Anaheim High School, 1975, my senior year.  Our long-haired math teacher was serious about his lectures and our homework, but otherwise pretty laid-back.  “So, Jim,” he asked my friend, “when’s the departure date?”  Jim had vowed to “streak,” naked, through the center of campus at lunchtime.  “Soon,” Jim replied nervously, “soon.”
         I had a key role in this bizarre plan.  Streaking was a national fad, covered by all the major networks.  I remember some waist-up footage of college students jogging in their birthday suits at USC.  Someone even streaked onstage behind actor David Niven as he addressed millions during the Academy Awards.  It had to be an “inside job,” since they probably don’t let just anyone backstage at the Oscars.
        Most people seemed to think streaking was outrageous and hilarious; I think it was an innocent, playful, healthy jab at authority that simultaneously sought to rescue the goodness of our natural bodies from the lurid depravity with which nakedness had unfortunately become associated.
         Weeks before the math teacher’s question, Jim and I had been hanging out with friends at lunch, commiserating on our financial troubles.  Jim said he was so broke that for 20 bucks, he’d crawl naked across the lunch area.  Definitely a big talker, he also had oodles of nerve.  I thought he might actually do it, so on a blank page I wrote “We the undersigned each pledge to give Jim Forrester one dollar if he streaks through the middle of campus at lunch time on a school day.”  I collected 63 signatures.  I forget if our math teacher actually signed, but he knew of the plot along with most everyone else.  Under mounting pressure, Jim finally specified a date and made a plan.
         He’d stash extra clothes at a friend’s house just off campus.  He’d wear only tennis shoes and his red ski-mask, secured at the base with masking tape round his neck so no one could pull it off and verify his identity.  After he stripped in the most strategically placed bathroom, I’d stuff his bell-bottom pants and other clothing into a paper bag and bury them in my locker upstairs.
         When the fateful moment arrived, the campus photo club was on the roof with 8 mm film, ready to shoot the action.  As I secured the ski-mask, another student burst into the bathroom, saying “Forrester!  Johnson and Valarno are right outside, waiting to nab you!”  (These were the principal and head football coach.)  Jim quickly decided to go out the other bathroom door, then exit from the front of the historic main building and come back around on the side.  He flew out the door while I raced up to my locker.  Rushing back down the steps, I heard a sudden roar from the lunch area.  When I got there Jim was gone; I pictured him sprinting naked across a quarter-mile of athletic fields.
         Jim showed up as usual to 5th period Advanced Placement History, but the pink slip soon arrived and he was gone.  Five days suspension from school.  I had no problem collecting all the money, and Jim gave me three bucks for my effort.  I heard they were looking for “some red-haired guy” who was Jim’s accomplice, but nothing ever happened to me.  Jim’s colorful and ultra-permissive dad was amused by the whole thing, saying “Five days off school and 60 bucks, sounds like a good deal to me!”
         A day or so later, Jim was at my house playing pool.  My straitlaced aunt arrived to visit my mother, saying “Rose!  Have you heard?  They’re streaking at Anaheim High School now!”  My aunt was mortified.  It was all Jim and I could do not to fall down dying with laughter, but we somehow managed poker faces and returned quickly to our game.  I told my parents the whole story maybe five years later, but my aunt will probably find out with this article.  I hope she’s not too offended; maybe she’ll even get a chuckle from it now, 25 years later.
         The Streaker of Anaheim High made two more dramatic appearances before this strange phenomenon disappeared into a forgotten past.  Both times, some red-haired guy drove the get-away car--my Dad’s white VW bug.
         The wonderful old Fox Anaheim movie theater is now gone.  In the early 80s it was razed with the rest of downtown Anaheim and turned into an automall.  (The smarter neighboring city of Fullerton fixed up its old downtown, which even now retains its charm.)  But I grew up with the Fox Anaheim.  My first grade class took a field trip there to see a documentary about JFK in the aftermath of his assassination.  On that venerable big screen I first experienced “Gone With The Wind,” and “Cabaret,” along with such lesser classics as “Tales From The Crypt” and “Dr. Phibes” starring Vincent Price.
         One Friday or Saturday night Jim and I were at the Fox, bored with “Cinderella Liberty” starring James Caan.  In the bathroom, we planned our strategy--synchronizing our watches just like in “Mission:  Impossible.”  The Fox had an exit adjacent to the screen on each side--one led out to the front, the other to an alley in back.  I was to leave the normal way past the box office, get the car, park it in the alley, then walk the short distance back and wait outside the front screen-side exit.  I did all this, and at the specified time Jim ducked under images of James Caan’s curly hair and came out the exit to meet me, keeping the door slightly ajar.  He quickly stripped, then gave me about 10 seconds to run back around, toss his clothes in the VW and fire up the engine.  I got to the car hearing howls and screams from inside--Jim later told me he danced around on the narrow stage just beneath the big screen.  Then he bolted out the exit, jumped in the car, and off we went.  Wow, what a rush!
         Later that same night Jim streaked the Carter Bowl on Lemon Street, near the intersection of Harbor Blvd. and the 91 Freeway.  I think we stopped off for his ski-mask, since bowling alley lights would reveal his face too clearly.  Logistics here were simple:  I dropped him off naked at the rarely-used back entrance and drove around to the other side.  Through glass doors, I watched bowlers’ bewildered expressions as Jim streaked the width of 45 lanes.  My heart pounded in fear that someone might grab him, but he finally flew out the door and jumped in the bug for our get-away.
         Streaking was a craze, but even at its height it still wasn’t exactly common; the element of surprise enabled Jim to escape the clutches of authority figures.  Aside from TV and my experiences noted here, I only saw streakers once--naked bicyclists racing up the Santa Ana River trail.  Once, Jim and I streaked together for the entertainment of two girls in our high school class.  It was a moonless night on dark athletic fields; we doffed and donned our clothes so far from them they can’t have seen much, but it’s the only time I had the nerve to streak myself.
         Mischievious acts can sometimes be important rites of passage.  They aren’t new now, and weren’t new either in 1975 or in the late 1930s when my Dad wreaked his share of harmless havoc.  But I hope young people will have the brains to choose their mischief carefully, avoiding acts that harm others or threaten to undermine their own potential future.
         I did a very few destructively mischievious things that I’m not proud of, and will probably never write about.  Let’s just say I was pretty lucky, and no one was hurt.
         I don’t know what became of Jim; we lost touch, and he didn’t show up at our 20 year reunion.  I heard he was in a motorcycle accident a couple years after we graduated; I hope he wasn’t permanently injured, and I hope he’s happy somewhere now.
         I’m proud that I helped him streak.  Streaking was a refreshing fad that jolted people out of a boring, stodgy complacency.  It reminded us to expect the unexpected, and reminded us that our natural bodies are good--that nakedness is not vulgar unless it’s pursued with a vulgar intention. Too bad streaking went out of style so quickly.