Sister Alice and Boyfriends
Senior Dress Up Day
Luther Burbank
Junior High School
June 6, 1939
Whitman’s Passion / Stories Never Told
2. Yet Still a Child
written by Dana Forline Skolfield
Yet Still a Child
Yet still a child, on his way to school through soggy cow
pastures inhaling after-rain breezes full of sweet earth’s labor, lettuce farms
nurtured by Japanese farmers; anticipating his first day in the last half of
the seventh grade with Mrs. Sandusky. He’ll be twelve in April; he should be in
the first half of the seventh grade but in Hawthorne it’s not offered in spring.
Mrs. Sandusky, sitting large, matronly behind a cluttered
desk, mutinously tossed reddish blonde hair, left arm bandaged in a sling from
recent car accident, rasping voice, It
simply happened, that’s all, no gory details, so now, class, let’s get on with
it! and advise your parents to drive carefully. Prevailing hospital smells
emanating from healing salves, overwhelming more favored smells—chalk and sharpened
pencils.
So he’ll skip half a grade, hoping next September to
start B8 at Luther Burbank Junior High School in Highland Park, once more
playing on hillsides, boys storming up slopes of vacant lots after winter rains
calling him to pull up jade green clumps of grass, dark wet earth clinging to
roots, tossing them at gophers to frighten them back into their shadowy holes. For
now he must endure Hawthorne
(flat country, his mother calls it),
and cow pastures.
No sooner has he graduated from Aldama Grammar School
in February than he’s wrenched from Marmion
Way, Bob Crimea and the gang—and Frank Hagaman. I’ll never see them again! How often in his life would he experience
such losses. Step dad Robert H. Taylor’s got work as a mechanic in Hawthorne, out near the
airport somewhere.
Other than exploring lettuce farms on the way to school,
picking his way through pastures wet with lumps of cow dung, he experiments and
investigates everything (except his secret desires—little hope of finding
anyone to share these longings). All solutions are forbidden him, even though
his Uncle Tom encourages him to find a girl to screw. Dana is old enough now to
be sure his teen years are going to be just plain horrible!
So he spends afternoons in the backyard’s clapboard shack,
daddy long-leg spiders hanging from the ceiling in lazy webs, sitting at a
rickety wooden desk, supervising his new gang. Hand printed cards identify
them, his own card marked in ink with Dana
Forline Skolfield, 12030 Cordary Avenue, Hawthorne, California, Expert Secret
Investigator 431-W.
Wily Charlie Smith who lives next door, fourteen and
the oldest, so the new Bob Crimea, but there’s no chance Charlie will wrestle
any of the boys to the ground and pants them—his mother watches him like a
pigeon hawk. Tiny Richard, six, fidgety little guy would be the likeliest
victim. Blond nine-year-old Billy acts like a superior sleuth, peering out the
shack’s broken window, surveying the backyard, hoping no doubt to find villains
there—Moloch from the Dick Tracy radio show, or thug Tony Martino sneaking
around corners.
Alice, Dana, and Gang / Hawthorne
It’s hot in the shack on warm spring days, smell of
disintegrating plaster in cracks of lathe slats filling the air. Dana wonders
if his urges will ever be satisfied, but doesn’t think about it much—keeps busy
dropping Idaho
potatoes into empty jelly glasses until they sprout leaves, planting them next
to the house, digging them up weeks later—lo and behold—new potatoes clinging
to roots! taking apart a wind-up alarm clock—reassembling it, smell of
lubricating oil not as enticing as the smell of plaster in the shack. He finds
good use for a large square galvanized steel tub sitting against the back wall
of the house, filling it with gray, colorless frogs—or are they toads?
lingering over them in late afternoons after school, watching their long,
snake-like tongues flicking out to capture flies. He tells his Uncle Tom about
them and Nana warns him he’ll get warts on his fingers, handling toads. This
worries him a bit, but warts never appear. He’s told himself to pay no
never-mind to Nana’s seemingly endless forebodings.
March winds blow, heavy rains soak cow pastures—no, not cow pastures! Marshlands, fens of Scotland, pirate coves
along the coast of Cornwall. Watching dark, scudding clouds in the sky, sun
low in the west, he’s John Masefield’s “Martin Hyde, the Duke’s Messenger,” and
Jim Davis found among treasured romantic tales in the public library—exploring
among musty smell of books in his hands, on library shelves. And the
never-to-be-forgotten song from a time long before adolescent desires cluttered
his life: Leagues of sky, silent lie, blue and free, calling me . . .
Charlie Smith’s mother’s long anguished face mirrors her
son’s—always a troubled look even when she’s smiling or laughing, maybe because
she’s surrendered herself to Aimee Semple McPherson’s Four Square Gospel. In
spite of their disturbing visit to Angelus Temple, Jane allows Dana and his
older sisters to go to their neighbor’s Four Square Gospel, where Dana and
Charlie sink into a wooden pew hidden from the altar behind a pillar, sucking
raspberry juices out of jaw breakers; Edith and Alice in pews near the aisle,
exposed to faith healers who, after applause and shouting, march down from an
altar decked out like the prow of a ship with long, white and blue crêpe paper
streamers connecting to pews. We shall
rescue all ye sinners from the oceans of sin!
Clapping hands
raised to the rafters as Dana sees Alice
dragged down the aisle, crying. At home, Alice,
near hysteria, rushes in, sobbing, “They got hold of me, Mother, I couldn’t
stop them—” Their mother says flatly, “That’s the end of it, you’re not to go
to that church again!”
Summertime 1938 at 4610, his urges are more unbearable,
more intense, more unsatisfied than ever. Uncle Tom tries to get him to screw
the blonde neighbor girl, Elaine Swanson—as if he knew how, or really wanted to.
She’s old enough—fourteen—and Uncle Tom says it’s rumored she’s “fast,” not
with him of course—Uncle Tom is no child molester. In the garage, sitting next
to her in the front seat of Pop’s new car—a Dodge sedan upgraded from the old Franklin—he ventures to
rub a hand between her legs. Elaine shrugs, a mysterious smile, and that’s the
end of it.
The push is on to lure him and his sisters away from
their mother to live at 4610. Edith thinks seriously about it, Alice not so
sure, Dana uncertain at first. The environment on Cordary Avenue becomes unbearable when
the cesspool backs up and no money to fix it. No matter, he’s sure he couldn’t
stand living at 4610 all year long—not even a cow pasture nearby and still flat
country; sleeping on a day bed in Nana and Pop’s bedroom—sour smell of towels
hanging on wracks in the long bathroom—one for each member of the family—uncles
loudly contending in the living room every night; Nana’s smothering
disapproval, like when she found his “wet dream” advertised on the white sheets
of the day bed, warning him he’d better find himself a girl.
