Table of Young Ladies & Two Boys

Silly Valley ramble from El Camino Real to Stanford

Last week, I may have saved the sanity of five high school students. I couldn’t help overhearing four young ladies at a restaurant complaining long and loud about a classmate who always wanted everything her way, texted ultra-long messages, never wanted to talk about anything complex face-to-face. They were coming to a conclusion they had to ignore her. Cut her off. Give up trying to be friends. They felt bad about it. Frustrated. Sad.

l’d been listening for over a half hour adding up facts. Paid my bill, walked over to their table and said something I’ve never said to strangers. “I think I can help you.”

Told them all the troublesome classmate’s characteristics are classic marks of someone who never learned body language. Perhaps ADHD. But, more likely not enough face to face - maskless! - interaction with peers as that table of young ladies clearly had had for many years. They’d not stayed at home cowering from Spring 2020 to Fall 2022 afraid of covid. They’d been out and about socializing with each other. Playing sports. Running. Told them they were lucky and smart to have such a clearly tight knit and supportive group of four old friends.

Told them I’d taught junior high science many years ago. That humans learn fine details of human body language the most as their brains go through puberty. How to distinguish real anger from simple annoyance. Their eyes popped open and they started smiling widely and nodding. I said when kids and teens spend too much time with nose-on-screens instead of interacting in the real world with real humans they become handicapped. A brain wiring issue similar to people trying unsuccessfully to learn a foreign language without an accent which gets harder with age for most. I suggested a few ways to offer gently that handicapped student some help. Advised do NOT submit to her destructive coping mechanisms which prolong her disability such as her refusal to communicate face to face on complex issues. Just like dealing with an alcoholic. Tough love.

**

1984, the first cell phone I ever saw was a hard wired Motorola brick in my Dad’s car. Crazy expensive. He used it only for work and kept all his calls very short.

By 1998, small handheld cell phones had appeared on the market with text messaging capability. First ones I saw were in the hands of Palo Alto High School students eating lunch outside the (now closed - killed by the lockdowns) Village Cheese House at Town & Country Village across the street from their school. They could buy a fresh baked roll and a container of pizza sauce for about $2 or a bit more for a half sandwich made with three slices of bread.

A table of students all with cell phones, each one crazy expensive and using the brand new 2G cell technology. They were all eyes on the tiny screens, two thumbs tapping fast sending messages to each other. None looking at the others’ eyes or bodies. Glued to the tiny screens. Hunched over the screens. A chill went through me. “This CAN’T be a good thing!,” my brain screamed at me.

I scanned the faces of the high school students without cells in their hands. They looked miserable and ashamed. I did not buy a cell for at least another three years. I’d long had an answering service and then a voicemail machine at my office. All the cells I’ve owned have been the cheapest available, mostly flip phones, and I never use them for internet access.

The heart of Silicon Valley. So many of those students’ parents chasing the Next New Thing. Keeping up with the Joneses. About five years later, suicide clusters broke out for the first time ever at Palo Alto High School on the north side of town and Gunn High School on the south side of town. Teenage angst and loneliness run amok. The Dot Com economic crash didn’t help. Many killed themselves by dashing out in front of a fast moving commuter train running between San Francisco and San Jose. So many are on mind-altering drugs. Taught to pop a pill or buy the Next New Thing and Be Happy!

I read the local newspapers to see what each local teen is doing after graduation. Never noticed any joining the US military or Coast Guard but for a few right after 911. Next to none to a military academy. None to the US Merchant Marine Academy. A few join the Israeli military as dual citizens. Most went to good colleges. Few to none to any trade schools for a hands-on career, a choice - so far - never mentioned in the local newspapers. It’s been more than 10 years since Palo Alto High School shut down its FAA mechanics program. I doubt any of my local high schools offer home economics or shop classes. None have Future Farmers of America classes or clubs.

***

Two “Stanford” boys’ faces popped in my mind. One, a shaggy-haired slouching boy with unkempt surfer-slacker-teenager clothes I’d seen on TV being air kissed and hugged by US Congressional representatives. The son of tenured Stanford University professors, at least one a known long time Democrat Party fundraising operative. That boy is now sitting in jail for his FTX Ponzi scheme which funneled millions of dollars to Democrat politicians for recent elections.

Decided to see if the road blocks, police, and private security cars were still by his parents’ house where he hung out with an ankle bracket awaiting trial until he busted his bail conditions one too many times. No security. No lights on.

His family home sits on a cul-de-sac at the San Juan Hill faculty housing neighborhood. The best Stanford Trust leased land for faculty housing on campus. Two houses away is the University President’s house. Easy for a shaggy-haired boy as a teen living in such a place to feel like a royal princeling. Untouchable. Surrounded by academic royalty on what looks like a vast country estate with manicured gardens and rustic deer parks on satellite imagery. Its own police force. Golf course with a club house offering great views of San Francisco Bay. Horse stables. Faculty club pool a couple blocks away from the FTX boy’s home. No need to pay property taxes, so far, unless Santa Clara County prevails in its ongoing litigation against Stanford.

