Sandy High School: Where Mr. Page Pysched Out Sophomoric Behavior
The late Jim Page had a stage actor’s presence, relaying conditioned routine to teens through discussion on cheese-chasing rats and Pavlov’s Dogs. He exemplified Mount Hood culture.
Like a ’Nam sergeant in need of five, the psychology teacher digs for a cigarette.
He’s stressed.
Tight chutes of gray-blue mist into drizzle dotting a student body oblivious to rain. Toward the river bluff, smoke fades into tall firs, the same old world known to ox-cart pioneers, as Mr. Page gathers himself for a lesson on World War I trenches.
Rewind the 16-millimeter projector.
The lesson on Pavlov’s Dogs starts out like gang-busters but fizzles with Friday night party buzz. A crescendo of chatter is loosening the veteran teacher’s grip. Perturbed, he walks out the door to a parking lot fronting Beers Avenue, just ahead of the bell.
“See ya, Mr. Page,” a couple sophomores say in passing outside the modular building, more like a trailer house to be ridiculed by Dr. Lecter during quid-pro-quo cross-table repartee. That February night, between McDonald’s and Thriftway, back-seat sports will be in play, when cheap shoes mingle with cutting-edge hightops, black and red, bounces to their steps . . .
. . . Some of these teens are in unbuttoned checkered shirts, as in a yet-to-come album on family dysfunction, Pearl Jam’s “Ten.” Off gravel roads joining Highway 211 and Wildcat Mountain Drive, garage bands search for an even flow, escaping through scraped-off bong resin, last-ditch tokes to school nights. In the 1980s, tax levees on education are shot down with regularity in a town where Democrats have no clue on voters’ whims in a once-robust logging thoroughfare where big-city Subarus pull up to cinderblock Joe’s Donuts as a pit stop to luminous Mount Hood. The dormant volcano looms like a montage to Paramount cinema. Its glacial waters corridor is fair game for dazed-and-confused muscle cars driven by such Pioneers as downhill racer Bill Johnson: “Listen to that baby purr,” he says in film after winning gold.
Green foliage conceals police cruisers at night.
“Gotta see your license and registration,” local cop Ed King tells a junior behind the wheel of a Cutlass Supreme. The speed trap is off the LDS parking lot, prime make-out territory. “Clocked you doing 35 in a 20 zone.”
“Sorry?”
“You didn’t listen very well, did you?”
Outlets ease pain. In 1983, the wrestling team is coming off a runners-up finish at state, shortly before which thick-necked upperclassmen with names like Topliff, Kearney, Swanson, Paul and Roeder visualize half-nelsons and pancakes at lunchtime, sweating off match-day weight through oranges eaten in lettermen’s jackets.
(photo/Ken Barton, The Sandy Post)
State-bound Rod Smith learned through true-force teammates as a freshman in 1983. During practice in 1986, grappler Jeff Bailey broke his nose, hence the mask. Nobody dared mess with Smith in Sandy High hallways. Likewise, Chris Page—Mr. Page’s son—confidently strolled school corridors in a letterman’s jacket, going on to wrestle at state. Bailey, again by mistake, broke the nose of teammate and district champion Aaron George.
(Sandy High ‘86 yearbook photo)
Chris Page, the son, wrestled at state in 1986. The Welches resident is owner of Pages Mt. Hood Auto and Tire, its title dedicated to his parents’ long-time involvement in community events.
(Sandy High ‘86 yearbook photo)
Broken nose No. 2: “We were doing three-versus-one endurance/conditioning training,” said ’86 graduate Aaron George, pictured with eye patch, a standout football player too. “Caught a knee which collapsed my right sinus cavity. Didn’t get it fixed until 25 years later.”
(Sandy High ‘86 yearbook photo)
A talented baseball hitter from Orange County (Ca.) who gave up LA for Sandy, Jeff Bailey broke not one but two noses during ’86 wrestling practice. “Yes, I broke (Smith’s nose). Not sure I want to remind him it was me. I also broke Aaron's nose and gave him a huge black eye.”
