El Dorado High School in Placerville was built on Canal Street in 1928. The main building was beautifully detailed and after a while took on the ivy league look with actual ivy climbing its sturdy brick walls around a grand colonial main entrance. However, it was not sturdy enough for the earthquake regulations of the 1970s, for the old building was torn down and replaced with a modern, safe, office park styled box and very few windows. Where before there was character, charm, majesty and a proper theater auditorium, there was now windowless rooms split into quarters from section to section and zero personality. There were other buildings on the campus built in various decades as the population grew, such as institutionalized ‘50s buildings that emulated a penitentiary, sitting on the hill over the original building’s site. Across the street were single story buildings of red brick that housed a band, choir and drama room. Down a slope were industrial facilities that housed the mettle, wood and auto shops and beyond that an art building.
When the old theater of the main building was lost in the rebuild, the Drama class was stuck with a simple classroom. Drama instructor Jim Garmire built a small stage with wings and simple lighting equipment in order to give the students a semblance of a stage experience. Later, when the metal shop was excised, the Drama class took over the more spacious hall to create “Studio ‘81” in 1981 and the old Drama room was given over to Health and Safety class. As a child I spent some time on that little classroom stage as a member of the Placerville Children’s Theatre, but Studio ‘81 became my haven and theatrical life during high school.
Back in 1928 and earlier Bennett Park next door to the high school was a horse race track. You’d never guess it today, for eventually the track was loaned to the school for a running track and football field. Tennis courts and a second field used for soccer was added on the hill above. A small gym attached to the original building became the second “girls” gym and a new full sized gym was added next to the drive leading to Bennett Park. Finally, it got to the point where all the possible land was used up and so in the 1980s temporary units began to be squeezed into the smaller corners that allowed for it. The result of all this was a mish-mash of a sprawling campus––a patchwork quilt made from disparaging interests and eras of thought.
I would say the school had no identity, but its sports teams unified the place with blue and white and plenty of dances and home games. Also, the school was the center of the county for a long time and even the addition of Ponderosa High built fifteen minutes down the road in Shingle Springs was no match for the giant El Dorado––king of the twentieth century. Although, Ponderosa did become El Dorado’s most popular rival in sporting events. There was a feeling of empowerment being at El Dorado, for the numbers of students there made for a great diversity of activities and regardless of what it was, we seemed to win more than we lost in any competition of any kind.
When I entered the school as a freshman there was a young new Drama teacher, Pete Miller. He had the energy to elevate the product from what the department had previously put out. He improved elements of the metal shop Studio ‘81 to make for a better experience and concentrated on one major production each semester. When he began there was a single period of Drama, but a phenomenon was approaching––my class, which for some reason consisted of a large number of kids aching for a Drama class. With the current class already filled with upper class men, a Beginning Drama class was added for my second semester and the following year there were three periods of Drama on the schedule. By the time I was a senior there were six periods of Drama out of a seven period day. That is quite a bit of growth in four years and it was because the productions were so winning. They were done on a shoe string, but they were inventive and well rehearsed. Perhaps the production that most promoted Drama as a primary attraction was the musical Grease. The extraordinarily popular film version, still vivid in the minds of everyone, made the stage version a novelty that could not be missed. And it was the only production during my time where we added an extra performance by popular demand. Our production wasn’t perfect, but it was plenty of fun and we executed it with enough energy to make up for our shortcomings. That was in my sophomore year fall semester and the next semester the classes began to bulge.
