**Not everyone expressed sympathy for your plight**

The weatherman lied. The Weatherman always lies – you should know that by now.

Last night – school night – before bed – eleven o’clock news – the weatherman – gigantic black marker and giant sunny faces.

Warming trend – high in the 70s – maybe Santa Ana winds -slight eye-irritation from smog.

Didn’t say anything about raincoats. Not a hint of clouds. Typical L.A. weather.

You walked to school. Ten blocks – sunny morning – not even a jacket.

Between last night and this morning somebody said there was a “chance” of rain.

You should have paid attention. Whenever they say “chance” they mean bring a floatation device.

By the time you were in eyesight of the front steps of the Administration building it was pouring – it was freezing. You were soaked.

Paisley shirt – corduroy pants – blue suede boots.- stuck to your skin.

Put them together and they spelled a bad impression of a wet rat on acid.

Everybody else had umbrellas and raincoats – not you. You looked like you sprang a leak.

Lunch was history – the brown paper bag had disintegrated on the way to your locker. Peanut Butter and Grape Jelly became a multi-colored sponge encased in wet wax paper dripping off your hands. You weren’t crazy about Peanut Butter and Grape Jelly anyway, but you missed breakfast and you had visions of chewing on tree bark to get something bearing a resemblance to a food group to the pit of your soggy and empty stomach.

You were destined to be miserable that day. You had a better excuse than “dog ate my homework” – you had runny black letters smeared on a ball of soaked paper.

You got sympathy from your teachers. The others, not so much.

When Lunch rolled around you were directed to the Auditorium with everybody else in school to sit, eat, stare and wonder.

You wondered – you discovered, when corduroy gets wet it stinks – wet suede boots smell like a Holstein cow. Your shirt doesn’t retain color very well. Your underwear has a mind of its own and now you know what it feels like to piss yourself, walking like a normal person. You hair, which you have spent days getting to stay flat is now drying, sticking straight up. You are looking like a weather vane with a personality disorder.

Friends offered to raid the boys gym for towels. Girls, the mean ones who always try to trip you as you pass them on the aisle of the bus, are roaring with laughter. You have revenge planted in your brain.

In the fifty minutes it takes Lunch to go from start to finish, you have gone from soaked to damp. People no longer need to hold their nose when they pass you in the hall. Even you stopped making excuses.

Still, you feel pneumonia lurking in your future.

By the time three o’clock rolls around, rain has gone from showers to flooding. Cars barreling down the street sending up tidal waves of rainwater, drenching kids waiting for the bus. Traffic lights are out. However dry you were feeling after lunch has been traded for an extra helping of soaked clothes.

You try and stay out the range of speeding cars as you wait for the light to change – your impression of a wet rat is getting better.

But all of a sudden things got very dry, at least as far as falling rain is concerned. An umbrella has managed to poise itself over your head, offering a respite from the steady assault.

You notice it’s being held by one of the girls who spent the better part of lunch laughing at you. You swore revenge. She upset your plan.

She smiles and apologizes – you look at her – you’re perplexed, but you’ll take kindness wherever you can find it, especially in a howling rain storm.

She strikes up a conversation as you walk in the direction of home – she lives two blocks from you – you admit she’s cute. Maybe life is okay after all.

You part at the corner – you get her number – by now it’s stopped raining – the clouds are breaking up and sun is turning the asphalt street into a field of evaporating wet.

You make it to the front steps just as your throat turns to sandpaper. Your skin feels hot – oh, son of a bitch.

In bed – box of Kleenex – lemon and Honey in a Mason Jar – fistfuls of aspirin – Lipton’s Tea – room reeks of Vicks. Listening to Wolfman Jack on the radio next to you.

There will be days. This was one of them – you can’t explain it – you aren’t going to try.

And while you’re dealing with a cold, here is an hour’s worth of Wolfman Jack from XERB, October 1969.

The post It’s October 1969 – You’re In L.A. – You’re In High School – You’re A Wet Rat appeared first on Past Daily: A Sound Archive of News, History And Music.

It’s October 1969 – You’re In L.A. – You’re In High School – You’re A Wet Rat

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