Milton Rouse
1965
In a sense, my association with Cleveland began at the beginning of the Fall term in 1957, three years before GCHS welcomed its first class. Arguably earlier, in the Summer, my family had just moved to Northridge from Van Nuys, into a house more or less across the street from Doctor and Mrs Mudd and their family: Brian, Mary, and the twins, as I recall. Some of you might remember Mary, as though you could ever forget.
But with the Fall term, I began the fifth grade at Cantara Street Elementary School. It was only one year old at that time, and seemed to consist mostly of a bewildering (to a 10-year old stranger) array of temporary buildings. I searched among them for the one to which I was assigned, and encountered a girl doing the same. Or maybe she knew just where she was going. That would surprise no one. Her name was Dixie. You may remember her, too. As though you could ever forget.
Dixie and I were smitten with each other. And neither of us ever forgot that we had been smitten with each other. But, as it happens, we never told each other. Ever. Nor did we say much of anything. Sad to say, the very thought of talking to a girl terrified me. Never really got over that, either.
Matter of fact, with the early onset of acne, it got worse before it got better. Northridge Junior High came and went, memorable for little more than the marvelous Mrs Berg and pro-style wrestling (was I really “Doctor Pencilneck”?) with crazy Pete Senoff. My social life, if you could call it that, revolved around a really extraordinary group of like-aged kids at my church. While that included Cindy Sax and the Caldwell girls and some others of the Cavalier persuasion, the guy side was dominated by Birmingham Junior, then Senior High Schoolers, eventually including Gary Bernsdorf, who ultimately married Cindy. Good choice.
So on to Cleveland. Truth be told, I don't recall much from my Sophomore and Junior years. From the former, I very fondly remember the remarkable Mrs Hopper, the world's highest energy biology teacher. From the latter, my brief and undistinguished career in “B” football, and watching, from our trig class window, the flag slowly drop to half staff on November 22, 1963.
But by our senior year, I was tentatively creeping out of my shell. I began letting my crew cut grow out, participated in a lot of activities, dated a little, dropped my obsession with nuclear physics, and, with the Birminghammers, began playing the guitar and noticing the world around me.
But with the Fall term, I began the fifth grade at Cantara Street Elementary School. It was only one year old at that time, and seemed to consist mostly of a bewildering (to a 10-year old stranger) array of temporary buildings. I searched among them for the one to which I was assigned, and encountered a girl doing the same. Or maybe she knew just where she was going. That would surprise no one. Her name was Dixie. You may remember her, too. As though you could ever forget.
Dixie and I were smitten with each other. And neither of us ever forgot that we had been smitten with each other. But, as it happens, we never told each other. Ever. Nor did we say much of anything. Sad to say, the very thought of talking to a girl terrified me. Never really got over that, either.
Matter of fact, with the early onset of acne, it got worse before it got better. Northridge Junior High came and went, memorable for little more than the marvelous Mrs Berg and pro-style wrestling (was I really “Doctor Pencilneck”?) with crazy Pete Senoff. My social life, if you could call it that, revolved around a really extraordinary group of like-aged kids at my church. While that included Cindy Sax and the Caldwell girls and some others of the Cavalier persuasion, the guy side was dominated by Birmingham Junior, then Senior High Schoolers, eventually including Gary Bernsdorf, who ultimately married Cindy. Good choice.
So on to Cleveland. Truth be told, I don't recall much from my Sophomore and Junior years. From the former, I very fondly remember the remarkable Mrs Hopper, the world's highest energy biology teacher. From the latter, my brief and undistinguished career in “B” football, and watching, from our trig class window, the flag slowly drop to half staff on November 22, 1963.
But by our senior year, I was tentatively creeping out of my shell. I began letting my crew cut grow out, participated in a lot of activities, dated a little, dropped my obsession with nuclear physics, and, with the Birminghammers, began playing the guitar and noticing the world around me.
With most of them, I matriculated at little Occidental College in Eagle Rock. A few years later, a kid from Hawai'i then known as Barry Obama did the same. He ended up at Columbia. So did Dixie. I ended up continuing to let my hair grow (adding a beard), organizing campus debates around the great social issues of the day, learning the art of classic guitar, and occasionally studying something. I considered becoming a witch doctor, but settled for a degree in psychology.
What now? Like Bjorn Bork, I thought I heard the call of the ministry and prepared to go to seminary. In my case, however, it was a wrong number and I found myself in an urban commune instead. That was a fascinating year, but I actually found that I was not finding myself, at least not here in Los Angeles. So I packed my life into a blue '67 VW bug and set off to the East, vaguely imagining that I'd wander to Boston, then book passage on a tramp freighter for Andalusia to study Flamenco at its source.
