These are the folks that were responsible for your education.
You always thought that they went home at night and partied, but no, they had meetings and
deep thoughts about our destiny. A right, tight group.
The folks are Keith Burnham, Frank Isola, Glenn McNicholas, James Jentges, Supt. James L. Sheaff, Jack Clark, Harold Weatherby, and Ted Boyce peaking around Mrs. Dominic Scrott. February, 1961. Did Mrs. Dominic Scrott have a first name?
Cool Things Orinda Kids Did in the 1960s
Played four square, hop scotch, tetherball and crack the whip.
Made cootie catchers.
Waxed the slide at the school with a flattened milk carton to see how fast you could slide down.
Climbed the jungle gym and if you were brave enough stood on the top and jumped to the ground.
Caught blue bellies, frogs, toads, water striders and an occasional snake.
Put a card or two in your bicycle spokes and rode as fast as you could down the highest hill.
Passed around slam books and wrote down your favorite movie, band, actor, and who was cute.
Hiked up the hill, rolled under the barbed wire fence avoiding the cow patties to reach the top.
Since we didn’t have snowballs, we had fox tail fights on the concrete trails above the school.
Climbed trees and explored the creeks; when you fell in, you hoped you didn’t smell too bad.
Ran in the culvert under the street making as much noise as you could to show you weren’t afraid.
Climbed on top of the cyclone fencing surrounding the 20,000 volt electrical box to reach the school roof and slid down the basketball hoop.
Flattened cardboard boxes and went grass sliding down the hill. If you were brave or crazy, you put five people in a refrigerator box, sealed it and launched it down the hill. Tried it - once was enough.
Janet Baird Huddle
One night, circa 1962, a bunch of us drove out to Moraga (pretty much the "wild west," i.e. not developed at that point) to go "hill sliding." Hill sliding is something we did in Summer when the grasses dried out.
Here's how it works:
You get a big cardboard box and flatten it. You carry the box and a flashlight
to the top of the hill, sit on the box, have someone give you a push, and slide
on down.
By the end of the summer some of the "slides" were a little worn out. One
night, right before Miramonte was about to start, we went for one last slide.
About halfway down the hill, my box hit a rock.
The box stopped. I kept going.
I started school with a pillow practically strapped to my behind.
Jackie Edenholm Pettus
Miramonte '63
As a Campolindo graduate, I took pride being a Cougar, but even I had to admit that the Miramonte Matadors had the best putdown yell ever for our mascot at football games in the 1960s.
"Old cougars never die. They just smell
that way."
- Janet Baird Huddle
So …when I went to Miramonte we were the “Miramonte Matadors”. The Matadors won the Foothill Athletic League Football Championship. That was a big deal; there was a lot of school pride. Our mascot and the decal that was in the center of the back window of most of the cars, was of a Matador in full bull fighting regalia. He was cartoonish, with a big nose but he was the Matador.
Today, Miramonte High School sports teams are known as the “Mats”. I have a suggestion for the new decal for them to put in the back windows of their cars, something much more ‘Matish” than those unimaginative square stickers that scream to the world that Miramonte has no art department or sense of whimsy . Something that really identifies them as what they say they are….
Really, I think the current bunch (that would be your kids and grandkids) take themselves waaaayyy too seriously.