The Final Lap in the High School Relay—

Class Reunion Reminders Stir Memories

Steve Newvine high school senior photograph. South Lewis Central School in 1975. Photo: Talon HS Yearbook

Throughout Merced County and the nation, school has either started or is about to begin.  

This is the last year for the senior class, the final lap in the relay known as high school.

My high school class is in the early stages of planning a fiftieth reunion next summer.

I hope it can be successfulf.

The last effort from ten years ago stopped when very few former classmates committed to coming.  

With three thousand miles between where I live now and where I went to high school, I could not commit ten years ago. Once the details come out, I’ll make an effort to try. It’s a long shot, but I will try.

I can recall at least one memory every month, from returning to class in September to graduation in June.

As I wrote in my first memoir, Grown Up, Upstate, I skipped my senior year's first day of school. Over Labor Day weekend, I had a chance to earn some decent money helping my uncle clear out a couple of big box stores. He was in the construction business, and his company needed to clear out the store fixtures so that the buildings could be renovated.  

Our classes started the day after Labor Day, but with more work to do, my cousin, a friend, and I opted out of that first day of school to make money. My parents reasoned that only a little learning goes on that first day, so they let me do the job and skip school.

By October, my parents and I planned a road trip to visit two colleges that had broadcasting programs.

Deciding to go to college was a big one, as I was the first in my family to take that step. The first college we looked at was Herkimer College in central New York. We liked what we saw, so we canceled the appointment for the second school, and I turned my attention to the college application.

In November, the local radio station invited me to audition for an unpaid job as a school news reporter. Getting the job was a win for both sides: the radio station got a fresh report from the school weekly, and I got radio news experience.  

Giving my first blood donation at a Bloodmobile stop at the Port Leyden Fire Hall on December 14, 1974. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

Three things stood out for me in December. First, I got my acceptance letter for college, so I knew where my life path would lead after graduation.

Second, I donated my first-ever pint of blood. The senior class was invited to begin blood donations, and steady donations have been part of my life for about four decades.

Third, I recall doing my school news report the day after comedian Jack Benny died. As he set up the tape machine to record my report, the morning radio announcer talked to me about Benny.

In January, our high school English teacher let the class experiment with the school’s video equipment as we produced an episode of The Match Game. The whole class was involved, whether operating the camera, writing the questions or appearing as one of the pseudo-celebrities who played the game on the air. I was the host. 

My family took our annual trip by car from New York State to Florida to visit my grandparents in February. Knowing I was heading to college in the fall, the thought that this might be the last trip I would take with my family to Florida crossed my mind.

I celebrated my eighteenth birthday in March.

I was now legal to buy and drink alcohol. My dad and brother took me out for a few beers. Dad reasoned it was better that I be supervised while enjoying my first legal beverages. I just liked the idea of my brother, father, and me sitting around with a brew in hand, talking.

I had my first date in April. We went bowling and had a good time. In the back of my mind, it was beginning to hit me that this was the final lap of my senior year.

Activities from my senior year included serving as the business manager for the yearbook and being a tennis club member. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

By May, I was trying to make each day count. I would stay after school a lot to be around my friends. Fully aware that my time in high school would soon be over, I did not want to miss a moment. I also took my date to dinner and the prom, with a stop in between at my home for pictures.

In early June, tragedy struck our class when one of our classmates was killed in a car accident. I remember going to the funeral home for calling hours and speaking briefly with Eric’s mom.  

The whole class attended the funeral, and while the school did not have those so-called grief counselors you hear about now when tragedy strikes, the principal did let us take the day to sit in the cafeteria or go outside without worrying about missing classes.  

The yearbooks arrived about a week after that. We spent at least two weeks getting classmates to sign one another’s yearbooks.

By month’s end, one hundred students had graduated. Several of us would soon be off to college.

Many had enlisted in the armed services, while others would go straight to the workforce.

With our final lap completed, it was now on to the next race.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His memoirs Growing Up, Upstate and Grown Up, Going Home have been combined in a specially priced edition called A Bundle of Memories. It is available at A BUNDLE OF MEMORIES (lulu.com)

This column is dedicated to the memory of Eric Planck.

