Carrie, Mrs. Strange, and the Horrors of Junior High

I recently went back to my old junior high school for a tour and a special screening of Carrie, the horror classic filmed there nearly fifty years ago. The city’s Parks and Recreation Department went all out, transforming the old Pier Avenue School, now the Hermosa Beach Community Center, into a 1970s-style prom. A live band played where Sissy Spacek once unleashed her telekinetic rage.

I went with a few friends from junior high. One showed up in full prom gear, fake blood smeared across her forehead. As we stood beneath the same rafters that once held the bucket of pig’s blood, we couldn’t help but laugh, and cringe, at the memories that came flooding back. For us, junior high had its own share of horror scenes, even without Stephen King’s help.

Pier Avenue Junior High was both exciting and terrifying. We were merging with kids from North and South schools, trying to navigate new hallways, lockers, and outfit choices while pretending we had it all figured out.

Our P.E. uniforms didn’t help. They were blue, sleeveless prison-style jumpsuits with metal clasps that could only be described as horrendous. We ran laps on asphalt under the watchful eye of Mrs. Strange, a five-foot dynamo who barked, “Onward, forward, ladies!” as we gasped for air. She meant business.

Mrs. Strange also oversaw school assemblies. After discovering I was born in Germany, she decided I should appear before the entire school in a dirndl to talk about the Old Country. I’d spent years blending into beach culture, sun-streaked hair, no accent, and zero interest in standing out. The thought of wearing a costume and talking about Germany in front of hundreds of seventh graders was social suicide. I stalled, pleaded, and somehow escaped the dirndl debacle.

But word got out, and my friends turned it into a song that I still remember: “My name is Elkee Worner, I come from Germany, I wear this little dress for all of you to see.” They sang it everywhere, even on the drive home from Magic Mountain on a loop from Valencia to the Valley.

Mrs. Strange may have been relentless, but there were times she surprised us all. When a boy in woodshop sliced off his fingers with a power saw, she calmly collected the severed digits, packed them on ice, and handed them to the paramedics. The doctors sewed them back on. We learned two lessons that day. Always pay attention in woodshop and never underestimate Mrs. Strange.

As for the Carrie shoot, I remember playing volleyball in the gym one day and noticing fishing line dangling from the rafters. “What is this stuff?” I asked. Turns out it was part of the rigging for the bucket of pig’s blood. At the time, we didn’t think much of it, just another day at Pier Avenue.

Oddly enough, the school also gave me my first taste of journalism. One day in English class, an older student burst in, hurled a chair across the room, and stormed out. We were stunned. Then our teacher walked in, completely calm, and said: “Write about what just happened.” It had all been staged as a writing exercise. My paper was read aloud to the class, my first breaking-news moment.

We were the last class to attend Pier Avenue before it closed, marking the end of an era that included a school anthem (“Hail Pier Avenue School”) and teachers who encouraged creativity in the strangest ways.

Junior high felt like a horror movie sometimes, but it also shaped us. We learned resilience, humor, and how to laugh at ourselves. And unlike poor Carrie, most of us got out without setting the gym on fire.

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