Huh, you say? You say nobody important in the film industry named Julia died today? Well that’s true (at least to my knowledge). But famed TV chef Julia Child died today at 91, and not only was she one of the founding parents of TV cooking shows, to whom Martha Stewart and the entire Food Network really owe a debt of gratitude, but she was also the most famous alum from my high school. That’s right bitches! I went to the same school as Julia Child. Of course, not a the same time.
When she went to The Branson School in Ross, CA, it was actually The Katharine Branson School, an all-girls boarding school. By the time I got there in the mid-80s, it had been co-ed for a couple years. Sort of. They created this “boys school” called The Mt. Tamalpais School, and although all the classes were co-ed, and for all intents and purposes they were one school (with one faculty and one administration) and everybody simply called the place either “Branson” or KBS/MTS, technically, I suppose, they were still separate. There actually was one noticeable difference between the two “schools” that kind of ruled for us teenage boys: the girls had to wear uniforms (gingham and such); the boys? I think we weren’t allowed to wear t-shirts, but I could be wrong. Otherwise … whatever.
Now see, the Katharine Branson died during my freshman year, and once her living persona was gone from the earth, the board of directors and administration decided that they didn’t need to honor her traditions any longer. So they simply “officially” merged the two schools under the one name: The Branson School. Oh, and they got rid of the girls uniforms.
Actually, I suppose my earlier statement that Child was the most famous alum from my high school isn’t really true anymore. Not too long after I graduated, a young Marin County boy started attending Branson. He went on to Olympic Glory, and then even more impressive, he became the host of a few editions of MTV’s Real World/Road Rules Challenges. His name is Jonny Mosley. Oh yeah. My high school beats your high school’s ass!
OK, not really. I got really tired of my somewhat stuck-up suburban high school a couple years in. And it helped create this utter hatred of suburbia and dislike of Marin County that I still seem to have today. I loved it at first cause, you see, I was a city kid from San Francisco. I commuted to school across the Golden Gate Bridge every day, and whereas every previous school had been one big building, Branson was a really pretty 14 acre campus. You had to walk outside to go from class-to-class. And it was secluded and quiet; and they had a great cafeteria, and a fantastic theater (although it’s nothing compared to the ridiculously professional facilities at Stuyvesant High here). And even though my middle-to-upper-middle class background still made me the “poor” kid, I didn’t actually notice the Heathers-like environment for at least a year or so.
Why am I ranting about high school? Maybe because I’m going home to see family this evening: often a somewhat precarious situation. And since I’ve left San Francisco in 1988, both of my parents have moved across the Bay to Marin. (Separately of course; I’m a child of the 70s — the age of divorce. Don’t tell me your parents are still together. That’s just weird!)
So … uhm … yeah … R.I.P. Julia. And thanks for the food. Yeah … that’s what this post was about.
Out of Focus 