A grandson of a sharecropper, #42, Jackie Robinson, a UCLA 4 star athlete who broke the color line in major league baseball. Being color blind, skin pigment being what it is, the PasadenaCity College emigre, transferred to Ucla . His two years breaking the ground for a spectacle junior and senior yearsacross the turf, to the decade old University on 400 odd acres in Westwood, off Sunset Boulevard and Hilgard (Sorority row), the cross country track (Al Kapp, Craig Dixon, John Patee) to the west and GayleyAvenuue’s fraternity row.
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His athletic dexterity was recognized by Caucasian students while waiting their turn to play against him in ping pong, the sweating competitors surveying the scene, in the men’s gym basement.
Robinson’s coordination between his eyes and hands, are awesome,” said a Daily Bruin sports writer, whose alias would go as “Bobby Lupo from Gardena”. He being the first to challenge 42’s force of nature and alter ego of sports editor AlFranken (namesake of the Senator from Minnesota)
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Once the word spread across the campus and fraternity row:Janss steps, Royce Hall, Chuck Young’s research library, Yale law school alum Aarvo Van Alstyne’s Law School (Constitutional Law kibitzers), the reading rooms up and acrossthe quad, past the mail boxes and the bus stops for the routes outside Dr. Franklin Murphy’s guest house, the faculty club, the medical school, the emergency room the brain institute, Julie Stein’s ophthalmology eye emporium, toward WestwoodBoulevard and Le Conte….
Westwood Village…. Tom Crumpler malts, hamburger hamlet,Sonja Henie’s indoor ice skating rink toward Wilshire Boulevard.
The Uclan movie theater, opposite Crumplers and the “Spellbound” movie house, across the street.
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Staley Gleis’s law office and his numero uno client the Los Angeles Rams…the NFL and Pete Rozelle.. The JackieRobinson force of nature at ping pong , spread to Lawrence Clark Powell’s 16th century architectural main library and reading room, the space to become the harbor from the Hollywood fantasies and the cream cheese bandit’s ego trips into Hollywood Boulevard .
Using his Mulholland Drive digs for pillaging upper and downers to those lost souls searching for a grip on the film studio’s merry go round.
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Meanwhile the waiting line spread…. deportments political science, philosophy English, languages (French, Italian), Economics, Astronomy, Political Geography, Subject A, Theater arts, Education, Psychology , Sociology, Music (Lukas Foss, Roy Travis, Jan Popper’s opera workshop,( the 12 toneShoenberg library), Dorothy Kirsten… the brain institute honcho’s frau.
The line spread from the men’s gym basement, #42 holding reign as the word spread…P.E. the graduate manager’s office and Bill Ackerman’s penthouse. …his tennis trophies and photos…Daily Bruin editors Frank Mankiewicz, BobbyKennedy’s secretary, and CBS radio commentator Bill Stout.
The larger than life lettermen: Woody Strode, Kenny Washington, morphing cop Mayor Tom Bradley, Don Barksdale, Bob Waterfield , Dave Minor, Ray Alba, ChuckClustka, Bill Putnam, athletic director Wilbur Johns and his successor, immortal basketball coach John Wooden.
“ Smitty” of Gold Key , the men’s honorary…fraternity row’s presence on the waiting line.
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The Nobel Laureate at the Chemistry Building , ProfessorBanos of Atomic Physics, the Physics Building. Tom Bradley in and out of his Mayor duds, morphing into a campus centerpiece.
Behind the guest house-hotel, the Anderson School of Business, spaying gardens,…. theater arts. Samuel Selden capping the James Dean trophy to the Indiana basketball player turnedthespian.
The McGowan theater where “Mozart and Mushroom Barley” was debuted.. MGM furnishing the critical tip sheets….
Saul Ritenberg furnishing the evaluations, little knowing Clint Eastwood off his tv cowboy role at Warners , pr Italian spaghettis, drove to LA State(Delmar Oviatt George LorbeerEducation profs) campus for an insight..(prior to moving to Northridge)
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Danny (screenwriter “Storm Warning”) and frau, Susan Fucks leading the critique, his brother Henry, …..the Chairman of the English Department, back in #42’s Flatbush, Brooklyn’sMidwood High School..