Worse—junior high school in flat country? No Luther Burbank with its rose adobe walls
and colored tiles along the eves beneath the hills of Highland Park. Friendly W Car streetcar on
North Figueroa seeking its final stop on the top of a hill at the border of
Eagle Rock?
Edith deserts, goes to live at 4610, Alice considers it—until
Uncle Tom tells them a story about their grandmother—May, Jane’s mother, who
died when she was only thirty-nine. Tom got the story from their dad. Jane had
told him that May was mentally unbalanced and committed suicide. That does it
for Alice,
declaring to Dana, “I will never leave Mother now.”
Late August. At last they return to the City of Seven
Hills—without R. H. Taylor, step dad number two—or Edith. She’s gone to live at
4610. He and Alice, little sister Jane, eight, kid brother Bobby, one year old,
move into a rambling one-story wood frame house spread on a small knoll rising
above York Junction. In September, anticipating no more lonely walks to school,
belonging to crowds of students, clutching books, making their way up friendly
North Figueroa to Luther Burbank Junior High School, passing Garvanza Grammar
School, scene of his early revolt and rehabilitation. He’ll not bother to look
at Garvanza grammar school as he passes—that’s all behind him now. And yet he
catches himself stealing a glance at the chain link fence between the two
schools dirt playgrounds, marked by tall, eucalyptus trees.
Luther Burbank is a cluster of beautiful rose adobe
buildings with multi-colored lettered tiles along the ramparts to remind them
of the man the school’s named after: Fruit and Flower Show the Magic of His Mind.
He Desired Not to be Famous, but to Serve Mankind. Years later the
buildings will be torn down to satisfy earthquake safety standards, their
beautiful rose adobe replaced by dull, white concrete.
A month before school begins, Aunt Katherine blusters
into their lives at York Junction with a son she calls “Tomasino,” telling
bawdy jokes and like Dana’s mother, sitting at the upright piano, but unlike
his mother’s more subdued melodies, Katherine thumps the keys singing loud,
gaudy tunes, Oh where or where has my
little doggone – oh where oh where can he be? With his tail cut short and his
tale cut long – oh where oh where can he be? Tommy crooning romantic Spanish
songs—sensuous sounds, words Dana can’t understand, pouring out from his
cousin’s deep, manly voice, casting a spell on him.
Aunt Katherine takes over the kitchen a couple of nights
a week to cook her “specialty”—a big mess of ground beef, potatoes and onions
fried in melting lumps of Crisco.
She’s Jane’s oldest sister, Tommy is named after his
father, Thomás de la Plata, who Aunt Katherine claims was a “Columbian
Diplomat,” passing away when Tommy was six. Katherine (no one ever called her
“Kate,” as far as Dana knows) is a Controller at a business downtown and boasts
how she loves sporting with male fellow workers, lording over simpering
secretaries—sharing rude jokes with the boys at work and in downtown bars,
drinking not a few whiskey hi-balls with them.
Boasting her “Tomasino” is a real lady’s man who began
chasing girls when he was just eleven years old—with much success, she assures
them—“Girls compete for his favors. and why shouldn’t they? He’s all boy.” Dana, embarrassed and annoyed she glances at
him when she says this.
All-boy, seventeen year old Cousin Tommy is old enough to
be idolized by twelve-year-old Dana—how can Dana resist the tall, curly brown
haired guy whose handsome features grace lurid brown eyes?
Tommy gets a job at Griffith Park
stables, spending some of his nights singing for free, accompanying himself on
a huge Spanish guitar in small bars on Olvera Street downtown. He works late his
first days at the stables, returning home smelling of horses and manure—oddly
intriguing to Dana, more enticing aromas to add to his collection. Although the
one-story house has several large rooms, he and Tommy are allotted an alcove
with one narrow bed off the kitchen, not much bigger than a walk-in closet. Their
first night together will be remembered the rest of his life—and a story he
will never tell, until now.
Tommy lies close to him in the small bed, his long legs
dangling over the end. “Are you awake, my little cousin?” he asks. Dana stirs,
turns on his back. Their arms, now touching.
“Why are you shaking?”
“Nothing—only—“ Tommy
lying close to me, naked, what does he want? What now? Tommy’s large
anticipating hands resting on Dana’s chest, grasping the elbow of Dana’s arm. “Rub
me,” Tommy says, “I’m sore from wrangling horses all day. Rub me all
over.” Hand on Tommy’s smooth, warm chest, circling, moving down to—
“C’mon—into the forest.”
Forest . . . Touching Tommy—touching each
other, until the sudden familiar surge climaxes in trembling satisfaction, welcome
relief. Tommy roles away. “Sleep tight, little cousin,” he says.
No epiphany, it just happens, that’s all, and again
for several nights after, the same. The thought never enters Dana’s head it’s
“wrong,” nor does it make him feel he’s different from other boys, although he
sure doesn’t want anyone to know about it—ever, nor does it color his days with
longing, nor does he find himself idolizing boys at school, although he does
develop a strong admiration for his home room and social studies teacher, Mr. Koerper—big,
proudly built loud German with dark brown eyes who makes everything they study
a celebration.
At thirteen he declares, “I’m going to be an actor!” a
desire he shares with Alice.
He reads the Bible, the King James version—Old and New
Testaments—cover-to-cover—declaring afterwards, “I’m an atheist!” but nobody,
including his mother, seems to care. He can’t accept any of the Old Testament’s
fire and brimstone—certainly not the apocalyptic “Revelations” of the New. None
of the preachers he’s heard in multifarious churches, explain Christianity in
any way he can accept. Eventually he forgets about “religion” altogether, as
most people in his world did in those days—certainly as guiding what one should
or should not do, or how to behave. As to his mother’s guidance, never once did
she imbed her advice in religious, or “Christian” thought, and certainly never
quoted the Bible. It was important enough for her that if you respected
others—all kinds of people—and not lose your temper or hurt anyone, that was
all that mattered.
He loved rituals of all kinds, however, and more than
once was brought to tears when they sang the high school alma mater, or the
Star Spangled Banner—choking up just watching them raise the flag at school. Later
in his life, exposed to the rituals of other religions, he got pleasurable chills
hearing a Cantor sing in a Synagogue (usually on film—he never was in a
Synagogue), or Christmas Midnight Mass; the retelling of the Nativity also got
him, and Easter Sunrise services. And hiking to Pasadena
to watch the Rose Parade in 1939, sitting in trees with Alice and their friends—what a thrill that
was.
