Family Weekly j January 21, 1962
a young man finds his place on campus and in the world
We sat by (he creek, eating 7 ' YVCV V-.
our modest lunch. Thenj . ' . ' I .(AJX'
Mother turned to me, her . ' ' 7 . ' 1 V ' 'Vi fsA',k i-Ws Ll -
voice intense: "Promise you j '.. . t $,? Jlu XgfWf'S&WCfjJrTK
will come to this college." "I T; -.Wft '''"'fV' f-rwM.fK
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ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE PORTER , jr?''?' '' r&Jl
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own boss. He will work at something he is good
at, instead of the first job he can find."
Pearl had blind faith. She knew she could
offer me no opportunities, for I had begun sell
ing newspapers on the streets of San Francisco
at the age of six in order to help her, and I
would still be working for my living all through
college, if I could ever get into one.
Yet I never again doubted that I should go
, to this college, and that in some mysterious way
it would free me.
I never lost this conviction, not even in the
difficult years that followed; for paradoxically,
though I loved books and had an insatiable ap
petite to read, I was a poor student.
No, I never lost either the clarity or the firm
ness of the resolve my mother had planted in
my mind that day by the creek on the University
of California campus. I had no money, I had
poor grades, I had no friends or relatives who
could help me. The doors of any college would
obviously be locked against me.
Yet, I knew that I would one day enter the
University of California. Had I not given my
mother my word of honor?
It is said that God works in mysterious ways
His miracles to perform. I can only believe that
this is true.
In my senior yenr, I moved with my mother
to Los Angeles and entered a new high school.
Here the teachers had a warm and interested
attitude toward their students, and I flourished
to such an extent that I pulled straight A's.
This accomplishment, along with make-up work,
got me admitted to the University in 1920.
Riding to Berkeley on the train, I kept my
saxophone, through which I then made my liv
ing, in the upper berth with me. It kept me
awake all night because I had stuffed into the
reed case my full savings of $246.
After dropping my bags at a boardinghouse,
for the second time in my life I entered the
University of California campus. It was the day
before school was to open, and again there was
not a student in sight. The chimes of the cam
panile began to play some beautiful music, the
peal of the bells filling the warm and fragrant
August air. I walked a few steps and stood in
front of Wheeler Hall, which I had learned
would be the scene of most of my classes.
As I stood gazing up at it, realizing that I
knew not a soul on the campus, that I had only
enough money to put me through perhaps two
thirds of my freshman year, and that if the
University required me to take mathematics
and science, I should probably be in serious
trouble again, my courage faltered. I had no
right to be here. It was as though my mother
and I, on that day six years before, had entered
into a conspiracy to defraud the school.
Then, as I was about to turn away, feeling
lonely, dejected, unwanted, an apparition ap
peared on the hill above me: a man on horse
back, with an enormous head of white hair
flowing down to his shoulders, wearing a big
black hat, and a loose black cape. I thought
for a moment that the shock of entering the
campus had created some kind of hallucination.
The Horseman Speaks to Me
As the figure rode slowly toward me, I per
ceived that it was one of the most beautiful
human beings I had ever seen. There was a
warm, gentle smile on his face; his cheeks were
red, and his expression alive and excited; he
was obviously of considerable age.
The man on horseback pulled up before me,
took the black sombrero off his beautiful white
hair, swept it before him, bowed to me from the
saddle, and said in a magnificently warm tone:
"Good evening, sir."
With that, he smiled a broad welcoming smile,
put his hat back on his head, bowed to me
slightly again, and moved on down the road.
I stood there, literally transfixed. No one
before had ever called me "sir." It was not only
that I had, by this one word, been transformed
from a child into an adult, but also I had been
promoted somehow from the lower middle class
into a top echelon of gentlemen and scholars.
I had no idea who the stranger might be. As
I turned away from the building, a student
passed. I stopped him and asked who the gentle
man on horseback was. He replied, "Benjamin
Ide Wheeler, president-emeritus of the univer
sity. This building was named after him."
The Strange Force of Inspiration
Inspiration does not have to come whole and
complete; it can come in many segments, di
vided by years or miles. My mother, a woman
without anyone to help her in the world, had
taken her only son by the hand and led him to
this strange world of the university. In the
blind faith that, through education, he could
become free, she had extracted a promise that
whatever else happened to him, her boy would
attend "college" and graduate. "
Yet that half might' not have accomplished
the whole job. I might have become discouraged
through lack of money and friends, and felt
that I was not wanted.
But Benjamin Ide Wheeler had come down the
path on horseback, amidst the music of the
carillon bells, and swept his hat off to me, say
ing, "Good evening, sir"
Perhaps there is some way for Pearl and
President Wheeler to know that their inspira
tion bore fruit. I have often, and ardently,
hoped bo.
Family Weekly. January 21, 1901
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Family Weekly. January 21, 1962