Always very pale skinned on TV. Likely his eyes were glued on computer and TV screens as soon as his baby’s eyes could focus on a screen. I bet his ability to read body language is close to nil. He lives in his own brain’s echo chamber like an eternal two year old. Always blames others or unexpected circumstances for any troubles he finds himself in. Odds are high his brain will never grow up. A Peter Pan.

***

Drove downhill to visit the one and only true Prince of Stanford. It’s namesake, Leland DeWitt Stanford, Jr, who died in Italy age 16 while on a long vacation with his parents. Born in 1868 to a couple who’d been trying for about 18 years to have children. His father had already served as a California Governor before the boy was born. The boy’s entire life was one of doting parents, private tutors, and servants. Private rail cars, the Gulfstream executive jets of his time, thanks to his father’s company getting the federal contract during the US Civil War to build the western side of the first transcontinental railroad across the USA.

He and his parents are buried together in a campus mausoleum with no street signage to show where it is. Usually once a year someone puts fresh flowers between the mausoleum’s metal gate and its solid metal doors. Left to rot, turn brown, and desiccate for a whole year or more before replacement. There is strong evidence a University President had Leland, Jr’s mother, Jane, murdered in 1905. A touchy subject for the campus’ public relations staff.

A spitting rain day so instead of bushwacking from a medical building’s parking lot to the mausoleum I went to the campus museum holding his childhood things. Discovered a museum members’ invite-only event was going on. Food & refreshment with private talk for the opening day of a modern art exhibit honoring those who work with their hands. Linen covered small cocktail tables in a hallway and bigger meal tables outside on a lawn, all with little glass vases of fresh flowers and a men’s modern silk tie as decoration. Waiters head to toe in black, each wearing a black tie. A Sunday afternoon. Not one guest at the museum’s member party wore a business suit or tie.

One can pay to be a museum member and bit more for special mingle events like “Art + Coffee private morning coffee, pastries and mingling followed by a private gallery tour led by a museum curator.” Art + Wine “for an evening of wine, appetizers, and an art-focused talk or tour with a museum curator.” Art + Wine is twice year. “Private Art Viewing” for “Members at the Artists Circle level … a private viewing of new art acquisitions… once a year.”

I snapped photos of the members lawn event from a 2nd floor balcony. Saw tortilla chips and dips. 3 kinds of non-alcoholic beverages in self-serve containers. Something in a hot dish. Listened to an organizer in a polka dot black & white sweater usher all wearing a special wristband inside for a lecture in a private room with a security guard at the door.

Entering a gallery I thought I saw Apollo moonwalking astronauts. Nope, farm workers with loose clothes, hoodies, baseball caps, and masks. “Legal Tender,” a huge painting on food produce boxes by an artist who did migrant farmwork while struggling to make a living as an artist.

A glued mini-tower of forks by an artist who’d polished endless silverware at a bakery. I wondered how would one keep that clean. So easy to become a dusty spider-webbed mess. Was that the artist’s intent? Is it glued or just a big puzzle jammed together? So tempting to bump it to find out!

Bright pink pants, shirts, ties, and matching uniform caps tacked to a wall.

Then the Stanford family’s two small rooms. What might they think about the glued/jammed fork tower? Or the clothes tacked to a wall? Patrons staring at a bright pink video screen?

My favorite Leland Jr’s painting by a professional artist of a beloved pet dog, a terrier, under redwood tree fronds was not on display. But there was his death mask next to his parents’ ones. Many of his collections of natural history and ancient things from Greece, Rome, and Egypt. Gloomy and depressing lighting for yet another rearrangement of his and his parents artifacts. Many items were hidden in drawers one had to open to see in extremely dim light such as a fan of his mother Jane. Long thick and glossy black ostrich feathers mounted on slats covered with pieces of iridescent abalone shell pieces. Another drawer, a 1901 wages receipt to one of her Palo Alto Stock Farm workers for $40.

No projected video on these death masks (yet) like the talking statutes at the Disneyland Haunted House attraction.

Walked out of the Museum imaging how happy Jane and Leland would be that their boy is remembered. By all accounts he was smart and good natured. Very interested in the natural world and art. A credit to his parents.

Drove home and counted the RVs for local homeless and under-paid Stanford workers lining State Route 82 (El Camino Real) by the big Stanford sports sign at the corner of Embarcadero Road so very long at that crossroads by the campus’ semi-pro football stadium. A university or a sports organization? Is the football coach paid more than the university president or faculty with patent royalties? I could imagine Leland, Sr. and Jane scowling at that sign and the RVs. A continuing long cat fight between the State highway department and the City of Palo Alto for how to get rid of the “casual” campers for use of El Camino’s curbs instead for bike lanes.

Would Jane and Leland, Sr. like the idea of a gladiator combat-style stadium being bigger and taller than the Memorial Church (known as “MemChu” by the hip students) which they built with its four central pillars under its dome named for their parents? Filled with Italian gold mosaics they commissioned for that Byzantine-style church. Big stone tiled Alpha and Omega symbols under the dome, too.

I think they preferred croquet. Maybe lawn tennis. Played in their Sunday finery. Leland, Sr. with his cigar and his boy in a Lord Fauntleroy costume with striped hose.

A patch of blue sky appeared and a rainbow arced over my road home. Hummed a song sung by Kermit the Frog. “Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me…”