Also pictured, Tal Pomeroy, Erin Heinlein and Gail Kaiser
Minor note, but one I couldn’t help but be cognizant of in those days – whenever I mention a girl named Kathy/Cathy, it’s accompanied by a surname. That’s because in every single class in my public school Santa Clara life, there were at least five Kathys – me, Kathy Kerr, Cathy Hoover, Cathy Silva, Kathy Kane, Kathy Scott, Kathy Reid, Kathy Locey, Kathy Kramer or some similar combination. I envied girls with unique names like Krystal Woodward and Joell Funkhauser. Today, while Kathy and Kathleen have fallen below the 500 most popular name mark, Krystal and Joell are on the rise. What’s in a name? Nothing, really, but I would’ve preferred something more distinctive.
Three of the six female students pictured above, myself included, are named Kathy (Kathleen or Catherine) – Myself, Catherine Kramer and Kathy Locey.
Sandy Walker (Hegwood), on her apartment balcony in her yellow polka-dot bell-bottomsMe in another original hand-made dress – pink paisley or polka dots – in what I thought was a cute pose – on a day I’d be well-advised to duck into a store!
Sandy’s bell-bottoms were yellow with white dots – it’s odd the details that stick in one’s memory. I think mine were pink. I have no recollection of the day the Lovin’ Spoonful descended on Valley Fair but I assume it did in fact happen as I was nothing if not painfully accurate in my somewhat reportorial diaries. I confess to lingering curiosity about what the “Dutch Masters” hearse might be – it sounds kind of cool but knowing me and Vania, fishing for dimes with gum on a pen, maybe not.
In 1966, Valley Fair – an outdoor mall – was the daylight weekend spot to run into people from high school or meet new people from other high schools. More often than not, I ran into someone I didn’t want to see – a guy who’d just broken up with me, for example, with his gorgeous new girlfriend on a day when two new pimples popped out of my nose and my hair looked like a Brillo pad – at which point I’d duck into the nearest store and play hide and seek (some people call it “Stalker” but I think that’s unkind).
I don’t live in Santa Clara anymore so I don’t really know – did Valley Fair survive the 70s, 80s, 90s, and the millennium? Is Macy’s still the anchor store? Does anyone else recall the Lovin’ Spoonful at our very own Valley Fair?
This was a huge day for me – literally, the first dollar I ever earned from my writing. It was thrilling to hear my name called and walk onto the Villa Montalvo stage/podium to accept my prize – even better when the lady who read my poem sobbed. In retrospect, though, she was a pretty soft touch when it came to tears. Misty hasn’t stood the test of time quite as well as I might have hoped.
(In the interest of full disclosure, the beautiful white cat pictured is not Misty – there never was an actual Misty although Whitey and Calico were real cats (such clever names!) The picture is of the beautiful and much missed Skywhys.)
Three days before she died, I received a letter from Natalie. Uncharacteristically, I wrote back immediately. I don’t remember what I said but at least I wrote back. Her brother found my letter, unopened, on the kitchen counter, when he arrived in Ukiah after she was dead. My name was on the return address. That’s how he knew where to contact me and let me know she was gone.
Fall, 1961. “A family with a daughter your age is joining our church,” my father says. Natalie is short and round with blue eyes and blonde hair in a Prince Valiant cut. I’m the fourth grade giraffe, tall and skinny with wavy brown hair. She’s an outdoor-oriented extrovert, a born entertainer. I’m a sullen sedentary introvert longing for center stage despite my lack of talent.
Obviously, we’re destined to be best friends.
Natalie far left. Me next to her. Probably.y at Mount Cross Bible Camp.
January, 1967. Natalie and I are sophomores at different high schools. We claim to be cousins and people believe us despite how little we have in common. Natalie’s in Choir and Pep Squad. She’s secretary of the Future Teacher’s Club and wins a speaking role in the school play. The Beatles reign on my stereo while she remains loyal to the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean.
We graduate from our respective high schools in 1969. She and her future first husband Bobby are voted Cutest Couple and featured on a full page in Fremont’s yearbook. I leave Wilcox as anonymously as I served my time. She goes north to college, first Pacific Lutheran in Washington and then Chico State. I head south to UCLA. Natalie majors in PE and Education, I choose Film Writing. We get together briefly every summer but during the school year we forge new friendships.
Natalie and Bobby divorce. The next time I hear from her, she’s engaged to the man of her dreams. She doesn’t ask me to be a bridesmaid in either of her weddings. The outdoor ceremony takes place on a blistering August day at the Ukiah ranch where they live
Summer, 1988. Natalie, her husband and their daughter spend two days with my family on their way home from Disneyland. Natalie’s jumpy, a restless bundle of uneven edges and darting eyes, nothing like the laughing Natalie I remember from childhood. She smells the same, a summer collage of rose-scented soap, saltwater or tears, sunblock, healthy sweat and new mown grass. She tries to hide the small scaly patches engraved on the skin on back of her hands and elbows. She isn’t any smaller, but in some profound way she is fading before my eyes.
JOYCE AND NATALiE DOING RECORD ACTS LIKE IN THE OLD DAYS
Not long after, she gets divorced again. In the spring of 1994, Natalie’s mother – in many ways her anchor – dies. Natalie spirals down, then goes into freefall.
NATALIE AND I WITH HER MOTHER AND HER DAUGHTER
While at work as a kindergarten teacher, she passes out, drunk, in the ladies room. She’s fired from her dream job. Next, she loses her driver’s license. After that she loses custody of her daughter.
Fall, 1995. I hate it when she calls late at night. She rambles, repeats herself and slurs her words. I make excuses to get off the phone.