The big red stitched S cuts an athlete some slack. But in 1985, nobody intervenes in the cafeteria when a theatrical senior says “Sure am” to a point-blank provocation on orientation. His nose steams crimson after the single punch, thrown at a less civilized table belonging to junior scum. Drops dilute a 60-cent cheese soup (and bread) withdrawn from vending machines. A shy junior brunette, the one a timorous senior has a crush on, doesn’t look up from her sack-lunch sandwich, eating as fast as she can. He’s at the mostly jocks ‘seniors-only’ table, the one nearest the hall, where a junior is permitted to sit. Slumping on occasion to an alpha few, the sculpted 17-year-old does sports, is in Honor’s Society, adores Journey and reads Stephen King. He’s in.
At Sandy High School.
***
That Pavlovian day, the veteran teacher is dressed as usual in tight Levi’s with belt buckle, a single-hue collared shirt and signature brown cowboy boots, giving off a tough-guy vibe. In hallways, he is measuredly social. Acute sensitivity is a dead-poets custom more reserved to English teachers. Mr. Page, for his part, says things that get students to think, stimulating off-cuff debate on whether the use of armpit deodorants is tied to intake of industrial chemicals. Upright posture heightens his five-foot-seven-maybe stature, complemented by a turquoise pendant.
Fashion recall is prone to fade after four decades, but Page’s delivery does not, words enunciated as clearly as a stage actor’s aside, when a cowpoke heel pivots to class.
“I haven’t thought about those boots!” wrote son Chris Page via a text message last week. “I don’t know why he wore those. He was no cowboy.”
Jim Page died of a sudden heart attack in 1997 at age 49. After getting his master’s at what’s now known as Western Oregon State University, he and his family in 1977 moved from Maupin, Ore., to the west-side Mount Hood community of Welches. Page taught history and psychology at Sandy High, helping out as a football and wrestling coach.
“Growing up in Welches close to the golf course was the best,” says Page, an ’86 graduate of Sandy High. “I’m very grateful he brought us to this side of Mount Hood.”
Mr. Page did not serve in the Vietnam War. “He did have several close friends go, however,” his son says. “The way I understand it is that he did not want to go and was barely able to get around it.”
***
Fresh off lunch in 1984, sophomores have sifted into their seats, spiced by a few juniors.
“Alright, we all have routines we follow,” Page turns to the fourth-period class. “We pour our dog pet food, generating what’s called an unconditioned response. The dog hears the crunchies drop and automatically comes running, just as we humans jerk away from a hot oven. These are responses that don’t need learning. Can you think of some others?”
The class, like Horshack to Mr. Kotter, perks up: “Ooh, ooh, Mr. Page.” Hands shoot up.
Conditioned learning, the tougher part of the lesson, is next: “But could we train Fido—think about this for a second—to associate feeding time through the use of a ringing bell, say?”
Across the semester, Page makes psychology fun, explaining how rats display human-like behavior when sniffing out cheese tucked away in a maze. Instant gratification, as with sweet text messages and chocolate bars, is incentive to complete a task.
As is to be a teacher, Page flares up every now and then. When a kid scrawls Van Halen onto a hand-painted mural titled “Mustard gas kills,” depicting World War I soldiers stumbling over worm-infested corpses, a dead-serious scream of “Hey” freezes the culprit in his script.
***
Up the mountain in Welches, Chris Page is owner of Pages Mt. Hood Auto and Tire, its title dedicated to decades of family community service, including his dad’s. Married for 35 years, he and his wife, Lisa, have two grown children, James and Jennifer. As Mr. Page did, he steps out to Douglas firs and a whole lot of drizzle.
It’s the Mount Hood Corridor.
Chris Page is owner of Pages Mt. Hood Auto and Tire.
