Victoria Wilhelmsen by Rachel Schmauder
Victoria “Vicki” Wilhelmsen (Baraby) (1976-1979)
Vicki Wilhelmsen is 47 years old. She was born and raised in Everett, Washington and grew up with her two older brothers and mother. Vicki’s father passed away when she was 13 years old. She graduated from Cascade High School in 1979, which is where her son Matthew graduated from in 2009 and her other son, Daniel still attends. This is her account of the memories she had from 1976-1979.
Fleetwood Mac was big. That was a lot of the music at the dances at the time. I used to have Kiss Posters on my wall and in my bedroom. It’s funny, them and Aerosmith and AC/DC. Oh yeah, those were big. Stevie Wonder was big back then. He was, well, obviously young back then. He was becoming more popular in that frame of four years, I think. I remember people being amazed that he was as good as he was. Being blind he was just like, like even now it’s like “Whoa,” you know. But back in those days people still had prejudice. People still had the black-white thing going, and so I remember a lot of people didn’t care for him; it was either you liked him or you didn’t like him type of thing.
NASA release the famous “Face on Mars” photo. That was really cool. We talked a lot about that in science and history, of course. It kind of took over class - that was kind of the subject instead of your basic - what they were supposed to be teaching us. We spent a lot of time on that. And I had my history teacher back then was Jack Metcalf. He used to be a politician. I can’t remember what position he had, but it was so cool that he used to work there - he’d been in the Whitehouse before, and he had been in Olympia - and he used to always tell us. He started out class every morning and he had five daughters and he would always start with either daughter number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and tell us a quick little short story. Then he’d tell us something that happened at one time in the Whitehouse or in Olympia - and he was the best teacher for a history class. He didn’t put you to sleep; he was really interesting. He didn’t just make you sit and read a book; he always told us these true stories and everything, so we really got into that. It was fun. American History - believe it or not - was one of the most popular classes. A lot of people don’t get bored in history.
The first personal computer was released then. I don’t really remember that much about it back then, but then I hired into Boeing in ’79 and they started getting computers there and I got to be one of the first ones to go to school to learn how to operate them. That went on for months, and then I turned around and had to train some of the other guys who had to use it on a daily basis.
Religion wasn’t a controversial topic. I just think every once in a while friends to friends would talk about what church did you go to, or what religion you are, but it wasn’t a controversial thing. Although I do remember some kids I’d known since elementary school on up who were Jehovah’s witnesses. They really got not treated nice. They got treated like the plague or something. I do remember that. It wasn’t a big deal if we had holiday celebrations/Christmas celebrations. Not “holiday parties.” That wasn’t a big deal. But, during those things the Jehovah’s witnesses would go sit in the library alone; they didn’t participate though they could have. There weren’t really any different races. I mean, it’s kind of funny like I only had a few black friends. [What would happen if a white girl and a black guy started dating?] Now that didn’t happen back then. I knew a really nice guy friend who was black and had friends that were girls, but he never dated any of them. At dances there was never white & black couples.
There was a strong rivalry between Everett High and Cascade. The bear out front of the cafeteria used to be half the size when I went there. You’ve heard all the paintings and it’s just built up over all this time and they would paint and decorate it with out school colors and I remember telling my husband it’s twice as big as I remember it when I went to Cascade.
There were groups like... pot was a big thing, so you could always tell that group. And there were preps and popular kids and Jocks. You could always tell who was who. Like Nerd played chess; there was a chess club. I was more neutral. I was on the tennis team for a bit and quit after a year because I started working. My dad passed away when I was 13 and my mom worked and I wanted to help any way I could. At school, I was like a T.A. so people kid of thought I was treated special. Like, I T.A’d for my Home-Ec teacher and was allowed with a pass to use her car to go get groceries for the class; that was cool. I never really belonged to any clubs and such. So, I kind of had friends in all groups.
Around then Farrah Faucett was becoming really big, so all the girls wanted their hair longer and wavy, like her feathered, layered look was popular. My hair never did it because mine’s naturally curly. There never really was one main popular hair-do for that time.