From the Central Valley, Here’s Johnny-

TV Icon Carson Performed in Bakersfield in 1957

A newspaper advertisement promoting Johnny Carson’s appearance at the Maison Jaussaud French restaurant and nightclub in Bakersfield.  Photo: Kern County Museum archive

Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show for thirty years until retiring in 1992. Many considered him the most popular television entertainer of his era. He’s still revered by many talk show hosts as the gold standard of the genre.

This funny entertainer's career formed in California, and the Central Valley city of Bakersfield played a small role at a critical point.

In 1957, Johnny did several performances at a restaurant and nightclub on the former Highway 99 in Bakersfield.

Johnny was trying out a comedy act to see if his career might take him in that direction. 

“It was a dark time for Johnny,” comedy writer and Carson Podcast host Mark Malkoff said.  

It was a dark time because the young performer’s primetime variety show on CBS TV was canceled after just one season. 

Johnny’s agent pushed him to try stand-up comedy in clubs. 

“He was still under contract with CBS,” Malkoff said.  “But neither the network nor his agent at William Morris had anything for him.”

A review of Johnny Carson’s opening night at the Maison Jaussaud French restaurant and nightclub from 1957.  Photo:  Kern County Museum Archive

The purpose of playing Bakersfield was to try out the act.

It was similar to how a musical heading for Broadway might do out-of-town performances to work out the bugs before the show is performed in New York City. 

Bakersfield, in Kern County, was near enough to Hollywood so that he could try comedy bits away from the watching eyes in the entertainment capitol.

Local newspapers from Bakersfield at the time mentioned Johnny playing at the Maison Jaussaud French restaurant and nightclub. 

The headline in one clipping from the Kern County Museum archive reads COMEDIAN NOW PLAYING AT MAISON JAUSSAUD and refers to Johnny as “one of the bright young men of show business.” 

The article was written after Johnny’s first performance.   The clipping described the effort as “a solid hit…with patrons.” 

   But, as historian Mike McCoy from the Kern County Museum in Bakersfield describes the experience, Johnny was not thrilled about playing there.

“Johnny once quipped, ‘I spent a Bakersfield one night,’ McCoy said.  “It was not a place he liked.”

The former Maison Jaussaud French restaurant and nightclub in Bakersfield is now a casino.  Highway 99 went through Bakersfield on this street (Union Avenue) until a larger highway was built years later to the west of downtown.  Photo of the Maison from the Kern County Museum archive. Casino photo from LiveBako.com. Montage by Steve Newvine.

Carson grew up in Nebraska and found performing magic as a means to overcome his shyness.  As early as junior high school, he wanted to write and perform comedy.

After getting his college degree in Radio Communications, he entered the Navy.  When his hitch was up, he worked at an Iowa broadcast station where he experimented in the relatively new TV medium.

Soon, he was in Hollywood, where he found work as a comedy writer.  That experience led him to host a local TV show.  By 1955, he landed a weekly CBS variety series.  The Johnny Carson Show ended after one season, leaving the young star wondering what might be next.

  For Johnny, the Bakersfield shows achieved the goal of giving him stage experience, but he did not care for the small southern California city at the time.

   “I think it reminded him of his struggle on the way up,” says Mike McCoy.

   After Bakersfield, Johnny headed back to New York, where his agent tried to book him on game shows and New York-based talk and variety shows. It was on these programs that his comic persona began to mature. Soon, he was offered a game show hosting job. By 1962, he began his tenure as host of the Tonight Show.

The rest is part of a remarkable career as the face of late-night entertainment for four decades.  The Central Valley city of Bakersfield was part of that entertainment legacy. -

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He is grateful to the Kern County Museum for information and photographs of Johnny Carson’s performances in Bakersfield from the late 1950s.  He also thanks Mark Malkoff, host of the new podcast Inside Late Night.

Steve is writing a book about Johnny Carson and comedian Jack Benny that will be out in November.

His California books are available at the Merced County Courthouse Museum gift shop or Lulu.com.