stunned me; the message so clearly seemed to be: No matter what the score of this game, you are the losers.
The feeling at the school after the article ran was that the cheer had been taken out of context. Parents and teachers pointed out that Lakeside students, through volunteer work, did a lot of good. They said that a chant given at a sporting event wasnât a reflection of the student body as a whole. I never heard anyone refute or take up the actual content of the cheer. It took me years to realize that sometimes awkward jokes contain nuggets of truth that otherwise go unexpressed.
The first Lakeside-related function I attended after my admission was a welcome party for our incoming class, held at the home of one of my new classmates, a mansion overlooking Puget Sound. It was the beginning of a total-immersion course in the sociology of Seattleâs upper crust.
I quickly learned that a core group of kids all knew each other. Many had grown up in the Highlands or Broadmoor, a gated community near Lake Washington protected by a ten-foot-high hedge (itâs just northeast of William Groseâs East Madison section of the Central Area). Broadmoor borders the neighborhood of Madison Park, snug on Lake Washington. Kids who grew up in this area knew each other from daycare, kindergarten, soccer teams, the youth symphony, summer camp, piano lessons, ballroom dance classes, and summers at the Seattle Tennis Club, a short walk away on the lakeshore. Some families had condos in Sun Valley or memberships in the Seattle Yacht Club. The web of Lakesidersâ relationships mimicked those of their parents, businessmen and lawyers who saw each other after work at the golf club inside Broadmoorâs gated walls or downtown at the Washington Athletic Club, and moms who got acquainted through memberships in charitable organizations and private school parentsâ associations.
After growing up in a suburban development built in the 1960s, I was suddenly aware of the gradations of wealth. In the suburbs, everything seemed the sameâthe houses were the same size; the kids all had the same toys; everyone played football or baseball in the cul-de-sac, and rode their dirt bikes on the tracks in the woods; everyone went to the public school a few blocks away except for a few kids in the Christian or Catholic schools.
We lived in a two-level, four-bedroom home that was painted a shade of green very close to the color of a lot of refrigerators from that era. Our front yard was landscaped with rhododendrons, ferns, beauty bark, and a narrow strip of sodded grass. Our neighbors included a veterinarian, two community college teachers, and a Boeing engineer. When we wanted an exotic meal, we got takeout from the Chinese restaurant. Some of my friends went to temple rather than church, but my mom explained that Jews were like us Catholics except for some slight differences, such as the fact that they went to a synagogue, and that they didnât believe in Jesus.
Iâd been an awkward, shy, and unpopular kid at public elementary school. I hoped that Lakeside would be a chance to get off on a new foot, but it took less than an hour at the welcome party to realize I wasnât going to easily slide into things. I lacked the language, style, and common points of reference.
Though there were others in the class in the same position I was in, the group of interconnected kids quickly established themselves as the tastemakers. The rest of the kids, from disparate parts of Seattle and its suburbs, had a few choices: the more socially nimble adopted the preppie style and melded right in; a group of bookish kids banded together and formed their own nerdy subculture; a third group, which included me, fell outside the other two groups and so made up a separate lunchroom tribe: the misfitsâ table.
Another regular at the table, Eric Hamptonâthe only black kid in our classâinarguably had the biggest social adjustment to
The feeling at the school after the article ran was that the cheer had been taken out of context. Parents and teachers pointed out that Lakeside students, through volunteer work, did a lot of good. They said that a chant given at a sporting event wasnât a reflection of the student body as a whole. I never heard anyone refute or take up the actual content of the cheer. It took me years to realize that sometimes awkward jokes contain nuggets of truth that otherwise go unexpressed.
The first Lakeside-related function I attended after my admission was a welcome party for our incoming class, held at the home of one of my new classmates, a mansion overlooking Puget Sound. It was the beginning of a total-immersion course in the sociology of Seattleâs upper crust.
I quickly learned that a core group of kids all knew each other. Many had grown up in the Highlands or Broadmoor, a gated community near Lake Washington protected by a ten-foot-high hedge (itâs just northeast of William Groseâs East Madison section of the Central Area). Broadmoor borders the neighborhood of Madison Park, snug on Lake Washington. Kids who grew up in this area knew each other from daycare, kindergarten, soccer teams, the youth symphony, summer camp, piano lessons, ballroom dance classes, and summers at the Seattle Tennis Club, a short walk away on the lakeshore. Some families had condos in Sun Valley or memberships in the Seattle Yacht Club. The web of Lakesidersâ relationships mimicked those of their parents, businessmen and lawyers who saw each other after work at the golf club inside Broadmoorâs gated walls or downtown at the Washington Athletic Club, and moms who got acquainted through memberships in charitable organizations and private school parentsâ associations.
After growing up in a suburban development built in the 1960s, I was suddenly aware of the gradations of wealth. In the suburbs, everything seemed the sameâthe houses were the same size; the kids all had the same toys; everyone played football or baseball in the cul-de-sac, and rode their dirt bikes on the tracks in the woods; everyone went to the public school a few blocks away except for a few kids in the Christian or Catholic schools.
We lived in a two-level, four-bedroom home that was painted a shade of green very close to the color of a lot of refrigerators from that era. Our front yard was landscaped with rhododendrons, ferns, beauty bark, and a narrow strip of sodded grass. Our neighbors included a veterinarian, two community college teachers, and a Boeing engineer. When we wanted an exotic meal, we got takeout from the Chinese restaurant. Some of my friends went to temple rather than church, but my mom explained that Jews were like us Catholics except for some slight differences, such as the fact that they went to a synagogue, and that they didnât believe in Jesus.
Iâd been an awkward, shy, and unpopular kid at public elementary school. I hoped that Lakeside would be a chance to get off on a new foot, but it took less than an hour at the welcome party to realize I wasnât going to easily slide into things. I lacked the language, style, and common points of reference.
Though there were others in the class in the same position I was in, the group of interconnected kids quickly established themselves as the tastemakers. The rest of the kids, from disparate parts of Seattle and its suburbs, had a few choices: the more socially nimble adopted the preppie style and melded right in; a group of bookish kids banded together and formed their own nerdy subculture; a third group, which included me, fell outside the other two groups and so made up a separate lunchroom tribe: the misfitsâ table.
Another regular at the table, Eric Hamptonâthe only black kid in our classâinarguably had the biggest social adjustment to
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