After football games, we would “cruise Colby.” It was fun. You met up with friends, usually at Herfy’s Burgers. That was big then. You’d just cruise with the windows down and stop and talk with friends sometimes, and it was just fun to hang out with friends. We did that and hung out at Alfy’s. I hated to work there when my friends wanted to hang out. I was really busy a lot back then.
I took 4 years of Spanish and I was, like, the T.A. for the Spanish teacher, Mr. Vott. And he was gay, and you could tell, though he never told anyone. He was cool, but he wore a wig and he always got teased for it. One day some kids hung a coat hanger over the door where he’d catch his wig and when he came in, it came right off, and he just stood there and eventually told us that, like 20 years before, he’d saved a man and child from a burning building, and in the fire his scalp was badly burned, and his hair never grew back, and then after people really felt sorry for him. He would call me “Queen Victoria” or “Queeny.” The art teacher was really cool teacher too. One time we TP’d his house and it was raining and so it made it bad. We got caught and he lectured us about it, but then his wife came out and offered us hot cocoa, so we went in and had cocoa. That was really fun too. I liked all my teachers. Reggie Scodeller, the guy who the gym’s named after, was the principal back then. He was really nice and socialized well with the kids.
High school’s a wonderful experience. You really learn a lot and make good friendships. I never not wanted to go; I liked it. And I guess Friday nights with the pep rallies and the football games and bonfires. I don’t know what it was, it was silly. I was excited for graduation. I was hardly there my senior year, so I was ready to go. Yet I didn’t want to leave my friends. That’s the hardest part; realizing you may never see some people again. It moves fast and you think “Where’d it go?”, and you think about missing your friends and it really hits you. You really think, like, “What am I going to do now?” I didn’t have good plans or money for college, and I ended up at Boeing, which I ended up with a good job, so that was good. And I remember the last night party to say goodbye. One part was a senior Hawaii trip. That was really fun. I’d never been on an airplane, so it was interesting, and we got served champagne because the drinking age in Hawaii was 18, and one of our chaperones was the art teacher; a real hippie type of guy who we barely saw the rest of the trip. But it was really, really fun too. Enjoy it while it lasts; it’s a real eye-opener when you graduate. It’s fun but scary. Cascade is a great school. I’m glad I remember a lot and I’m glad my boys went there.
Vicki Wilhelmsen is 47 years old. She was born and raised in Everett, Washington and grew up with her two older brothers and mother. Vicki’s father passed away when she was 13 years old. She graduated from Cascade High School in 1979, which is where her son Matthew graduated from in 2009 and her other son, Daniel still attends. This is her account of the memories she had from 1976-1979.
Fleetwood Mac was big. That was a lot of the music at the dances at the time. I used to have Kiss Posters on my wall and in my bedroom. It’s funny, them and Aerosmith and AC/DC. Oh yeah, those were big. Stevie Wonder was big back then. He was, well, obviously young back then. He was becoming more popular in that frame of four years, I think. I remember people being amazed that he was as good as he was. Being blind he was just like, like even now it’s like “Whoa,” you know. But back in those days people still had prejudice. People still had the black-white thing going, and so I remember a lot of people didn’t care for him; it was either you liked him or you didn’t like him type of thing.
NASA release the famous “Face on Mars” photo. That was really cool. We talked a lot about that in science and history, of course. It kind of took over class - that was kind of the subject instead of your basic - what they were supposed to be teaching us. We spent a lot of time on that. And I had my history teacher back then was Jack Metcalf. He used to be a politician. I can’t remember what position he had, but it was so cool that he used to work there - he’d been in the Whitehouse before, and he had been in Olympia - and he used to always tell us. He started out class every morning and he had five daughters and he would always start with either daughter number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and tell us a quick little short story. Then he’d tell us something that happened at one time in the Whitehouse or in Olympia - and he was the best teacher for a history class. He didn’t put you to sleep; he was really interesting. He didn’t just make you sit and read a book; he always told us these true stories and everything, so we really got into that. It was fun. American History - believe it or not - was one of the most popular classes. A lot of people don’t get bored in history.
The first personal computer was released then. I don’t really remember that much about it back then, but then I hired into Boeing in ’79 and they started getting computers there and I got to be one of the first ones to go to school to learn how to operate them. That went on for months, and then I turned around and had to train some of the other guys who had to use it on a daily basis.