As to his declaration, “I’m going to be an actor!” he and
Alice enroll in drama at Luther Burbank—this is a given, spurred on by
practical, small, tightly shaped Mrs. Lewis who expresses a healthy sense of
humor—gray-eyed, habitually rubbing the side of her nose as she directs. They
also discover the Thiesen sisters (who pronounce it “Tyson”), “Teachers of
Dramatics” says the ad in a shopper throwaway, lessons in their living room in
a small stucco house in South Pasadena: Clara May, towering over them with
intimidating large bones and long, henna-rinsed hair; Elnora, whose fading
blonde hair and liquid blue eyes, suggest a more docile woman.
Clara May, Elnora looking on, teaches them proper declamation,
to stand upright, hands thrust forward, bellowing with appropriate gestures, “How
now, John Baggot!” and “Walk out of that door, Nora Burke, and don’t you dare
be puttin’ yer foot in through it agin’!”
They’re rewarded with a public performance in the play “Endymion” by
Marie Josephine Warren; Clara May Thiesen, Director, as part of an “Open Air
Concert” presented in the Gold Shell Memorial Park Amphitheater in Pasadena. Alice, now in
her first semester at Franklin High School, plays Calisthene, Eumenides’
betrothed; he as Endymion, opening the play with, “I thank thee for thy good
counsel, good Eumenides, and in sooth ‘tis not alone Phrynia’s merry mockery
that doth make me so mournful. The wise men tell us well that a maid may not be
won too easily.” Eumenides, played by
Irving Zalinka, identified as “the bond friend of Endymion.” Elnora Thiesen, Pianist, plays “Incidental
Music.”
When his Uncle Tom explains to him and his sisters how
babies are made one cool June night leaning against Pop’s Dodge in the
driveway, Dana proclaims, “Mr. Koerper wouldn’t do that!” A beaming and
emotional Mr. Koerper has told them his wife’s going to have a baby. Tom says,
“Well, he did it, otherwise she couldn’t get pregnant.” Seventeen year old Edith says, “I’ll never
let a man stick that thing in me!”
Fourteen year old Alice
says, “Oh I wouldn’t mind a bit.”
Dana simply can’t picture himself “doing that” to a girl.
All he’s sure of is that every morning in school around ten-thirty, arousal
betrays his need to “do something!” marked on the leg—usual the right leg—of
his trousers, walking the hall to Miss Ziemann’s Social Study Class, as regular
as the round ticking electric clock on the wall, there again—the evidence of
his longings, whatever they might be—undefined, unsatisfied and certainly
incomplete—a red alert, leading nowhere—thankful at least that no one’s going
to tell him he’ll go blind if he takes temporary relief, as one of his
classmates, Bill Zitkin, has been told by his Rabbi.
Fun and festivities at Luther Burbank, are marred only
because his mother has reunited with Mr. Taylor. Without his help, she can’t
support the children, and he’s found them an ideal home to live in, close to
school. He’s working for Mr. Bates again at a gas station on Eagle Rock Boulevard. In the summer, Dana
helps him burn off wild, golden grass on the hill above the station—a ritual in
Southern California in late summer, leaving
the hills blackened until November rains. He likes the job, the sheer
physicality of it, getting all sweaty under the hot sun, and loving the smell
of burning grass, rewarded with bottles of cold cream soda pop from the ice
chest.
He’s determined at this time to become unequivocally,
without-a-doubt—male. After all,
isn’t it his greatest desire to share all his experiences with guys—be with
them—to be liked by them, and the more intense, the more all embracing,
masculine experience, the better.
The two-story dream house is at a cul-de-sac on Burwood
Terrace, a white stucco, “California Spanish” with red tile roof and large
windows, living room with dark hardwood floors and a real, wood burning fireplace,
sitting high off the street at the dead end up from North Figueroa near the
border of Eagle Rock, less than a mile north of Luther Burbank. Not exactly a
home with Mr. Taylor
around, but proudly shared with friends when he’s not; Jane once again moving
toward divorce.
With Europe on the brink of war after the civil war in
Spain and Hitler coming to power in Germany, and Japan’s aggression in China,
the war at Burwood Terrace inevitably gets more intense, culminating early one
morning with his mother’s loud piercing cry reaching out from the front bedroom.
Drunken Mr. Taylor
has punched her in the stomach, laughing at her complaining it’s hard for her
to wash his greasy clothes because of severe back pains. Alice
is away from home, visiting Palm Springs, and
has sprained her ankle hiking up into Tahquitz
Canyon with cousin Tommy; extending
her vacation in their rich Great Aunt Pearl’s grand “Pink Villa” at the foot of
Mount San Jacinto.
Dana rushes to the master bedroom, yanks open the door to
see Taylor
holding a hand tightly on his mother’s shoulder, the other hand dangling at his
side, clutching a small banjo.
“You leave my mother alone!” he shouts, shaking all
over but standing his ground. Taylor
glares at him, releasing his mother’s arm, turning away and walking out of the
room. A pained stare from Jane, reaching out to embrace him. Soon they hear the
redoubtable Mr. Taylor below, outside the house stroking the banjo, singing,
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. . .” Jane calls the police, but when
they pull up, lights flashing, Taylor
mumbles a few quiet words to them and weaves his way down the path, fussing
with the car door, stumbling in and driving off. Fortunately for him, the
police don’t follow or arrest him for drunkeness—this the final episode of the
marriage, but not before Jane writes to Alice in Palm Springs, hoping her
“’Licia girl” will ask Aunt Pearl to send her ten dollars so she can file for
divorce.
Darling ‘Licia Girl,
I surely enjoyed your interesting letter and I wanted to
write you one equally as interesting and full of good news. But as usual,
something has turned up so I am writing down to tell you about it. You can show
this letter to Aunt Pearl and you and Aunt Katherine know enough of the
situation to understand it fully. You can explain truthfully how changeable Bob
is and how, because I had no money (in between times, that is, between checks)
to feed you kiddies, I went back to him last month because he promised to be
kind, etc.
Since you have been down at Palm Springs, I have been doing the work. On
Monday I helped Bob put out a big washing and I cooked a big dinner besides
everything else. He went to work that night and came in about 4 o’clock the
next morning. He slept until two in the afternoon, during which time I ironed
his heavy service station clothes and did all the other work besides, of
course, taking care of Bobbie. [Bobbie, now two years old.]