During my younger brother’s time at El Dorado, the Drama class offerings expanded to include two periods of Advanced Drama and an Advanced Placement Drama to handle all the interest. This high time of high school theater settled back into a less ambitious plan eventually, but to this day there are enough kids funneling into Drama to keep a full day’s schedule of classes. Pete Miller moved on to the new Union Mine High School when it was built in the 1990s and had a strong voice in the plans of the building of a proper theater facility there. When he left, my old high school chum Paul Tomei, who I had met doing a production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, had moved back to the Sacramento area and was available to take over the Drama program at El Dorado. He still produces productions in that old metal shop, but he has substantially upgraded the building to resemble a properly finished theater. It no longer looks like the Drama class is squatting in an abandoned warehouse. The “bowl” area surrounding the outside of Studio ‘81 that leads up to the parking lot and Canal Street has been tiered and equipped to be an outdoor theater where Paul usually puts on his spring productions. The plans for this outdoor theater were long in the works and the first version of it was helped by Pete Miller before his departure, but the final construction of the venue was completed after Paul arrived on the scene.
Further down the hill in El Dorado Hills grew a tiny high school called Oak Ridge, which took some of the pressure off the over crowed Ponderosa High School. Years later Union Mine in El Dorado City, just south west of Placerville, came along to relieve El Dorado High’s population problems and with these changes, El Dorado High School lessened in value as the king of the county. In 1928 the high school was the town center of activity and now the growth of the county, though still “small town” by anyone’s standards, has a school district of four comprehensive high schools, making it difficult to see El Dorado’s impact as a hub of county activity. Although, where theater is concerned, Paul Tomei at El Dorado High School still produces a show that draws a crowd beyond the immediate student body population. The duel spaces of the outdoor theater and Studio ‘81 provide a variety of entertainment and feeling of event that above everything else, keeps El Dorado High an influence that can still affect the cultural life of Placerville.
My senior year was significant as anyone’s senior year might be, but the year that I most identify as quintessential to my high school experience, as well as the most representative of the 1980s as a decade, was my sophomore year. When I think back on what makes the 1980s what they were, it is wrapped up in 1983 and 1984. I assume that a small town 1984 was different than a big city 1984, but when I think of the pop culture that defines the era, I find that El Dorado High School was right in step with most of it.
On the other hand, a scan of the 1984 Riffle (the pet name for El Dorado’s yearbook), shows a juxtaposition of styles that are at once hold overs from the 1970s and of-the-moment trends. Most of the boys, for example, were not yet ready to get rid of the feathered hair parted in the center and hanging over the ears the way Shaun Casidy used to wear it, even though GQ Magazine was filled with models whose hair was clipped short on the sides, tapered in back with a little more on top, which was nearly the way men wore their hair in the 1940s. Some boys were paying attention, however, and looked very fashion forward and one of the chief guide books to style that was talked about and consumed by all was GQ Magazine. Being told that you looked very “GQ” was high praise indeed and references to the magazine can be found in all of my yearbook editions.
Comparative to current teen trends, most of the kids of 1984 were rather well dressed. Everywhere you looked there were pink and blue argyle sweaters, 501 jeans and Sperry Topsiders. There were Izod polo shirts doused with Polo cologne and knit ties squared at the bottom. The girls took to Flashdance layering and short New Wave hairdos when they had the courage to leave their Farrah Fawcett manes on the salon floor. Others took on a feminine version of the preppy boy’s uniform of jeans, loafers and argyle. Looking back at it we all seemed to emulate John Hughes movies, which of course echoed our lives better than any pop culture product ever did for any era. Out between the small gym and the big gym was the smoking area populated by a group most referred to as the “Stoners.” This doesn’t mean they were actually getting stoned, but they took the hard rock path, were usually found in Remedial Reading and were very much the minority from the preppy majority.
Some of the preppy kids were getting stoned––at over crowed house parties on Saturday nights when the parents were out for the weekend. Word got around that there was going to be a keg and some alum would return from college to supply the weed. Some kids showed up just to be seen, but kept out of the drugs and beer knowing that they would have to return home sober for parental inspection and others dove in and got thoroughly smashed. I attended one such party after a performance of Grease. I was fifteen and my parents didn’t want me to go, but I begged and my mother agreed that I could stay until midnight. My pal Laura was allowed to go since my Dad would provide our ride. I actually thought it would be more of a cast party, but it turned out to be an out of control bash at the home of my junior high math teacher. She had a teenage son, Pete, who was a senior and he had thought through this party pretty well, but I could tell it had grown bigger than he ever thought it would. Laura and I mostly observed, but when the beer started to get sprayed around the living room from the top of the stairs and a guy dropped pot into the stove burner by accident, I felt a lot of sympathy for Pete, who would have to somehow return the house to normal before his parents returned. Laura and I hid under the table so the spray of beer wouldn’t saturate us. I didn’t want to smell like alcohol when my Dad showed up.