Ran out of money about Kansas City. No jobs in KC, so I drifted down to Oklahoma City, which was booming at the time. Construction jobs everywhere. I got one, but also got foolish and was more or less run out of town. Winter was coming on and I figured I had to hole up somewhere and put some bucks together, and I reckoned that Denver was the nicest place that I had been through so far, so I backtracked there. Never set sail for Andalusia. Didn't even get to Boston until many years later. Still live in Denver, pretty happily, having found most of what I was looking for.
But figuring at the time that I'd be moving on, I worked temporary jobs, some of them quite interesting. When I found I wasn't in a hurry to move on anymore, I found employment on a crisis hotline. You know you've had enough of that when you find yourself secretly agreeing with the suicide calls. Ran the Denver Free University for a while. But the constant in my life seemed to be the music, which I played well enough but didn't really understand. Decided to take a few classes and ended up with another degree, plus visions of a professorship.
Put myself through school as a darned good guitar teacher. Had students from all walks of life. One lady from New Jersey always wanted to play classic guitar but had never taken lessons because, in her family tradition, she was always saving up her money for marriage. She finally gave up on that idea and called a guitar teacher who had been recommended to her. That guy was completely booked, so he sent her name over to me. As a classical guitarist, she was a bust, but she did agree to marry me. Even though I told her that she was my second wife, as I could not divorce music. Ha!
Two masters degrees and one son later, I was eying a PhD in historical musicology (even planning my dissertation research into early 16th-century Italian lute song), when the economy relapsed into a new episode of its intermittent tanking disorder (ITD). The arts go first, of course, so I was now looking at tying together an indeterminate series of one-year contracts while wandering from college to college searching for a tenure track appointment.
I looked at my “career”. I looked at my family. I realized that Mary Lee was my only wife (she probably knew that all along), and I didn't want my son David to be an involuntary nomad. Our problem was money. I went into the money business.
Previously, I knew enough about money to balance my checkbook (remember those?). So I studied money until I could reliably explain convertible subordinated debentures to investment neophytes. (Oddly, when I got to that point, I completely lost the ability to balance a checkbook.) I became a financial planner, then a marketing consultant to high-end insurance agents. There was probably some money in that somewhere, but danged if I ever found it.
Meanwhile, as Mary Lee could have no more children, we adopted a daughter, who turned out to have special needs. That proved to be a long haul with no apparent end, but she needed and needs love (and a fair amount of cash), and we've managed to provide it. Things could have been worse.
Then there was the Immaculate Conception: miraculously, Mary Lee did conceive again, and unto us a second son was born.
My employer got mergered out of business, and I could manage only a few contracts locally. I refused to move to another city. So I tried to retire, but couldn't. A tax issue led me to H&R Block, and I subsequently managed a series of their Denver offices. Now that Social Security has plugged in, I've backed out of management and just prepare taxes during “the season”: January 2 through April 15. That leaves me time for my two time-intensive hobbies: a return to music (mainly composition) and to my mountains. There are still a few good climbs left in these old legs.
Mary Lee, a life-long teacher, has also followed a jagged path toward retirement, but is now getting close. Or so it seems. David co-owns and manages a remarkable cabana-based “hotelito” in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, called “La Osa Mariposa”. Check out the website: www.osamariposa.com. A bit off the beaten path (unless you're a surfer, as I know some of you are), it is nonetheless a place that is calling to you, if you listen closely. Trust me on this.
Maria struggles but has improved. Gregory graduated from University of Portland, which he attended on a full soccer scholarship. He just married, and he and his wife (who bares a certain resemblance to Mary Mudd) have graced a number of wedding-industry mags.
When I left L.A., I didn't realize that I had pretty much fallen off the edge of the earth as far as Cleveland High was concerned. I began to feel that it must have been the worst high school ever, since it apparently never held reunions. I got more invitations from Birmingham, for Pete Senoff's sake!
Then, one day in 2012, I stared, agog and agape, at a hand-written letter that bore the return address of one Dixie Reinhardt, now of New York City. She found me. We shared our Cantara Street secrets, and met again at the “Class of '65 Turns 65” birthday party. What a thrill to re-connect with so many souls from so long ago!
I should have mentioned that Maria bore us a granddaughter Her name is Hope. Mary Lee and I are raising her. She's a beauty. She's also a firecracker! So it is with some trepidation that I contemplate her as a teenager when I turn 80 (knock on wood). But then, I think of Dixie. She was a beauty and a firecracker, too, and look how that turned out. We'll be OK.
What now? Like Bjorn Bork, I thought I heard the call of the ministry and prepared to go to seminary. In my case, however, it was a wrong number and I found myself in an urban commune instead. That was a fascinating year, but I actually found that I was not finding myself, at least not here in Los Angeles. So I packed my life into a blue '67 VW bug and set off to the East, vaguely imagining that I'd wander to Boston, then book passage on a tramp freighter for Andalusia to study Flamenco at its source.