In the meantime, I had suffered in the night with the
usual pain in my back, so when he arose I was pretty well exhausted. He spent
the afternoon as he so often does, as you know, finding fault and laughing at
me when I told him of my back, etc.
I won’t go into detail, but when I refused to argue with
him and walked out of the room, he doubled up his fist and struck me in the
chest. Many other things happened that evening that I won’t write about now,
but he threatened me to the extent that when I called Marjorie and told her
about it and she wouldn’t come out, I was afraid to stay here in the house with
him and I called Elizabeth Forline [Jane’s stepmother]. She came out and took
care of me all evening. She would have stayed all night, but I thought he would
leave me alone—which he didn’t.
I wound up with Dana manfully befriending me and I
finally had to call the police which Bob would have forcibly kept me from doing
if it wasn’t for your brother.
The point is that you know I want a divorce, but I
have to live in the meantime, and I have no money. If Aunt Pearl would mail $10
to Mr. Thomas W. Cochran, 433 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, Calif.,
he would immediately serve the papers and I could have a definite arrangement
made and could go ahead with my plans to hold this house. [Cochran was an
assistant district attorney for Los
Angeles, and prosecuted Errol Flynn in the infamous
statutory rape trial – Flynn was acquitted.]
1938 to June 1940 – school, wonderful school. Fall of
1939 – Alice begins freshman year, grade B10, at
Franklin High School. They move from Burwood
Terrace to a house with a stone porch at the top of a hill, North Avenue 53,
only a block away from Franklin,
neighborhood sidewalks shaded by eucalyptus and pepper trees. He’s greeted by a
sparkling new bicycle under the Christmas tree. No more streetcars—now he can
bike his way down the hill to streets that will take him up Figueroa to Luther
Burbank.
Lonely days—except at school where he pals around with
tall, uncomplicated blonde, Irish girl, Shirley O’Connell and shorty, Howard
Root, a fussy kid from a well-to-do family. The three of them play tennis
together, but Dana never gets the hang of it. Naïve and innocent Shirley’s good
for a laugh or two—once questioning Howard on their way to the court, “Howard,
do you have your balls?”
Their new home with the stone porch is even better than
Burwood Terrace. Lonely and content, on winter nights in December and January,
well into March, he climbs to the roof after sunset to observe three bright
planets in the west, brilliantly shining in a clear, cold sky. What are
they?—Venus, he’s pretty sure, and perhaps Mercury, and Jupiter.
Always on stage at Luther Burbank—joyous times
contrasting sharply with frightening dramas unfolding in Europe—Franco in power
in Spain, Germany takes over Austria,
occupies Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland with the claim the population is mostly German,
ceded to them by the Munich Pact along with Neville Chamberlain’s “Peace in our
time” declaration. All of Czechoslovakia
is occupied in 1939, followed by the invasion of Poland
in September, and Britain’s
promised declaration of war; the occupation of Paris on June 14, 1940, thirteen days before his
graduation.
For wanna-be actors, Franklin
High School is the best in town—except
perhaps for Hollywood High; Franklin’s
drama department under the direction of robust Katheryn Offill, even tinier
than Mrs. Lewis, five foot blonde powerhouse whose deep mellow voice, as big and
expressive as her saucer-blue eyes, can be heard around the block. Classes are
held in “The Little Theatre 281,” which doubles as classroom and theatre,
matinee performances of one acts, “Scenes from Broadway Plays,” and a major
offering of one acts, running for a whole week.
Offill a dramatic, theatric entrance into his life in the
fall semester, 1940—he’s a B-10 freshman now, 14 years old—when he tries out
for Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol.” Reading
from the stage in the large almost empty auditorium, he’s interrupted by a
shout—a cannon-shot booming from the shadows—“MY GOD WHAT A VOICE!”
He gets the part of the old, tetchy Scrooge, and thus
does the astringent smell of spirit gum, that gooey substance smeared on his
face to hold a gray beard, launch his career at Franklin. Eventually, he dreams, a career in
the Theatre itself—even Broadway? “Theatre” must be pronounced, by edict from
Offill, Thee – a – ter, not, Thee – ate – her. And no chewing gum—ever!
The auditorium weaves its own magic spell. Above the
proscenium: “In the Days of Thy Youth.”
Cold breezes waft down from flies above the stage as if from a nether
world of ropes and pins, to be warmed by, it’s hoped, enthusiastic audiences.
In February, beginning the A-10, Dana is allowed to
enroll in drama—not really an elective until the eleventh grade, so the class
on the report card will read, “Stage Design,” taught by Fred Axe, lean and
taciturn boys’ vice principal, which means drawing an occasional set design.
Each Monday morning Offill flutters through pages of the Sunday New York Times theatre section
for a “Review of the Broadway Stage.”
But it’s boisterous, Leo Tartakoff who has introduced Alice and Dana and
their friends to the live “Broadway Stage,” at the Biltmore Theatre on West 5th
Street, downtown L.A. The plays are brought into towns across the country by
the Theatre Guild’s national tours with original Broadway casts. Leo’s father
is friend of Mr. Erlinger, the Biltmore’s house manager, whose open sesame at a
small door leads them up to the balconies—provided each can grace the palm of
his hand with a silver fifty-cent piece, allowing them through a “secret door”
to climb a few steps of a dark stairway to access the balcony and boxes to look
for empty seats.
Dana meets Leo Tartakoff’s father on a hot afternoon in
February after trekking down from Franklin to a
small frame house close to the Santa
Fe railroad tracks on Marmion Way. Dad Tartakoff is a miniature
Leo, the same large hook nose. As they approach, loud music assaults them from
inside the house, issuing, as it turns out, from a small plugged-in record
player on top of a solid looking wood table, the red label of an RCA 78 rpm
spinning a resounding full orchestra with the familiar paean to victory in
Europe—dot, dot, dot—dash, Morse Code for V—dah-dah-dah-dum
from the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. But the image Dana sees
is quite different than newsreel pictures of Winston Churchill exiting Number
10 Downing Street, extending two fingers to signal V for Victory, now usurped
by the appearance of Leo’s father who’s almost swallowed up by a fading dark
brown overstuffed chair waving his arms and singing, “dah-dah-dah-dah –
dah-dah-dah-dah – dah-dah-dah-dah – dum-dah-dah-dah.”
His first words fighting through orchestral din—“This is
the only way to listen to music!—except of course in the concert hall, but who can
afford that, unless you know the house manager,” continuing to wave his arms
and singing the music—no attempt to lower the volume.
