We roamed the same high school halls

I ATTENDED AN OREGON high school in the late 1970s with virtually no diversity. The Medford Senior High nickname, “Black Tornado,” couldn’t have been more ironic considering that white kids comprised 99 percent of the student body.

Our most famous alumni reflect this diversity deficit. A Wikipedia page lists three obscure entertainers among my old school’s “notable alumni,” and a bunch of jocks, including high jumper Dick Fosbury.

Lots of high schools specialize in the kind of alumni they turn out. Brockton High in Massachusetts, for instance, gave us boxers Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler. Washington-Lee in Virginia produced Oscar-winning actresses Shirley MacLaine (class of ’52) and Sandra Bullock (class of ’82).

While there’s nothing wrong with that, I appreciate schools that nurtured drastically different individuals. Like …

1. MIAMI BEACH HIGH (Florida)
Barbara Walters (class of ’47) + Luther Campbell (class of ’79).
• Can you image these two making a reunion entrance together? Walters is a celebrity newswoman known for mispronouncing her r-sounds. Campbell is the former lead man of 2 Live Crew, a controversial late-’80s hip-hop group famous (or infamous) for the song, “Me So Horny.”
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2. CENTRAL HIGH 
(Philadelphia)
Larry Fine (class of ’20) + Noam Chomsky (class of ’45).
• Chomsky is a left-wing linguist and intellectual. Fine was one of the Three Stooges.
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3.  TOWSON HIGH
(Towson, Maryland)
Divine (class of ’63) + Michael Phelps (class of 2003).
• Divine was the large drag queen who appeared in a whole bunch of John Waters’ films. Phelps won 22 Olympic swimming medals.
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4. TAFT HIGH  (Los Angeles)
Maureen McCormick (early ’70s) + Ice Cube (late ’80s).
• McCormick is known for portraying the wholesome, perky Marcia Brady on “The Brady Bunch.” Ice Cube is known as one of the founders of Gangsta Rap.
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5.  CARDAZO SENIOR HIGH  (Washington, D.C.)
J. Edgar Hoover (class of ’13 when it was known as Central High) + Marvin Gaye (attended till ’55).
• Hoover was the uptight head of the FBI who happened to be gay. Gaye was a Motown legend who celebrated sex in songs like “Let’s Get it On.”
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6.  WASHINGTON HIGH
(Portland, Oregon)
Linus Pauling (class of ’18) + Jack Ely (class of ’62).
• Pauling was the first person to win two undivided Nobel prizes; Ely sang lead vocals for the Kingsmen on the 1963 trash-rock classic, “Louie Louie.”
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7. GROTON SCHOOL
(Groton, Massachusetts)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (class of 1900) + Fred Gwynne (class of ’44).
• Roosevelt was the 33rd and only four-term president of the United States. Gwynne played Herman Munster on “The Munsters” from 1964 to ’66.
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8. GREAT NECK NORTH HIGH  (Great Neck, New York)
Andy Kaufman (class of ’67) + Sarah Hughes (class of 2003).
• Kaufman was a performance artist known for (among other things) wrestling women. Hughes won a gold medal in figure skating during the 2002 Winter Olympics.
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9. GLENOAK HIGH (Canton, Ohio)
Dan Dierdorf (class of ’67) + Marilyn Manson (class of ’87).
• Dierdof is a Hall of Fame football player and a longtime NFL broadcaster. Manson (real name: Brian Hugh Warner) is a controversial recording artist who cut an album called Antichrist Superstar.
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10. PASADENA HIGH
(Pasadena, California)
George S. Patton (class of 1903) + Eddie Van Halen (class of ’73).
• Patton was World War II Army general known as “Old Blood and Guts.” Van Halen is the legendary lead guitarist of Van Halen.

HAIR THEY ARE

I just wanna be myself and I want you to know / I am my hair

— Lady Gaga, “Hair,” 2001

THE PRECEDING LINE could have been written by King Louis XIV, who started losing his mane at seventeen and responded by donning wigs so large and outlandish that Lady Gaga might be tempted to say, “Hey, tone it down, dude.”

Teens have been obsessed with their hair for centuries, none more than the fictional Marcia Brady, who brushed her luscious locks 100 times a day. A modeling agent in The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) ignited her fury by suggesting she could make it in the fashion industry with a little work, like

“… cutting that mousy hair, capping those teeth, and losing about 30 pounds, my little sausage. How do you feel about breast implants?”

Outraged, Marcia slapped him and declared, “Cut my hair?”

Here are more teens, real and fictional, who made a statement with their hair: