The Bone Bazaar Journals
Airplanes or Guitars
The Houston Independent School District (HISD) magnet programs were designed to desegregate public schools and allow for more diversity in the classrooms. The magnet program at Sterling made up 5% of the non-black population at a primarily black school.
I attended Ross S. Sterling High School in the 9th grade. Sterling was the home of HISD's high school aviation magnet program, a magnet school for the Aviation Sciences.
In addition to a regular curriculum, magnet students were required to take FAA approved courses, before being eligible to take up to 30 hours of flight time. Students could then take the FAA written examination. It was feasible to graduate high school with a pilot license.
I wasn’t zoned to go to Sterling. I would have to wake up super early to go to a nearby middle school, and wait for a bus that would take me to my high school.
It would still be dark outside while I waited for the bus. The bus ride to school was about an hour. It wasn’t ideal, but it made my father happy.
My father had pressed me to go to Sterling because he had always dreamed of flying planes. This was my first year of high school, and we had just moved to Houston from Los Angeles the year prior.
It was my father’s rationale that we could each get our pilot licenses and start a family business in aviation together. We never really saw eye-to-eye on that. I just didn't share the same passion for aviation.
Unfortunately, I would eventually crush my father’s dream because the only thing I discovered at Sterling was a love for rock & roll.
In theory, my first professional gig came during my 9th grade year at Sterling. I met a girl named Barbara Ann Morales. (We called her BAM for short.)
Barbara, and her friend, Anastasia Simotas, would give me fifty cents per song to sing Journey songs for lunch money. I would sing them acapella. After 2-3 songs, I would go eat my lunch, very similar to singing for one’s supper in the literal sense.
It was also Barbara who turned me on to Van Halen. She let me borrow her Van Halen II vinyl record so I could check them out. During that weekend of listening to VH II, it was decided; I was destined to be in a rock band.
My three closest friends at the time were Michael Tondee, Brion Taylor, and Kevin Lockler. They were also part of the aviation magnet program.
Michael, Brion, Kevin and I were the outcasts. We would tie bandanas to our legs, neck, and arms and do split kicks off of car hoods. We were discovering our rock & roll swagger.
We did anything to attract female attention. After all, we were rockers.
Cheryl Maywald was also a student at Sterling. She was hot, and she shared the same love for Van Halen. It was inevitable that we would start dating.
Cheryl had a manila folder with magazine articles and newspaper clippings of anything Van Halen that she could find. Somehow, that folder found its way into my possession, and I continued to add to it for years to come. Remember, this is well before the internet, cell phones, and personal computers.
Meanwhile, Kevin and I would talk about learning guitar.
Kevin’s brother, Ronnie, played guitar and would show him rock licks. It was because of Kevin’s brother that I got turned on to Led Zeppelin. I remember wanting to play guitar so that Kevin and I could start a band together.
I begged my parents for a guitar, but the best that I would get was my father’s hand-me-down 12-string acoustic that was only strung for 6-strings because my father didn’t know how to tune a 12-string.
My dad gave me his guitar and a Mel Bay chord chart and told me that was all I was getting. End of story. We were poor at the time, but I’ll save that for another post.
Out of desperation, I reluctantly accepted this gift, and set out to become a rock star. I was 14 years old. It was the ONLY thing that I ever wanted to be. I mean literally, that was it.
I had made up my mind that if I didn’t get signed by the time I was 18, I was going to quit playing forever. It’s pretty obvious that plan didn’t work.
I must have really surprised my parents with my persistence, because eventually, they bought me a Sears & Roebuck half-body electric guitar and a small amp. It wasn’t much, but it was heaven to me.
That guitar squealed with horrible feedback, but in my mind, it took me to the next level. Kevin and I would continue to push each other to keep learning and practicing. In the end, we lived too far away from each other to ever put a band together.
Unfortunately, with this new-found passion came the sad realization that I could not move forward with any attempts of a career in aviation. It was clear. My goal was rock star or bust. (Had I known that Bruce Dickinson would one day get his pilot license while simultaneously fronting Iron Maiden, I may have reconsidered this decision.)
I confided in my mother at first, and then we broke the news to my father. He was crushed. It took a long time for him to get over it. Was I sad about it? Yes, but I was focused. I needed to pursue my own dreams.
I needed to go to Milby high school. That’s where my neighborhood friends went. That’s where David Robinson went. David was a rocker too, and he told me there were others like us at Milby.
The downside of being at Sterling, was all my friends also had to be bussed in. They all lived in different parts of a very big city. Way out of reach for us to hang out on weekends or after school, and at this point, we were all too young to drive.
So at the end of the school year I would say goodbye. I was changing schools and starting my new direction as a rock star.