Leo doesn’t reveal how his father makes a living; the absence
of a mother is never explained. Leo Senior could have been on relief, for all Dana
knows, but who cares? The Tartakoffs
have literally opened the door to a world of unforgettable theatrical magic one
can experience only in live theatre:
WHOOSH of the great front curtain rising to the top of the
proscenium arch, audience murmurs fading; waves of applause for the set and the
entrance of great performers, fabulous stars. “And there were giants in those
days!” Tallulah Bankhead in Lillian
Hellman’s “The Little Foxes,” Tallulah appearing soon after the great curtain rises,
thrilling to applause greeting her as she saunters regally in from the off-stage
dining room. Later, sitting quietly on a couch facing front, suddenly letting
go with a throaty, deep-pitched laugh. The memorable line, “I hope you die, I
hope you die soon. I’ll be waitin’ for you to die!”
“There Shall Be No Night” by Robert E. Sherwood, directed
by Alfred Lunt who also stars as Valkonen, teamed with his wife, Lynn Fontanne
who plays Valkonen’s wife. Prominent Finnish patriots during the Russian invasion
of Finland.
At the end of the play, Lynn Fontanne, center stage, slumps into the sofa. She’s
lost both son and husband. The Russians have subdued Finland. Audience riveted on Fontanne,
her face sunk into her chest, slowly raising her head, face marked with
defiance, determination to overcome, knowing she will continue the good fight. Curtain
falls, breath of silence – thunderous applause.
The parade of great drama and music continues with “Cabin
in the Sky” starring Ethel Waters, Dooley Wilson who plays “Little Joe,” Todd
Duncan, Rex Ingram playing the Devil. The musical has had a long run on
Broadway—158 performances.
“Watch on the Rhine,” another Lillian Hellman play, starring
Paul Lukas, Mady Christians, George Colouris, and Lucille Watson, Lukas as anti-Nazi
German who has brought his family back to his wife’s elegant, comfortable home
in Virginia near Washington, D.C.—an Elysium, compared to their underground,
vagabond life in Europe. How could Dana ever forget (later preserved on film) Paul
Lukas’s plea to Lucille Watson and son to aid his escape after he’s killed Brankovic,
the blackmailer who’s threatened to expose him and stop him from returning to
Germany to lead the underground. . . Tonight,
I took a man’s life, and this is not a good thing. After mother and son
agree to help Lukas escape, Lucille Watson says to her son, familiar razor
sharp voice singing out: “We’ve been shaken out of the magnolias.”
And so have we all, here in the dark theatre.
Ethel Barrymore, Miss Moffat in the “The Corn is Green”
by Emyln Williams, more than a great star—a force. Awe-inspiring to see these
stellar personages who seem, always, determined to fight their way through
adversity; to sacrifice themselves for noble causes. Miss Ronberry, we are going on with the school! Miss Moffat declares. Dana would see the great
Barrymore at the Biltmore in “The Corn is Green” a second time, sitting in the
balcony aisle—the house was packed.
He and his friends, his sister Alice, who made their way
up the Biltmore’s dark stairway, accept without question, these offerings of nobility,
alive and flourishing and real; and certain that someday they too will have the
opportunity to fight the good fight—even if it’s simply to fulfill their
ambitions.
Robert Carillo first makes his entrance at Luther
Burbank, white teeth lighting up bronze skin. Handsome, high cheekbone Carillo,
as one would expect for a boy of Mexican ancestry, perpetually smiling, a lot
better looking than Leo or Dana, presenting distinctive contrast summer
afternoons, the three of them on the beach in Santa Monica, Muscle Beach near
the pier—arms around each other, two very skinny boys with sunken chests, and a
dark-eyed, well-built Latin.
Their last great adventure, graduation night from Burbank, they’ve gathered enough dollars to treat
themselves to a street car ride downtown and Clifton’s Cafeteria—and a movie. Dana’s been
to Clifton’s
before with his mother and sisters. It’s like walking onto a movie
set—waterfalls rushing over rocks; huge tropical plants lit by bright turquoise
and pink neon. “Clifton’s
Cafeteria—Always Cool Inside!”—famous for free meals to those who can’t afford
it—sign at the cash register, “pay whatever you can.”
They know nothing about Clifford Clifton’s history;
hearing only bits and pieces from their parents. Clifton is an active reformer who, earlier in
the 1930s, hired private detective Harry Raymond to investigate corruption in
high places. Raymond survived a car bombing, and this blew the lid off the
fetid corruption which reached from Los Angeles Police Chief James Davis right
into the office of Mayor Frank L. Shaw. Clifton
himself survived a bomb attack on his house on October 27, 1937.
But on this night, the boys dwell in another world
altogether—Dana satisfied, if not sailing around the world with Leo and Bob,
dreaming an imagined future together, lulled by the pine scent of redwoods and
splashing waterfalls, drawn into an illustrious and happy world without end.
Climbing on the bus downtown for transfer to U.C.L.A., shortly
after graduation from Franklin,
late July, 1943, he’s surprised to find a forlorn looking Leo hunched into a
seat. Leo has had a nose job. No smile, no laughter. This is not the same Leo. Both
of them face the draft in another year, enough to make anyone on the edge of eighteen
a bit, to say the least, pensive. Leo’s new look, the regal hook nose has
vanished. Perhaps this makes him feel more acceptable, but Leo’s not Leo anymore.
They talk about music. “I’ve become fully engrossed with Brahms,” Leo says
quietly, familiar laughter notably absent. Dana learns Carillo is up north
somewhere in a training camp. He’s thankful it’s a short ride to his transfer
to U.C.L.A.
He’ll never see Leo, again—or Bob Carillo.
Palm Springs is another world altogether—at the Tennis
Club, mixing malts, rich with chocolate ice cream—just like the one’s in the
soda shops on York Boulevard. Hot meringue pies materialize in the fat hands of
a robust Norwegian cook; while in the ice box at home, a pitcher of orange
juice—macaroni and cheese for dinner. Now and then, when Jane’s got a job
downtown, she brings home a delicious concoction of spaghetti in tomato sauce
sprinkled with parmesan cheese—a real treat—from Chile Ville restaurant at York
Junction.