Ran out of money about Kansas City. No jobs in KC, so I drifted down to Oklahoma City, which was booming at the time. Construction jobs everywhere. I got one, but also got foolish and was more or less run out of town. Winter was coming on and I figured I had to hole up somewhere and put some bucks together, and I reckoned that Denver was the nicest place that I had been through so far, so I backtracked there. Never set sail for Andalusia. Didn't even get to Boston until many years later. Still live in Denver, pretty happily, having found most of what I was looking for.
But figuring at the time that I'd be moving on, I worked temporary jobs, some of them quite interesting. When I found I wasn't in a hurry to move on anymore, I found employment on a crisis hotline. You know you've had enough of that when you find yourself secretly agreeing with the suicide calls. Ran the Denver Free University for a while. But the constant in my life seemed to be the music, which I played well enough but didn't really understand. Decided to take a few classes and ended up with another degree, plus visions of a professorship.
Put myself through school as a darned good guitar teacher. Had students from all walks of life. One lady from New Jersey always wanted to play classic guitar but had never taken lessons because, in her family tradition, she was always saving up her money for marriage. She finally gave up on that idea and called a guitar teacher who had been recommended to her. That guy was completely booked, so he sent her name over to me. As a classical guitarist, she was a bust, but she did agree to marry me. Even though I told her that she was my second wife, as I could not divorce music. Ha!
Two masters degrees and one son later, I was eying a PhD in historical musicology (even planning my dissertation research into early 16th-century Italian lute song), when the economy relapsed into a new episode of its intermittent tanking disorder (ITD). The arts go first, of course, so I was now looking at tying together an indeterminate series of one-year contracts while wandering from college to college searching for a tenure track appointment.
I looked at my “career”. I looked at my family. I realized that Mary Lee was my only wife (she probably knew that all along), and I didn't want my son David to be an involuntary nomad. Our problem was money. I went into the money business.
Previously, I knew enough about money to balance my checkbook (remember those?). So I studied money until I could reliably explain convertible subordinated debentures to investment neophytes. (Oddly, when I got to that point, I completely lost the ability to balance a checkbook.) I became a financial planner, then a marketing consultant to high-end insurance agents. There was probably some money in that somewhere, but danged if I ever found it.
Meanwhile, as Mary Lee could have no more children, we adopted a daughter, who turned out to have special needs. That proved to be a long haul with no apparent end, but she needed and needs love (and a fair amount of cash), and we've managed to provide it. Things could have been worse.
Then there was the Immaculate Conception: miraculously, Mary Lee did conceive again, and unto us a second son was born.
My employer got mergered out of business, and I could manage only a few contracts locally. I refused to move to another city. So I tried to retire, but couldn't. A tax issue led me to H&R Block, and I subsequently managed a series of their Denver offices. Now that Social Security has plugged in, I've backed out of management and just prepare taxes during “the season”: January 2 through April 15. That leaves me time for my two time-intensive hobbies: a return to music (mainly composition) and to my mountains. There are still a few good climbs left in these old legs.
Mary Lee, a life-long teacher, has also followed a jagged path toward retirement, but is now getting close. Or so it seems. David co-owns and manages a remarkable cabana-based “hotelito” in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, called “La Osa Mariposa”. Check out the website: www.osamariposa.com. A bit off the beaten path (unless you're a surfer, as I know some of you are), it is nonetheless a place that is calling to you, if you listen closely. Trust me on this.
Maria struggles but has improved. Gregory graduated from University of Portland, which he attended on a full soccer scholarship. He just married, and he and his wife (who bares a certain resemblance to Mary Mudd) have graced a number of wedding-industry mags.
When I left L.A., I didn't realize that I had pretty much fallen off the edge of the earth as far as Cleveland High was concerned. I began to feel that it must have been the worst high school ever, since it apparently never held reunions. I got more invitations from Birmingham, for Pete Senoff's sake!
Then, one day in 2012, I stared, agog and agape, at a hand-written letter that bore the return address of one Dixie Reinhardt, now of New York City. She found me. We shared our Cantara Street secrets, and met again at the “Class of '65 Turns 65” birthday party. What a thrill to re-connect with so many souls from so long ago!
I should have mentioned that Maria bore us a granddaughter Her name is Hope. Mary Lee and I are raising her. She's a beauty. She's also a firecracker! So it is with some trepidation that I contemplate her as a teenager when I turn 80 (knock on wood). But then, I think of Dixie. She was a beauty and a firecracker, too, and look how that turned out. We'll be OK.
