Barbie, with Brains
August 10 is my oldest, dearest friend Katy's birthday. This is the day when she has to stop saying I'm a year older than she is, and catch up. Nah nah nah nah NAH nah.
Katy is Barbie, only smarter and more talented. She and I were inseparable as teen-agers. We wore fringe jackets, boots and very tight jeans, and spent most of our summers hanging out with musicians, DJs from KPPC, and inhabitants of the head shops on Fair Oaks in Pasadena.
I stayed at her house a lot. She lived at 2851 Shakespeare Avenue in fabulously wealthy San Marino with her mom, former Kansas Corn Queen Ruth, dad Dr. Roy, the tall, dark and handsome OB/GYN who gave us birth control pills whether we asked for them or not, and her sister Sally, who was much less attractive in every respect than her younger sister. Dr. Shoaf was aware, through Katy, that my mother was quite literally coming apart, and encouraged Kate to invite me over all the time.
We would watch in giggly delight when he'd dress in a hideous outfit of clashing reds (he was color blind), don a ridiculous hat, pull out his trumpet and play along with the band on Melody Ranch. Why don't you girls wear pretty dresses like them?, he'd ask, alluding to the hopelessly corny gingham checked, poofy sleeved, tight waisted, petticoated singers. That was our cue to roll our eyes and go listen to The Jefferson Airplane, Crosby Stills and Nash, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.
To complete her humiliation, Dr. Shoaf gave the Christian Motherhood talks at Alverno Heights Academy for Girls. At 5' 10", it was hard to hide behind 5' 7 1/2" me, but she slouched her best and prayed for the miracle of the Ascension.
We continued our friendship into adulthood. Katy and I worked and went to school when, and long after most people go to college. We went our own ways, took forever getting through school, had scads of jobs, preposterous boyfriends, fiances and husbands. Kate ended up being Assistant Vice President at a huge insurance company, where she did advertising design. I was a Vice President at a less large bank, where I did something boring.
On week-ends, sometimes I'd watch Katie do what she really loved - act. She did live theater-Shakespeare, Williams-and she was good. She never took the tall, blonde, big tits, tiny waisted, long legged parts. She took character rolls, and was inventive and touching.
We went to movies and bars and restaurants and stores together, but we always did the same thing. We'd laugh and talk and laugh and talk and laugh. Then talk. We loved Monty Python and Frank Zappa. Why couldn't we find guys like them?
Katy died in 1999. She was walking across her living room and she had an aneurism. Boom. Dead.
I miss you, Kate. You're frozen in time as the tall, smart, blonde, witty, big titted, giggly, sweet 47 year old you were, and I'll never forget you.
Have a shot of peach schnaps and flirt with a cute guy today.
Katy is Barbie, only smarter and more talented. She and I were inseparable as teen-agers. We wore fringe jackets, boots and very tight jeans, and spent most of our summers hanging out with musicians, DJs from KPPC, and inhabitants of the head shops on Fair Oaks in Pasadena.
I stayed at her house a lot. She lived at 2851 Shakespeare Avenue in fabulously wealthy San Marino with her mom, former Kansas Corn Queen Ruth, dad Dr. Roy, the tall, dark and handsome OB/GYN who gave us birth control pills whether we asked for them or not, and her sister Sally, who was much less attractive in every respect than her younger sister. Dr. Shoaf was aware, through Katy, that my mother was quite literally coming apart, and encouraged Kate to invite me over all the time.
We would watch in giggly delight when he'd dress in a hideous outfit of clashing reds (he was color blind), don a ridiculous hat, pull out his trumpet and play along with the band on Melody Ranch. Why don't you girls wear pretty dresses like them?, he'd ask, alluding to the hopelessly corny gingham checked, poofy sleeved, tight waisted, petticoated singers. That was our cue to roll our eyes and go listen to The Jefferson Airplane, Crosby Stills and Nash, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.
To complete her humiliation, Dr. Shoaf gave the Christian Motherhood talks at Alverno Heights Academy for Girls. At 5' 10", it was hard to hide behind 5' 7 1/2" me, but she slouched her best and prayed for the miracle of the Ascension.
We continued our friendship into adulthood. Katy and I worked and went to school when, and long after most people go to college. We went our own ways, took forever getting through school, had scads of jobs, preposterous boyfriends, fiances and husbands. Kate ended up being Assistant Vice President at a huge insurance company, where she did advertising design. I was a Vice President at a less large bank, where I did something boring.
On week-ends, sometimes I'd watch Katie do what she really loved - act. She did live theater-Shakespeare, Williams-and she was good. She never took the tall, blonde, big tits, tiny waisted, long legged parts. She took character rolls, and was inventive and touching.
We went to movies and bars and restaurants and stores together, but we always did the same thing. We'd laugh and talk and laugh and talk and laugh. Then talk. We loved Monty Python and Frank Zappa. Why couldn't we find guys like them?
Katy died in 1999. She was walking across her living room and she had an aneurism. Boom. Dead.
I miss you, Kate. You're frozen in time as the tall, smart, blonde, witty, big titted, giggly, sweet 47 year old you were, and I'll never forget you.
Have a shot of peach schnaps and flirt with a cute guy today.
posted by Kitty O'Keefe at 8:31 AM
3 Comments:
Hi kitty,
this is Katys' much less wonderful in everyway..older sister Sally.... at what point did I incur your emnity? It is not a nice thing to do, you realize, to make such a disparaging remark about someone...it can come back to haunt you...now I guess I know who you really are don't I? too bad, I would have liked to have been able to reconnect with you, Katy was my only sister and I loved her dearly...I cried every day for a year after she died...to this day, if I think of her...it breaks my heart.....
oh and by the way, her birthday? August 4th....
you do not have to be mean to be clever, you'd think that at your age you would have figured that out by now....what a rare treat to see myself dismissed as a member of my family so handily by such as yourself....luckily for me, this will only hurt for the moment, as what mean people say to or about me...only shows me what their soul is like ..not mine
oh and dear Kitty, while you and Katy were hanging out on Fair Oaks, my roommate was winning the US Surfing Champoinship; while you were working a boring job at a small nameless bank..I was living in the country in northern California, learning photgraphy and then shooting publicity shots and album covers for David Bromberg, (nominated for a Grammy this year) Maria Muldaur, Hoyt Axton and Steve Miller.....
you and Katy became friends after I moved out...I wasn't the tall beautiful blond that my sister was, it's true...but I always knew my worth as a individual....too bad you only know how to go by the surface appearence of people, it was just a shock to me that someone who is now 53 years old ,somehow hasn't managed to grow out of the behavior and skewed values of that teenage girl who hung around with my sister... and yeah it bothered me that you said what you said ..but I bet you don't have the courage to put what I said into the blog....
I live in Southern California and found your Blog in a Google search looking for Katy or Sally Shoaf, daughters of Roy and Ruth. At a recent Antique Fair I bought about 10 pounds of paper-goods, probably from an abandonded storage locker. Included are Roy/Ruth wedding proofs, Roy's military orders and many personal letters, personal photos and such. Was Kate a nurse? For example, Kathryn's ninth grade 1967-68 report card from Sister Rose Ann at Alverno Heights Academy in Sierra Madra shows she was a solid 'B' student, except for PE. She was never late and absent only four days all year. I don't want money, but these should make their way back to Sally or Kate. Robert Keller gohook@gmail.com
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