The Tennis Club, built by his mother’s Aunt Pearl in
1936, is right up against the foot of Mount San Jacinto,
close to her home, also carved from the foot of the mountain. Meals served up
at the Tennis Club are much more delicious than Clifton’s Cafeteria, and the setting is
real—without the scent of pine trees perhaps, but the air is filled with the
stinging presence of creosote bushes and mysterious desert flowers. Bronze
granite slabs belonging to the foot of the mountain rest on a grassy terrace,
overlooking an oval pool graced by two spindly palm trees keeping watch over
the diving board.
“My father’s love of the mountain directed me in the
design,” she loved to tell visitors. “Don’t gouge out the mountain!” he said. Below
the pool, a babbling brook runs through the club and on to the front of her home—water
from Tahquitz Canyon, once nourishing a large grove of orange, lemon, apricot,
and grapefruit trees on the “McCallum Ranch” which back in the 1890s, spread
all the way down to Main Street, now Palm Canyon Drive. Beginning in the 1940s,
Pearl built “cottages” often rented by Hollywood celebrities for the winter season.
Trout for leisurely fishing are found in the Tennis Club
brook. The periodic “plop” of tennis balls from the courts below the clubhouse,
a sound surprising an unseemly silence beneath the mountain.
Dana sleeps in Aunt Pearl’s Mediterranean villa-like home
across the road from the Tennis Club in a large bed with more than one
softly-downed pillow and peach colored sheets. Like the Tennis Club, the home
has been built against the foot of San Jacinto.
Large slabs of bronze granite lie on the rear patio. At night in the bedroom, perfumes
of creosote bush and wild flower drift through warm dry air from an open
window, while at home in Highland Park, he sleeps in a cramped bed with his kid
brother in a tiny house next to a Joy Street alley.
On Palm Springs Easter vacation visits, he meets
celebrities, most of them members of the Tennis Club, but they don’t assuage
his longings. He misses a chance to meet Shirley Temple who’s attending a Punch
and Judy show in the club house dining room because he’s found someone to spend
time with, lingering in the office with Dirk, general assistant, not much older
than he, handsome like a young movie star, drawing him in, stirring him almost
to panic. Dirk smiling, looking at him with intensive brown eyes, wandering
about the office arranging papers, talking about tennis pros, Dana, glued to a
small chair looking up at him, frozen grin on his face. This is good, this is where I want to be—here, with him. That’s it,
nothing else, except a deep desire—what? He lacks experience and words to answer that
question.
Aunt Pearl coming down from the terrace with Shirley
Temple, breaks away and now stands in the doorway of the office, eyeing him
coldly. Dirk wanders off to take care of business. “Why are you malingering
here?” Pearl
asks. “I wanted you to meet Shirley Temple, not loiter here with the
help!” Her question, more of a
scold—answer impossible. She turns and moves out the door, returning to Miss Temple,
not looking back.
On his first visit ever to Palm Springs during Easter week, 1940, he
will meet Styles Dickenson. His mother, already visiting, has written to him to
get money from his dad, instructing him to go downtown to the Greyhound Bus
depot, and come to Palm Springs.
Climbing off the bus, he’s greeted, not only by his
mother, but her young sister, Marjorie—a glamorous woman always smelling of
exotic perfumes, wrist bangles rattling, and Aunt Marjorie quickly and smoothly
introduces him to a small round man with thin henna rinsed hair, hovering
nearby. Marjorie explains that Styles is staying at the villa while painting an
oil miniature of Aunt Pearl..
But it is the mountain that at once captures his
attention—he knows it must be the very foot of San Jacinto,
bronze rocks on its slope tumbling to the desert floor, rolling skyward. He’s
too close to see the top of the mountain. Low murmuring sounds of voices drift
out to him, fighting the silence. It will take time for him to focus on Aunt
Marjorie’s voice.
Styles Dickenson, pleasant face, he guesses probably in
his forties, grasping his hand, holding it longer than he should; a soft, warm
hand. As his mother and aunt walk toward Marjorie’s snazzy black Packard sedan,
Styles lingers behind to walk with him to the car, speaking softly, voice
reaching him through the silence, “We’ll have to go skinny-dipping up at the
Tahquitz Falls.”
Later that afternoon, on their hike into the canyon,
Styles doesn’t hesitate to tell him he’s an orphan adopted by the Bennett family
with movie star daughters, Joan and Constance Bennett. Alone in the canyon,
they keep their clothes on, the still pool beneath the falls is only half full,
much too cold for skinny dipping. As they settle on a large slab of granite, Styles
spins out tales of Hollywood adventures: Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in
“Larry’s” dressing room, at the time Larry’s filming “Wuthering Heights.”
“Larry likes to parade around in a metal jock strap,
pounding it with his fist. He’s quite self-conscious about his size. And
Tallulah Bankhead’s a friend of mine. I sat in the wings at the Biltmore
Theatre for most all of her performances in “The Little Foxes.”
“I saw her in that. She was great!”
“I’m surprised you didn’t see my feet sticking out of the
wings stage left.”
Night comes too quickly. Snuggling into the luxurious
comfort of the great bed, a single light from the side table illuminating downy
pillows and pink, crispy sheets, he dreams Styles will introduce him to his
idol Olivier—but is “Larry” still in town?”
Styles himself soon enters the room, kneeling bedside,
reaching out a hand to stroke Dana’s naked chest—Dana not protesting—accepting
the gesture, no second guessing Styles whose hand gently lowers, until all too
quickly, well-known satisfying sensations—the pleasurable explosion. Silently,
Styles gets up, stands for a minute, turns and leaves the room.
So Styles Dickenson is queer. He knows queer men exist
from his Uncles Tom and Stuart; his father’s only mention of queers, confiding
that Courtney Sales, a taciturn, chubby man, one of his Saturday night poker
playing friends is suspect. “He likes pouring over men’s underwear ads in my
Esquire Magazines.” His father
never talks about sex, except to reel
out dirty jokes—told with gusto and building to bawdy punch lines—once inviting
him to come downtown to experience the company of two women with him. His
father always remaining detached, unemotional, never an affectionate hug. Dana
will remember his dad in the men’s locker room at Avalon Bay
on Catalina during that fateful eleventh year of his life when he left
childhood behind, his dad staring at his groin as he showers. He could never
figure out why his dad should stare at his privates and say nothing, probably
just to find out if he’d reached puberty. Or was it to see how big he was?
Sexual adventures frequently colored conversations with
Uncles Tom and Stuart—mostly about how important it was for men to screw as
many women as possible, and how men could never be faithful to just one woman,
mentioning queers occasionally. Even Nana made snide remarks about the “needs”
of her boys for a woman’s comfort. They could do no wrong, and “if their wives
didn’t take care of them as they should, they had the right to stray from
home,” comments more than once directed at his mother. “Your father came home
to dirty dishes and no food on the table,” Nana against Carl and Jane getting
married in the first place—“they were too young,” her constant lament. Uncle
Tom once remarked, “Ma didn’t want any of us to get married. She’s a real crêpe
hanger.”