#42, the grandson of a sharecropper was invincible. The Physical Education department …. Bill Spaulding, Dcky Drake the trainer, Harry Trotter, the track and field coach, BurtLaBrucherie ,the football mentor, Colonel Bing of AF ROTC,“Skip”Rowland, Joe E. Brown ,his adopted son MikeFrankovich , Binnie Barnes, his wife of 53 years..
And then Carol Burnet on hearing about the feat, left her lecturing pad in Royce, to stroll down those Janss steps , for anfirst hand view of #42’s force of nature.
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And the politicos of the Political Science department: Ralph Bunche, the Nobel Laureate whence the assassination of Count Bernadette, and a former basketball player at LACC, Charles Titus of Machiavelli’s’s Politics. Dr Grant of Business and Government, (later Dean of Letters and Science) Jenkins of Political Philosophy. Professors Piatt, Abe Kaplan in pragmatic Philosophy.
From the “Sociological Foundations of Education” came Frederic Woelnler hoping to see this 7th wonder of the world.Harry Morris, director of publications, sharing the wonder..
Albert Lewis at Temple Isaiah. Alvin Malinow from his Venice Boulevard mortuary office and San Fernando cemetery. In that vein, Doctor Robert Hutchins of the University of Chicago recommended “From here to eternity” to the Philosophy department at U/Conn: Hartford, Waterbury branches off the Storrs campus.
Number 42. Indeed!. .
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Sony Tufts staggering in the line. Agent Milo Frank and his frau,Sally Forrest. Burt Lancaster, Ed Pauley, a Ucla Regent without his basketball portfolio, Dorothy Chandler and shot putterjavelin son, Otis, “Gimme a rain check”, Provost Dykstra without his disturbed grandson, Lenny.
Elliot Nugent of “ The Male Animal” without his Ohio Statehumoristclassmate James Thurber.
Ronald Coleman, Sam Jaffe the High Llama, (“We’ve been waiting for you, Mister Conway”) Sam Jaffe, the agent, Margo, Tony Quinn from East L.A,” the Dragnet Sgt Joe Friday”, JackWebb.
Alan Young George Burns, Jack Benny, Artie Herskowitz (FredAllen’s brother in law) Henry Herzbrun, Mace Neufeld, Max Arno at Columba, Ray Stark, General Paul McGuire, Ernest Pascal, Shelly Winters, Evelyn Keyes, Nat Perrin, Sidney Buchman, Kirk Douglas, Robert Blumofe of the Bard’s “All the King’s men”, and the Motion Picture Academy.
Eddie Belkind (Betty, Allen, Evelyn) and Allan and Dorothy Weinberger. …from New Haven Ruth Ginsberg, Yale book store, Anna Freud, Howard Dinnerstein of College Book Storeon Chapel Street, student Eric Sherman from Sherman Oaks,Dean Lou Pollock of Yale Law School, Aaarvo Van Alstyne’sroommate, when they were hitting those legal tomes at Yale.
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Will Barbra Streisand make an on line appearance, driving infrom Malibu? Her long time manager, Marty Erlichman(Halderman and Erlichman, President Nixon’s Watergate) is a basketball junky of over 50 years, hailing from the indoor hoopsat Coney Island Avenue and Aveue I back in Brooklyn’s Flatbush, a pigeon’s flight from #42’s breaking the color line atEbbets Field..General Manage Branch Rickey, touting #42’s immortal soul.
Groucho and his brothers. His son, Arthur. The Ritz brothers,Moe Howard and his Stooges. Son Paul, dripping wet,… fromhis water polo prancing at the pool next door ..
Talent coordinator Solly Biano, his “ chief” Jack L. Warner.“You’re cool, Sollyy. Real cool… I’m taking you off locationfor Jackie Robinson. Number 42, is a force of nature. Don’t say I never did you in for anything.”
Good Friday, April 18, 2014. The City that never sleeps.
