Dear Rain,

Where did you go to high school?? Most important question to be asked from one native to the other!

Signed,

Another Native

Dear AN,

This is probably a question that only other natives really gives a crap about, but it's definitely one of the first things we ask whenever we come across each other in the wild.

I went to only public schools: Douglas Elementary (now Harvey Milk); Everett Middle School; and J. Eugene McAteer High School.

The school you went to was usually determined by what district you lived in. The school closest to you was your default school. Post middle school, the more academically advanced (high grades and standardized test scores) usually made it to Lowell High School, regardless of what district they were in. I was a math dummy, so didn't have high enough grades to get in. I tried to get in to Washington, but the waiting list was too long. Which meant my district school was Mission High School.

I was not happy about this. For one thing, none of my friends were going there; most had gotten into Lowell, or other district schools. For another, it was just a damned scary place to go to school at the time. I went for two weeks, and hid in the library most of the time. After those two weeks were up I told my parents I wasn't going back. I had a few friends who were going to McAteer, so I wanted to see what the chances of my getting in were. Bless my dad. He waited outside the principal's office for hours to plead my case and try to get me in. And it worked.

McAteer, at the time, was best known for two programs: The School of the Arts (SoTA) and Urban Pioneers/ALTA. You had to audition or submit a portfolio of your work to get into SoTA, but that wasn't my bag. Instead I enrolled in ALTA. I never partook in Urban Pioneers, but it was a pretty interesting program, and I'd love to hear from some former students, should any stumble upon this. But the basic idea of it involved a semester off campus, with camping, work experience, and team building exercises. It eventually spun off into its own school, but that ended tragically.

ALTA, which was short for Alternative Learning Through Action, got its start in the 1970s, and you could really tell. It was all about non-traditional teaching methods, classes focused on more specific topics instead of the standard core curriculum, and a little more freedom. So, yes, it's usually where the stoners ended up. I wasn't a stoner, I swear, but I liked its focus on creative learning over the rigid approach of the honors program. And also? Their version of gym class was playing touch football or walking around the track. In your school clothes. Which meant no locker room nightmares. THANK YOU.

But I had a lot of friends who were in the School of the Arts and some of its students went on to big things. I had an English class with Sam Rockwell, and remember him getting excused for a month to go film the movie Clown House. I also saw him in a school production of some play — can't remember what it was — but I remember thinking, "Yeah. He's gonna make it. No doubts." (A year after high school, at a party, he also helped carry a very drunk me up the stairs and put me to bed, never laying a finger on me. He'll always be a prince in my book for that.)

Aisha Tyler was in an AP European History class with me, and she talked as much as she currently does on The Talk, her favorite phrase being "Well, it's all subjective, isn't it?" She's brought up being a nerd in high school more than once, but she definitely wasn't when I knew her. Frankly, I found the crowd she hung out with to be a little intimidating! (She was also voted Tallest and Biggest Show-Off in the senior polls.)

Margaret Cho talks a lot about getting kicked out of Lowell High School, but she must have been there for a hot minute. At McAteer she was part of an improv group, along with Sam Rockwell, called Batwing Lubricant (oh, high school), and while she says she dropped out before the end of her senior year, she at least got her senior picture taken and was included in the yearbook.

McAteer was also infamous for needing to be shut down for a year to remove asbestos from the entire school. That meant I spent my senior year at a middle school in Noe Valley, which was actually a nice change from the somewhat claustrophobic and prison-like architecture of the actual campus.

That campus is still there, up on Portola, but McAteer no longer exists as a public high school. Instead the School of the Arts has expanded, and is now the entire school, and not just a program within a school. It's called Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts.

And, just to be fair, here's my senior class photo, which comes with a story: I didn't want to be in the yearbook, so didn't take a photo on photo day. But when the yearbook was being laid out, they had some problem with uneven numbers on a couple of pages, and my name fit. So I agreed to get my picture taken, off campus, at a creepy studio above a donut shop on Van Ness. Since this was late in the whole yearbook process, they had to use a Polaroid photo, which had a green tint. So, I went from not wanting to be in the yearbook at all to being in it, but GREEN. Which is exactly what you want when you're an insecure teenager.

Rain Jokinen was born and raised in San Francisco and, miraculously, still calls the city home. Her future plans include becoming a millionaire, buying a condo complex, and then tearing it down to replace it with a dive bar. You can ask this native San Franciscan your questions here.

In these Troubled San Francisco Times, there is a lot of talk about who was here when, and what that does (or doesn't) mean. In an effort to both assist newcomers and take long-time residents down memory lane, we present to you Ask a San Francisco Native, a column penned by SF native and longtime SFist contributor Rain Jokinen, which is inspired by a similar one on our sister site Gothamist, and is intended to put to rest all those questions only a native of this city can answer. Send yours here!