Upstairs, a sober friend was guarding the parents’ room and baby-sitting the large dog. This was probably the smartest thing Pete had done within this party of stupidity, for if the parents were to notice anything out of place, it would surely have been in their bedroom. Laura and I went out into the front yard to wait for my Dad so he wouldn’t come to the door and see what kind of party was going on. While we were waiting, I saw Pete walk off down the long driveway to get away from the madness for a while. You could just see in his body language that things had gone beyond his control. I could imagine his mom making dinner and then sniffing the air as the green fog of marijuana came rising out of the oven and winced on his behalf.
Shortly after midnight my Dad showed up and we drove back home with me feeling I had gotten away with something, though I had been little more than an observer. Apparently the experience frightened me off from begging to go to such parties for I didn’t ever bother to try again until I was a senior and then I had the power to drive myself and the ease of my parents having allowed me some extra slack by age seventeen. This party followed a performance of How to Succeed and was given by the drummer, Eric, whose parents were out of town. Laura and I showed up and low and behold it was much less a cast party than a half the school party. Word had gotten around that the party was a “kegger.” We wandered about and realized we didn’t know half the people and the younger members of our cast weren’t even there. We left early with a few others and had a better time together over fries and milkshakes at Denny’s.
Sophomore year was the beginning of the Michael Jackson jokes because the “Thriller” album was all the rage. Along with the “Footloose” album, “Thriller” was the soundtrack of high school. My Science teacher started calling me WMJ (White Michael Jackson) and a few other teachers picked up on that. I didn’t mind really, for it never seemed like a putdown and I kind of enjoyed the attention. The best trick was that when someone said, “Let’s see you moonwalk,” I could actually do it. However, the constant joking questions such as, “Where’s Billy Jean?”, “Where’s your glove?” and “Your hair grew back fast after that Pepsi fire,” started to become redundant after the first one thousand times. Still, I liked Michael Jackson as much as everyone else in the world and never got tired of the “Thriller” album.
This was also the year of the opening of Placerville Cinema 4 and I spent an awful lot of time with friends at that movie theater. The Empire Theater on Main Street closed almost immediately, though it reopened as a live venue for a time. The new four screen cinema is where I saw all the John Hughes movies, Indiana Jones, Footloose, Terms of Endearment and everything else. Long after I finished college even a four screen cinema couldn’t cut it for Placerville and a bigger and better cineplex opened further down the street, killing Placerville Cinema 4’s business. But, for my high school years, that four screen cinema was new, ran first run films, and was hopping with teenage activity. We even took a science field trip there to see Never Cry Wolf. I’m sure I was in that theater every other week all through high school.
Between the school dances, school plays, homework and my film making hobby, my sophomore year was busy. I also had a regular group of friends that I spent all my time with including a rather hefty party schedule. Themed parties at Jossette’s house were clean, chaperoned and really a lot of fun. We danced, played party games and dressed in costumes and basically stayed out of trouble. This sounds square, but I look back on it and only remember that we were industrious and creative to be making our own fun and we were pretty happy about it. When I graduated in 1986 the ‘80s weren’t over, but I remember them as being over. College didn’t seem like the ‘80s at all. The ‘80s were school dances in the big gym, running the track in P.E., blue and white cheerleaders, tacky homecoming floats made out of colored tissue paper, pink and blue argyle and New Wave hair, Grease and How to Succeed, John Hughes films at the Placerville Cinema 4, “Thriller,” and rows of orange lockers. El Dorado High School.
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