Beauty School and the Nut House

Posted on 04/13/08, 10:29 am I was a teenager who wanted to be a beautician. I started to attend a vocational high school near Prospect Park, Brooklyn. I had to take a bus, subway and subway train shuttle to get there. Ok, all was cool until another student and I got into it. She stole a pair of cuticle cutters that had my name engraved into them. We ended up in the Dean's office. Well what can I say: she she was pissed-off, big time.After school, I was standing on the subway platform waiting for the shuttle train when she pushed me onto the train track. The next thing I remember was waking up in Kings County Hospital with a concussion and a fuzzy memory. The hospital decided to keep me overnight and advised my parents to have me stay there. This was the "G" ward, the nut house. There was an epedemic of chicken pox in the children's ward so I was put with women who were straight jacketed, medicated and totally controlled maybe some ill some not, who could tell, who cared.These were the 1960's - just before laws were put into effect about jailing the mentally ill in hospitals. Once you were in, even for "observation" it was difficult to get out. Those shrinks liked there numbers and doled out thorazine like candy.My parents were appalled when they came to get me. What should have been 24-hours, took them one week to get me out of there. I learned a lesson of a lifetime. I would never be locked up again. I met some very interesting women and hearing their stories affected me forever.Thus, ended my Beauty Culture Education and onto Urban Rights.