Chapter 6: Living the High Life

By the time I graduated from Berkeley High, I was quite fluent in my newest language. I even got an A in English class.

I applied for and was awarded a scholarship from Levi Strauss, a local company, and thus I entered UCal.

I planned to live at home. By that time Willi Fellner returned from Princeton and resumed his professorship at Berkeley, and so we moved to a little house on Brookside Drive. I got my first car after graduation, a 1939 Plymouth, which was really not the ideal automobile. The car to have in those days was a ’41 Ford coupe, but at least I had wheels, so I was happy.

I had always wanted to be a doctor, but my guidance counselor took one look at me and said, “Wow, with that hand, you are not going to make it in medical school.”

“How can we maybe circumvent that?” I asked him.

I don’t wish that counselor well because his response was: “Why don’t you try biochemistry and go the back way, into medical research?”

I was young, naïve, and stupid enough to follow that advice. I enrolled in biochemistry. Lo and behold, chemistry became my strongest subject, and I got an A. I was off and running. But in my second year came the reckoning: I just couldn’t wrap my mind around physics—and around calculus even less. I crashed and burned, maintaining my grade point average thanks to all those credits from chemistry. I switched my academic focus to political science and economics (and in the course of that study took a yearlong course taught by Hannah Arendt).

I was also taught nonacademic things in college, specifically that if you wanted to be anybody, you had to belong to one of the fraternities or sororities. Consequently, I went through rush, got accepted, I became a member of Chi Phi, a fraternity with some great attractions. First of all, they were located a bit further out than all the other sorority and fraternity houses. Second, they had a fantastic bar. (Those two facts were linked, because, of course, no alcohol was permitted within two miles of campus.) Third, they were socially active and, because of the bar, very popular with the sororities. Last, they were neighbors of the Betas, the fraternity that Skip belonged to, and a nice bunch of guys. Once again, my wish for friendship was fulfilled.

Thanks to Dick Stevens, the tennis coach, I made the tennis team. I had five hours a day of tennis practice, plus a job pumping gas. I don’t know how I managed to study at all. I probably didn’t.

Life was getting a little better—with girls and football games, I became totally immersed and integrated in the American way of life. As the years went on, that was almost more important than my studies, a fact I regret now, to some extent.

One day, Sammy Davis, Jr., was scheduled to appear at the Fairmont Hotel. We always wanted to do something special during football season, and someone suggested—I’m not taking credit for it—“Why don’t we invite Sammy Davis for an appearance? Maybe he’ll sing something!”

A committee, including me, was chosen to go to the Fairmont, meet with Mr. Davis, and convince him to come to the Chi Phi house on a Saturday after the football game.

I said, “Mr. Davis, we have no idea what you should do, but I think it would be great if you were to come in the afternoon. We’ll spread the word. Don’t worry, there will be a lot of people, and maybe you could sing.”

“Okay, I’ll do it,” he said. “No fee.” He was a nice and charming guy.

In those days, UCal Berkeley was still predominantly white. But he was at the height of his popularity in those days, which must have played into the scheme of things. He appeared on the given Saturday. We didn’t have any posters or publicity, just word of mouth, but there was a crowd of hundreds of people. 

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