The Wedding (June 19, 1976)
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The financial planner, with Mary Lee, Dave, and the infant Grand Empress Maria, 1984
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The Guitarist-1971 (Drawing of Milton from artist Joe Grindon)
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Greg and Megan, 2013
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Her Royal Highness,
The Crown Princess Hope,
Scion of the House of Rouse
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The Mountain Climber: Ascending the Snow Chute (2009)
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Milt and Dixie Reinhardt at the 2012 65th Class Birthday Party
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Rouse family, 2011. Back row: Mary Lee, brother-in-law Jim Brenner, son Dave, nephew Nick Larsen (Sandy's younger son; elder son Erik Larsen lives in Shanghai), brother-in-law Mark Gravitt, son Greg. Front row: sister Patty (Rouse, GCHS '67) Brenner, me, father Bob, stepmother Dottie Ryder (now deceased), sister Sandra (Rouse, GCHS '73) Gravitt, daughter Maria and granddaughter Hope.
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Comments
Milt~ How wonderful that you & Dixie have such a long & charming shared history. I love that you & your wife are still raising family & staying so involved! It was great to see you at our 65 Birthday Party & look forward to 2015!
Gloria Dorcy
Gloria Dorcy
Milt,
You, without a doubt, have had the most interesting adventures since high school. I think climbing the Himalayas is all you left out.
I envy your ability at classical guitar. I played a little in my church choir for a few years, but just strummed chords.
Checked out your son's hotelito website...very rustic. Would love to go there and surf, but although my ego says, "yes you can," my body says, NO YOU CAN'T!!!"
Thank you so much for sharing your life with us, and congratulations on your beautiful family. Look forward to talking to you at the 50th party.
Jeff Davis
You, without a doubt, have had the most interesting adventures since high school. I think climbing the Himalayas is all you left out.
I envy your ability at classical guitar. I played a little in my church choir for a few years, but just strummed chords.
Checked out your son's hotelito website...very rustic. Would love to go there and surf, but although my ego says, "yes you can," my body says, NO YOU CAN'T!!!"
Thank you so much for sharing your life with us, and congratulations on your beautiful family. Look forward to talking to you at the 50th party.
Jeff Davis
Milt, how fantastic it was to sit with you at the 65th Birthday and share all those memories. I really hope you can make it to the 50th Celebration.
I cannot tell you how many times I've talked about you over the years! I tried to find you so many times but even Google didn't help! When I called Faye Van Der Schaff in 2012 to ask if she would come to the 65th Birthday, she asked me who the one person was that I couldn't find but really wanted to...and she offered to find you on Ancestry.com. She gets the real credit for locating you in Denver and gave me your address. I just about fell off my chair when you called in response to that note! I think I screamed in your ear.
I'm glad you've had an interesting life and a happy one with your wife and kids. There is something really magical about reconnecting with those we knew and those we're just beginning to know!
Stay well my friend! XO
Dixie Reinhardt
I cannot tell you how many times I've talked about you over the years! I tried to find you so many times but even Google didn't help! When I called Faye Van Der Schaff in 2012 to ask if she would come to the 65th Birthday, she asked me who the one person was that I couldn't find but really wanted to...and she offered to find you on Ancestry.com. She gets the real credit for locating you in Denver and gave me your address. I just about fell off my chair when you called in response to that note! I think I screamed in your ear.
I'm glad you've had an interesting life and a happy one with your wife and kids. There is something really magical about reconnecting with those we knew and those we're just beginning to know!
Stay well my friend! XO
Dixie Reinhardt
Milt:
What a great life story! Makes me feel better that I also tried a few careers before finding my way. But I really thought the nuclear physics would stick with you.
I also hung out with a bunch of Birminghammers at church (don’t they have any churches in Van Nuys?) including Cindy Williams, who went on to sitcom fame. That was a good time.
Best to you and I hope we both make it to the 50th celebration!
Dennis McClintock
What a great life story! Makes me feel better that I also tried a few careers before finding my way. But I really thought the nuclear physics would stick with you.
I also hung out with a bunch of Birminghammers at church (don’t they have any churches in Van Nuys?) including Cindy Williams, who went on to sitcom fame. That was a good time.
Best to you and I hope we both make it to the 50th celebration!
Dennis McClintock
Hi Milton Rouse! I am so grateful that you sent your life story in to the website! Somehow I missed seeing you at the 65/65 party. Your life story gives me so many things to ask you about (eg: Is Dottie Ryder in your family photo the Dottie Ryder that I knew? Married to Charlie Ryder when we were kids? Mom of my good friend Linda Ryder? I have some holes in my memory bank that I hope you can fill in about that family. Can't wait to talk to you about that.) It occurred to me as I read your story that times have changed for kids in some good ways since we were in high school. The "group friendships" that kids have today are so healthy. If we were teens today, you, Cindy, Dixie, and I would be hanging out together as a neighborhood friend group. What a loss that we didn't do that then. I am hoping we can have time to talk at the 50th -- lots to catch up on
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Mary Mudd Quinn
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Mary Mudd Quinn