As for queers—this was a subject seldom touched upon
directly—certainly not by his grandparents. Stuart told the story how he’d been
followed home from the streetcar on 48th Street by a man; Uncle Tom,
how his Irish buddy, Jack Lonnigan, picked up a whore in Hollywood and in the
hotel room when he reached into her panties, found himself grabbing—Tom spoke
through a big grin, “grabbing a fist full of cock and balls!” This story told to Dana only—never to Edith
or Alice. Strangely, Dana heard these stories never thinking they had anything
to do with him, in spite of his encounters with cousin Tommy—in spite of the
satisfying release when Styles Dickenson stroked his stomach.
He hasn’t got a girlfriend in high school—probably because
of virulent acne on his face; only fat girls seem attracted to him. The glamour
pusses at Franklin
look at him like he’s their kid brother, or with outright disdain. Good thing
he can slap on greasepaint covering the curse of acne to perform on stage, getting
laughs and applause. On stage he’s a star.
Nearing the big day when he’ll go to Styles in Hollywood, the family
pushing him toward this opportunity for fame and fortune, he begins to worry
what his mother will think. He’s got a pretty good idea what Styles might want
from him, more than just stroking his stomach next time. He’d warmed to his
cousin Tommy’s touch, but Tommy was handsome, and besides not even queer. They
were just having fun. Alice
got the brunt of his frustration. “I can’t go to Hollywood with Styles,” he blurts out. “Styles
Dickenson is queer!” His opportunity of
a lifetime, aborted.
Toward the end of his junior year at Franklin, after his mother meets Joe Geers, a
tall, handsome construction foreman who looks like the actor, Melvyn Douglas,
their lives change drastically. Joe moves the family, and his beagle-like mutt,
“Skippy” who loves to bark at passing cars, into a large two-story frame house
on North Avenue 53 (down the hill from the house with the stone porch), filling
it with new furniture, three bedrooms upstairs, a large living room with
upright piano, kitchen bigger than the whole house in the alley behind Joy
Street.
Joe is a proud man—“just a regular guy.” He welcomes the children. He loves to cook
and is quite precise about his novel menus and ways of putting a meal together,
lumps of butter mixed in the dry dough for waffles, taking Dana to a smiling
Chinese butcher near Lincoln Park
to buy thick porterhouse and T-bone steaks. “They must be aged properly before selling.” From now on,
it’s tender, inch-thick steaks for dinner (not very friendly to Dana’s acne
problems), waffles and Polish sausages for Sunday breakfasts.
They call him “Dad.”
He buys Dana his first suit, taking him to “up-scale” Ivers Department
Store on the Avenue—a dark, pin stripe suit. A year later when he enters
U.C.L.A. the pants from this treasure will last him as the only pants he owns
through his first school year at U.C.L.A. Joe and his mother, little Jane and
Bobbie have gone off to Camp
Crowder in the Ozarks. They
barely last until he dons the uniform of a private in the Infantry in
September, 1944.
Joe takes Dana to a construction site where he proudly
shows off his camaraderie with a crew of cussing, rough, beer guzzling men (Joe
never will tolerate any swearing in front of women.) Before the day’s gone, they will raise a large smoke tower for a small steel
mill.
Joe knows practically all there is to know about Hollywood and Los
Angeles history, once the boy friend of “Chettie” who
has died at an early age. They in turn were friends with musician, crooner Russ
Colombo, who was killed in a gun accident.
Dana’s senior year at Franklin is a blast, even though Kathryn
Offill has departed on maternity leave. When still living in the alley behind Joy Street, he was
the first to know about Offill’s baby (not till after the war did he call her
“Kathryn”). Offill often drove him home, and one day, pulling to the curb near
Avenue 50, slamming her hand on the steering wheel, declaring dramatically,
“I’m going to have a baby!”
Offill’s first replacement is a crude, vociferous woman
with matted red tresses, Voche Fiske White. He and Morris Neil, editor of “The
Franklin Press” contrive to write in the Press that an unfinished one-act play
by Philip Barry, had been “finished” by Miss White. (“The Butler did it.”) Miss White is not pleased, and has him hauled
in front of boys’ vice principal, Fred Axe, calling him “another Hitler”—but nothing comes of it.
He continues to get “good press” and this is no surprise. His journalism
teacher, Kate Crannon, has appointed him associate editor of the splendid,
eight column Franklin Press, which a few years back had received the Medalist
Award from Columbia
University for best high
school newspaper in the country. Also it helps that editor-in-chief, Morris
Neil, is in drama class with him.
November, 1942—the country now at war for almost a
year. The annual Hi-Jinx Show would have a serious tone this year.
Hi-Jinx Show,
Skolfield, Cornelius
Take Leads in Drama Of War Time London
“The
Spirit of ‘42,” this year’s Hi-Jinx production—the always eagerly awaited event
of the fall semester, directed by Coach Rex Miller and written by Dana
Skolfield—will go on the boards next Tuesday, November 10, for a single
performance. The admission price will be eleven cents.
Laughter,
drama, and variety, accent the show which embodies a war-time Armistice Day
spirit with its generally serious theme. The background is vivid reality—a London cellar restaurant.
The action takes place today, during two subsequent bombing raids.
First
motivation to the plot is provided when Drake O’Connell—American flyer played
by Morris Neal (Cornelius)—tries to persuade his English friend, Dennis
Linton—played by Dana Skolfield—not to desert . . . after lady Edith gives her
views on “What England Means to Me” – taken from the novel “This Above All” by
Eric Knight. Dennis’s exit speech is a very serious poem, “A Soldier’s Answer
to Flanders Field.” . . . Those intending to
go should be prepared to laugh and enjoy, but at the same time take in stride
the serious patriotic passages of the production as well.
Dana Skolfield Captures
Franklin’s
Annual
Declamation Contest
Well Known Franklin Thespian Takes First
Place With Patrick Henry’s “Liberty
of Death”
Phyllis Barry
Associate Editor
Dana Skolfield is the winner of the annual
Franklin Declamation Contest. He gave Patrick Henry’s famous “Give me Liberty or Death” speech
which was originally delivered at the Virginian Convention in 1775. The
decision made Dana very happy and he was left rather “speechless.”