Religion wasn’t a controversial topic. I just think every once in a while friends to friends would talk about what church did you go to, or what religion you are, but it wasn’t a controversial thing. Although I do remember some kids I’d known since elementary school on up who were Jehovah’s witnesses. They really got not treated nice. They got treated like the plague or something. I do remember that. It wasn’t a big deal if we had holiday celebrations/Christmas celebrations. Not “holiday parties.” That wasn’t a big deal. But, during those things the Jehovah’s witnesses would go sit in the library alone; they didn’t participate though they could have. There weren’t really any different races. I mean, it’s kind of funny like I only had a few black friends. [What would happen if a white girl and a black guy started dating?] Now that didn’t happen back then. I knew a really nice guy friend who was black and had friends that were girls, but he never dated any of them. At dances there was never white & black couples.
There was a strong rivalry between Everett High and Cascade. The bear out front of the cafeteria used to be half the size when I went there. You’ve heard all the paintings and it’s just built up over all this time and they would paint and decorate it with out school colors and I remember telling my husband it’s twice as big as I remember it when I went to Cascade.
There were groups like... pot was a big thing, so you could always tell that group. And there were preps and popular kids and Jocks. You could always tell who was who. Like Nerd played chess; there was a chess club. I was more neutral. I was on the tennis team for a bit and quit after a year because I started working. My dad passed away when I was 13 and my mom worked and I wanted to help any way I could. At school, I was like a T.A. so people kid of thought I was treated special. Like, I T.A’d for my Home-Ec teacher and was allowed with a pass to use her car to go get groceries for the class; that was cool. I never really belonged to any clubs and such. So, I kind of had friends in all groups.
Around then Farrah Faucett was becoming really big, so all the girls wanted their hair longer and wavy, like her feathered, layered look was popular. My hair never did it because mine’s naturally curly. There never really was one main popular hair-do for that time.
After football games, we would “cruise Colby.” It was fun. You met up with friends, usually at Herfy’s Burgers. That was big then. You’d just cruise with the windows down and stop and talk with friends sometimes, and it was just fun to hang out with friends. We did that and hung out at Alfy’s. I hated to work there when my friends wanted to hang out. I was really busy a lot back then.
I took 4 years of Spanish and I was, like, the T.A. for the Spanish teacher, Mr. Vott. And he was gay, and you could tell, though he never told anyone. He was cool, but he wore a wig and he always got teased for it. One day some kids hung a coat hanger over the door where he’d catch his wig and when he came in, it came right off, and he just stood there and eventually told us that, like 20 years before, he’d saved a man and child from a burning building, and in the fire his scalp was badly burned, and his hair never grew back, and then after people really felt sorry for him. He would call me “Queen Victoria” or “Queeny.” The art teacher was really cool teacher too. One time we TP’d his house and it was raining and so it made it bad. We got caught and he lectured us about it, but then his wife came out and offered us hot cocoa, so we went in and had cocoa. That was really fun too. I liked all my teachers. Reggie Scodeller, the guy who the gym’s named after, was the principal back then. He was really nice and socialized well with the kids.
High school’s a wonderful experience. You really learn a lot and make good friendships. I never not wanted to go; I liked it. And I guess Friday nights with the pep rallies and the football games and bonfires. I don’t know what it was, it was silly. I was excited for graduation. I was hardly there my senior year, so I was ready to go. Yet I didn’t want to leave my friends. That’s the hardest part; realizing you may never see some people again. It moves fast and you think “Where’d it go?”, and you think about missing your friends and it really hits you. You really think, like, “What am I going to do now?” I didn’t have good plans or money for college, and I ended up at Boeing, which I ended up with a good job, so that was good. And I remember the last night party to say goodbye. One part was a senior Hawaii trip. That was really fun. I’d never been on an airplane, so it was interesting, and we got served champagne because the drinking age in Hawaii was 18, and one of our chaperones was the art teacher; a real hippie type of guy who we barely saw the rest of the trip. But it was really, really fun too. Enjoy it while it lasts; it’s a real eye-opener when you graduate. It’s fun but scary. Cascade is a great school. I’m glad I remember a lot and I’m glad my boys went there.