March 26, 1996. I open Natalie’s last letter. She never learned to type so it’s handwritten like all the others. The round, precise cursive lines of blue ink on the first page remind me of the tight, controlled perfection of her record acts.
Her writing deteriorated with every line, crazily sloping out of control by the time she signed her name. I wanted to believe her but I didn’t. Even so, I never thought alcohol would kill her at 44.
I hope she knew I loved her. I know you can’t save people who don’t want to be saved but I wish I’d tried harder. Whenever her name is mentioned, I still tell people she was my cousin. She’s buried next to her mother in Massachusetts instead of Ukiah. I’ve never been to Massachusetts but one of these days I’ll go.
This entry is typical of most of the teen years. Part of it was fun, exciting – the motorcycle ride with Rich – followed shortly by another blow to my ego. For the record, Erin Heinlein responded with class to the news bulletin that I liked him – he treated me exactly the same after finding out as he did before. That’s how one should handle such a situation, when the feelings aren’t reciprocal – although it’s hard to envision an adult scenario in which one of my friends plays messenger to inform the object of my desire that I have a little crush.
Life is a beautiful comedy!Life is a painful tragedy and then you die.
It’s also quite different from many of my junior high diary entries, in which the boy I liked was a closely guarded secret that I would die to keep. If one of my friends wanted to get a rise out of me, all they had to do is write “Kathy likes Jim” or whoever on my books and I’d be near coronary arrest. Why was liking a boy a cause for such mortification? I don’t know – but what a difference a couple of years makes.
I was fifteen, caught between the tail end of childhood and looming adolescence (becoming boy crazy). Sharing adventures with Vania and other girlfriends would soon give way to pining by the phone waiting for some cruel or clueless guy to call.
I was still deeply attached to my childhood nuclear family, as likely to spend my Friday nights with them as with my friends. It was family swim night at the local Y and for a time the five of us went every week. I can still smell the humid locker rooms and the chlorinated pool; it seemed primal and thrilling to swim after dark.
The last two sentences describe a state of mind – or heart – that I called “worldliness’” for lack of a better word. Between the ages of 12 and 16, I physically ached from an overload of emotions I had no way to process. Too much beauty in a sunset or the loneliness of the solitary liquid amber tree outside my window brought me to tears. I miss those tumultuous emotions. That fragile moment on the cusp of adolescence is too brief!
A Catholic priest created the Wutzit Club to keep teen-agers off the streets. In 1966, it was on Newhall Street. It was open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights and featured a ballroom, stage, game room, television lounge and snack bar. Dances were strictly chaperoned and a dress code was enforced. No alcohol – and nobody 21 or older – was allowed. Live mostly local bands performed; Buckingham and Nicks played there in ’68, before Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac. Dues (admission) was fifty cents – a small price to pay for the chance to meet the love of your life.
For people like me and my friends, who weren’t part of the Wilcox High “In Crowd,” the Wutzit offered an opportunity to meet non-Wilcox guys who didn’t know we were dorks. Males massed on the right side of the room. Girls milled on the left and waited for some brave boy to cross the great divide and ask us to dance. Our popularity – which in those days meant success – depended on how many times we danced. Higher mathematics were not required in my case since it is hard to miscalculate one (1).
At the Wutzit, beauty got you asked to dance. (I suspect being under 5’9” helped but I can’t prove it.) While it’s true other values – intelligence and persistence – are rewarded in the real world, it’s equally true that real life tends to be easier for those born beautiful.
Today, girls don’t need to wait by the wall. No social stigma attaches if they dance alone or with their friends. I applaud their freedom but can’t help wondering if underlying values changed too. I hope I’m wrong but I suspect more than a few millennials dancing alone still relate to the words Janis Ian wrote in 1975.
I’m not sure if I’m revealing myself (and – guilting my best friend Sandy Hegwood Walker by association) as a typical high-spirited high-school girl or a pathological liar. In our defense, we didn’t distort the truth for an unfair advantage – we just couldn’t resist any opportunity to try on a new identity. An only child, Sandy’s fantasy life and active imagination meshed perfectly with mine. We were naturals when it came to playing off each other and improvising. We had our own secret language for awhile, but that was kids stuff. When we matured, so to speak, pretending to be aspiring rock stars was one of our favorite gambits. When we really got it going, we could go into elaborate detail about our set list and who sang lead on what song. I’m surprised we never got around to printing up band cards. (But what if somebody wanted to book us?)
This fantasy sounded so cool Sandy and I struggled through a few guitar lessons before we realized our talents were better suited to shopping for dramatic stage costumes, not learning to play an instrument. Years of piano lessons, during which I fell progressively further behind my younger sisters, had alerted me keyboards might not be my forte. My next hint I might be musically challenged came when our church choir director eliminated my half of an upcoming duet with the lame excuse a Natalie Nilsen solo served the music better. I told myself she just didn’t want to show preferential treatment to the pastor’s daughter but I was devastated. While I didn’t want to “toot my own horn,” I didn’t want to hide my light under a bushel either.
I took my case to my father. “I have a beautiful voice, don’t I?” I asked.
He paused and said, “Kathleen, we all have different gifts.”
Even I couldn’t spin this response. So what if I’d never be a real life rock’n’roll icon? Thanks to Sandy’s and my living theater, I knew how it felt to strut the stage and blast away on my Stratocaster. Just to prove that sometimes fantasies do come true, Sandy’s parents bought her a drum kit which she housed in a black light room. It didn’t get much better than that.
If you’re worried about all the gullible people we deceived, rest easy – I don’t think we fooled anyone.