∙ On The Beam
By Dana Skolfield
wanted—
Franklinites:
How would you like to tell the world what’s on your mind! How would you like to
share your views of school and school life with the rest of us? Or how would
you like to offer orchids or brickbats to the deserving?
If
any of these offers appeal to you, then write a letter to the editor and you
may find it printed in “Letters to the Editor” column soon on the feature page.
Just drop your letter into the editor’s box in the main hall. Show that you’re
on the beam by keeping up with what’s what. Do something about your opinions,
and don’t be afraid to own an opinion. Sign your letters!
boys’ league—
Under
the leadership of Bill Beal—deferred the last minute—the Boys’ League is sure
to go places. The entire burden is not on Bill’s shoulders, however – and don’t
forget it. This is all the Boys’ League, and all the boys’ job. Let’s cooperate
and make the Boys’ League mean something!
latest
on draft
This
paragraph had a rewrite the last minute. Franklin
was all prepared to bid farewell to Bill Beal, Bob Carrillo, and Harold
Watson—but Uncle Sam changed his mind just in time. The boys have been deferred
until graduation.
latest
on names
Judy
“should have got a Bai . . . Bob “Yes, I have a fountain pen” Mueller, William
“was I talking Miss Greene!” Renner . . . Cliff “chest Master(Bates) Mattson. [How
they ever got away with “Master(Bates)” is a mystery—perhaps Kate Crannon just
didn’t get it.]
As “leading actor” he was well-known, but not as
“popular” as football or track lettermen. Alice’s
“steady,” Leno LaBianca, himself a Letterman, got him to go out for track—they
settled on his running the 4:40, but not much came of it. Mr. Rigby, the gym
teacher, a short man with a face like a character in a Warner Brothers gangster
movie, told him running would develop his chest—now rather sunken, although he
was healthy enough. Leno got him into the “Hi-Hatters” boys’ social club—open
only to boys excelling, or at least seriously participating, in sporting events.
Leno was a real friend.
But still, he couldn’t get rid of the image of one
with ambitions more artistic than the athletic. No such thing as “bullying”
existed in those years, although awareness that such a thing as a boy being
more fond of boys than girls, some with traces of effeminacy, did exist, never
spoken, generally; generally a sense of sympathy. Dana fought any hint of
effeminacy, rehearsing his masculinity as if he were preparing for a role on
stage, and sure he was getting it right. He would never find out who scrawled
graffiti on his pal, David Swanson’s locker in the boys’ gym, “Shoot the
sherbet to me, Herbert.” If ever there
was a candidate for bullying, it was David Swanson, the fair-hair Swedish boy
with a delicate face who couldn’t seem to stand without leaning abjectly on one
foot.
Dana and David
Swanson
Latin Club
Banquet
Franklin High
School
In the 1941 Christmas play, “The Bishop’s Candlesticks,”
taken from the book and movie, “Les Miserables,” when the convict who steals
the candlesticks, played by handsome Dick Powell, kneels in front of the Bishop
(played by Dana) to be forgiven, the audience howled with laughter. It was
generally accepted, by the boys anyway, Powell and a wily, thin, dark haired,
dark-eyed Forest Newman, were constantly in each other’s company and that for
certain these two guys were more than casual buddies. So when Powell kneeled in
front of the Bishop to receive his blessing, reaction was inevitable. The
laughter had a distinctively masculine tone, a smattering of giggles from the
girls. Dana felt some embarrassment, but remained secure in his masculine
self-image. Surely they didn’t believe he—well, maybe they did, but he wouldn’t
fret over it.
Other achievements, President of the Associators, school
monitors who wore buff, buttoned-down-the-middle sweaters with a large blue A
sewn on the front, and benignly considered snitches. Elected an Ephebian, as
reported in the Franklin Press:
Seven Franklin
students out of a list of 44 eligibles were elected by the Ephebian Society
last Wednesday by the combined votes of the Senior A class and Franklin faculty.
Pupils who received this honor, the highest attainable in high school, were
Jean Ball, Paulmer Beck, Frances Beck, Barbara Flower, Paul Galyen, Dana
Skolfield, and Harold Weingard.
Out of all those selected, only Paulmer Beck and Harold
Weingard would be remembered. Harold was a friend of sorts, even after Dana
bested him in the Declamation Contest (but nothing like his friendship with Leo
Tartakoff and Bob Carillo.) Harold
changed his last name to Wingard after graduation, although anti-Semitism was
dormant in their part of the world, only surfacing occasionally.
Paulmer Beck was another story. Dana could never admit to
himself that he had a “crush” on this curly head Student Body President: ephebians – “Student body President
Paulmer Beck is a member of the Associators, a Beta member of the Athenian
Society, past president of the Spanish Club, and catcher on the variety
baseball team.” Paulmer was a jock and
adorable.
January, 1943. Jane as camp follower takes five year old Bobby
and twelve year old Little Jane, to Neosho, Missouri, traipsing after Joe
Geers, step dad number four who’s been inducted into the Signal Corps and will
serve at Camp Crowder in the Ozarks.; Dana, abandoned but taking it in his
stride quickly finds himself in the empty house on North Avenue 53, gathering
scrapbooks full of saved newspaper front page headlines, proclaiming progress
of the war, before and after 1938 an the takeover of Austria. He would leave them
lying there on the floor of the empty house—history of war’s beginnings in
large, black headlines.
Dana is off to live on West 99th Street with his dad
and stepmother Alice Ruth—two hours on three streetcars to Franklin High School,
rolling out of a daybed in the back bedroom at five o’clock in the morning. Lack
of sleep gives him nosebleeds, but he’s sure not going to miss his Senior A
semester.”
There was no celebration for becoming an Ephebian—not
even a “Senior Prom” that year, so Dana celebrated his graduation with Paulmer
and other friends with a jaunt to the beach in Model A’s and other roadsters. Afterwards,
arriving at his transitional home before entering U.C.L.A., at 4610 South Gramercy Place,
standing over the dining room table, he broke down and sobbed: “I’ll never see any of them again.” (He was thinking mostly of Paulmer.) Nana looked on, pursing her lips in a cynical
line of repressed condemnation. More than once she had called him
“morbid.” For her, his outburst of
grief, without a doubt, clinched it.
He was right, never would he see Paulmer Beck again,
nor keep in touch with any of his high school friends. But in just a few days,
an exciting year at U.C.L.A. was waiting in the wings.
NEXT – Stories Never Told / 3 – Music for the Theatre
(UCLA 1943-1944)
