“Southern California, here we come, back from where we started from,” in hindsight age 17, a Midwod High School grad 3000 miles away, registering a a UCLA freshman in a world class University, with a campus stretching as far as these agingblue eyes could see…medical, law schools in futuro!
II
Neither Howie Goldman,(a transferee from Midwood High School in Brooklyn) nor his parents, his pops the Adam Hats manager at Hollywood Boulevard and Ivar, could have known as they put us up in their Mariposa apartment, off Holywood Boulevard and Normandie) until we could find a room near campus and register as a post war freshman in Westwood village, the site of Joe E. Brown field, cross country running, football scrimmages for a pot Rose Bowl flurry in Pasadena, the regular season fought out in LA’s Coliseum and the Pacific Coast Conference home turfs..
In the meantime How, a student musician at Hollywood High School and hi amigo Jay, also a musician at the High School, showed us around the perils of Hollywood.
Ken Murray’s “Blackouts” an original of busty Marie Wilson .A starring role for the natives and USO ‘s returning emancipated GI’s o the tyranny of war, into the GI Bill of Rights, and reentry into civilian life…
III
Retuning to campus in Westwood, we became acclimated to theROTC building, the many tennis courts, Jane Withers home above the athletic fi.. off campus on a hill, above SunsetBoulevard.
Needless to say, our energetic recovery from Typhoid Fever coma in Brooklyn at age of nine, living in Venice and Santa Monica six years earlier. (Charlie Chaplin finding his persona)
IV
UCLKA’s music library named in honor of the Vienna born12 tone Arnold Schoenberg (Alban Berg ‘s “Lulu”), the Psychologybuilding and the men’s gym….quotes from Plato and Socrates along the pathways and Jan Steps, leading p from Westwood Boulevard to the quad and student parking lots.
VI
In this environment of returning GIs, competing high school grads from the California secondary schools, we were thrown into lecture halls and blue book essay examinations where wetreated a shaky line. writing essays…. nearly flunking out.
Professor Graham (the gossip coluumnist’s pops), Sheila by name. Lectured about historical military
Clashes.. ”man’s inhumanity to man” . (Brooklyn’ Midwood High School was never like this academia … (the cosmos come crashing down).
We were out of their level, trying to grasp the esoteric vision of his diction.. …Psychology with Professor Fearing….. the study of rhesus monkeys and apes, in building their own La Brea tar pits, way beyond our
ken.
The Political Science (Governor Warren, “Goody’ Knight, Lt. Governor) lectures with Professor Jenkins, about the Bill of Rights and the Constitution blew our minds , in his Royce Hal lectures, educate students to the details of blue book exams…Englis also too our breathes way and if not by some lucky coincidence by Chancellor Dykstra and Al Lapin, a Far Rockaway transferee, and the pioneer (with brother Jerry) the ‘House of Pancakes’ on Riverside Drive, Toluca Lake, near the haunts of Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Olivia de Haviland…….3 Stooges Moe Howard and son Paul, a cartoonist and Air Forde Reservist from Deering Avenue in Canoga Park. A UCLA water poloist, his daughter working for “Star Wars”, George Lucas.
VIII
That we tried to be a sports scribe in football for the Daily Bruin, our sports editor having the same name of Senator AlFranken from Minnesota ,a standup comic in a previous life, to be sure.
IX
Subject A was remedial, a compassionate graduate student administrating the remedial work for our getting back in UCLA’s good grace. Bill Ackerman, the graduate manager and tennis coach I his Kherkoff Hall penthouse office, with pictures of all his tennis teams on the walls. Harry Morris, the publications guidance officer, Wilbur Johns, the basketball coach and friend, who heard of our dead eye two handed set shot on the Joe E. Brown courts (and later Athletic Director, on signing the immortal John Wooden from Indiana, Wilbur’s initials . (God’s Way)
Dr. Wenger in Psychology 1A, Dr. Abe Kaplan in Philosophy. Dr. Kostineck in Political Geography…. Dr. Booth in English.. Dr. Sam Selden Theater Arts…(critiquing Danny Fuchs our “Mozart and Mushroom
Barley”, MGM preview sheets, our “Mr. Novak” vis a vi MGM (, Kubrick’s Space Odyssey, Borhamwood Studio, London).…..Dr Grant in Business and Government….tumbling, swimming Chairman of Physical Education.
Dr. Charles Titus in Politics and Legislature and Legislation. Dr Frederic Woellner “Sociological foundation ofEducation….Sociology one A…. Physical Education (minor)… Tumbling, basketball one on one drills, free shooting….swimming and rescuing drills with Davaage (DaveMinor) Political Philosophy
John Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau)th Professor Jenkins.
Don Ashen, treasurer for football ticket collecting jobs, at the Coliseum’s games.
Don Ashen, treasurer for football ticket collecting jobs, at the Coliseum’s games.
Colonels Bing, Ferguson for advanced Ai ROTC, with likes of Ducky Drake (trainer ,track)
Westwood village haunts with Sonja Henie’s ice skating rink,Tom Crumplar’s malts, UCLA and across the way the two movie theaters..The Bruin….Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, “Spellbound”…..Hamburger Hamlet, Lord and Taylor, the Post Office. (Wooden P.o. in Reseda.
La Cienaca Tennis Courts, (Kent Taylor ‘Boston Blackie”) Alan Joslyn, Beverly Hills and Mrs Latker’s student rental, North Hamilton Drive .. several streets from Igor Stravinsky’s North Wetherly Drive”The ” home..”The Rite of Spring” “The Fire Bird” (Rimsky Korsakov his Moscow mentor)
April 15, 2016 The City that never sleeps.
