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Volume CXXXIII, Number 12 |
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Beyond the Pines: returning to a nation in shock
LUDWIG VAN RANG
ALUMNUS WRITER
Arriving at San Francisco Airport on 25 November 1963, three
days after John F. Kennedy's assassination, the feeling of doom and gloom
was palpable. Pictures of the late President bordered in black were everywhere.
They gave me a feeling of having returned to a country not only in mourning,
but in deep shock.
Neither, however, it seemed, was shared by all Americans.
When told the news, children at a school in Dallas, reportedly, had clapped.
And a neighbor of Nellie's at Carmel seemed not to be too upset either.
Invited to her house for Thanksgiving dinner, with the holiday
spirit dampened (as this year) by a national tragedy, Florence started
mouthing opinions clearly originating from the right-wing John Birch Society
to which her late husband had belonged.
Kennedy had been a "communist sympathizer," she
claimed, a willing tool of the world-wide "communist conspiracy."
Moreover, she had actually seen him once, on the golf course at the Del
Monte Country Club on the Monterey Peninsula, wearing differently colored
socks-imagine! One of them presumably red, I laughed, but Florence was
not amused.
I had first heard the name John Birch while in the Army.
There had been a big scandal when it became known the Commanding General
of an armored division stationed in Germany had ordered propaganda material
by the John Birch Society to be distributed to the troops. He was relieved
of his command, no doubt with President Kennedy's approval.
A Republican, but of the liberal species all but extinct
now, Nellie was as shocked by the assassination as most people. As for
the GOP's next candidate for President, she hadn't made up her mind yet.
The two main contenders were Senator Barry Goldwater, considered
a right-winger (though not an extremist) and Governor Nelson Rockefeller,
considered a liberal-a term which took on a slightly derogatory connotation
when uttered by the likes of Goldwater.
During the California Primary the following spring, I took
Nellie to hear Rockefeller speak at the Monterey Fairgrounds. The hall
was packed. A heavy-set, but nimble man, "Rocky" came bouncing
in grabbing people's hands, patting them on the back and saying, "Hi,
feller, good to see ya," trying to sound folksy. Despite this, he
came across as an East Coast establishment politician, not "sincere"
enough, conservatives out West thought.
Goldwater, who narrowly won the primary, famously quipped
he wished he could saw the Eastern seaboard off and float it out so sea.
Though I thought him quite likeable in a way, I favored Rockefeller. Neither,
of course stood a chance against LBJ.
What was I going to do with my life, Nellie asked. How about
going back to graduate school?
I had thought of enrolling at the University of California
at Berkeley, I told her, to complete my MA in literature. Then, someone
told me about a newly founded school, just a few miles from Carmel, the
Monterey Institute for Advanced Studies.
Despite the impressive-sounding name, the Institute had
only a few dozen students and a handful of teaching staff, presided over
by Dr. Samuel Knoll, a German-Jewish émigré living with
his American wife, reputedly rich and behind the venture, at Palo Alto.
Told of my interest in politics, Knoll suggested I should
work towards a degree in political science. To start with, I might like
to take a course in modern European history, taught by himself, and one
in Chinese philosophy taught by a refugee from Red China, also teaching
at the Army Language School in Monterey.
Both men spoke English with a strong accent, Knoll pronouncing
his R's in guttural German fashion, and the Chinese professor (whose name
I forget) turning them into L's. At times the latter was so difficult
to understand, it was impossible to follow him.
So, I started cutting classes. In the end, I dropped out,
as I had at Columbia following my bout of hepatitis. It was the end of
my academic career, once and for all.
Of course, as always when making such decisions, there was
a personal factor involved.
My black actor friend from New York, Ronald, was back in,
or about to come back into my life, having outlasted (or outwitted) Helga,
who was not long ago my intended GI-bride.
As readers of my previous series may recall, Ron had had
to undergo major spinal surgery for something at first thought to have
been multiple sclerosis. Now, the symptoms had come back. He would have
to have another major operation, he told me. Would he like to come out
to California for his convalescence, I said trying to cheer him up.
Next, I had to break the news to Nellie, in her eighties
by then, and rapidly going blind. I used to read to her, but now she was
getting "records for the blind," books read by professionals,
such as Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, one of her favorite novels.
I told her I was going to try and get a job in Los Angeles,
I told her. Though willing to let me go, she was unhappy about me giving
up my studies yet again, she said. "But don't worry," she added,
"tools will be put into your hands." I always wondered when
and what sort exactly.
With his neck in plaster, poor Ron looked terrible when I met him at LA Airport. But he was visibly brightened when seeing the apartment I had rented in a block with swimming pool just off Hollywood Boulevard. I think he already saw his name emblazoned in golden letters on the sidewalk.