by Max Howell
Excuse the brevity, mate, but I just arrived to-day in America, received you news and I wanted to get to you immediately. Will write again later.
Your mate,
Mark.
And then he settled down and wrote to Faith.
Dear Faith,
I have been sending you letters from every port, so you now know as much as I do about my travels. But this is the day I arrived in America. It is a big occasion for me, my loved one, and I only wish you were here to share it with me. That would have made it absolutely perfect; and there were five, five letters from you. I could scarcely believe it, and I devoured every word. Honestly, Faith, I just hung on every little thing you said. To know that you love me, that you feel as I do, keeps me going. It is a glorious feeling being in love, knowing and trusting another person with your innermost thoughts.
While I think of it, I was pleased to know that everything was all right. I must say it was always in the back of my mind, and I am relieved. But one of these days, Faith, I would like you to have our baby. It would be the greatest thing in my life to have us make our baby, and to watch it grow inside you, and actually feel its movements, to help you as much as I can and then to be with you when you have our baby. I would not care whether it was a boy or a girl, as long as it was healthy. But it would have to be, because it would be born of such love. So one of these days we will marry and have that beautiful, beautiful baby. I am very moved at the thought of it.
There were letters from Mum and Dad and the news was really disturbing. Dad went too far with Mum again and this time she walked out and says she has had enough and is not going back. Dad wrote and said he was sorry, and asked for some money as he was going to endeavour to pull himself around. I know you of all people will understand, but I sent him everything I have. You know how much I love him. Anyhow, all I can do is cross my fingers and hope all goes well. There is nothing much otherwise I can do from this distance. So I am not sure what is happening at 47 Church Street. I sort of cannot believe that my family may not be there. You might keep your eyes and ears open, and if anything comes up do what you can and write me immediately.
It was a marvellous welcome I received to America. George and the swimmers met me at the boat, and they drove me to George’s home. When we got here, at his place like you see in films, there were banners welcoming me, some of the University band and the cheerleaders were on hand; and that was something, and then a meal for about fifty people. Apparently the meal’s a standard one here at such functions, spaghetti and meatballs.
The family is marvellous. There is a mood of love, care and understanding. I would like our home to be always like that. Don’t you think, Faith, that we could be like we are for the rest of our lives? Why should love diminish? The perfect love should grow and increase with maturity and knowledge of the other. I could never tire of you, never. I just never can get enough of talking with you, touching your hand, feeling your body, looking at things with you. Just knowing you are near me gives me a sense of warmth. Let us forever maintain what we are so fortunate to have found one another.
So here I am, in a strange land, thousands of miles away from my loved one. We are both strong enough to survive everything that this separation can throw at us, and emerge more in love than ever before.
I will write at length to-morrow. But I wanted you to know I had arrived safe and sound, that I love you, and that I was overjoyed to hear from you. So until to-morrow!
I love you,
Mark.
That evening, as they sat around the kitchen, Mark found himself answering all kinds of questions about Australia from George’s children, and they hung on Mark’s every word. They wanted to know about the kangaroos and the koalas, the dingos and the sharks, the convicts and the aborigines. He was surprised how much he knew, and at the same time how much he did not know, and suddenly felt the need for a book on Australia to check a few things out. His stories about sharks, in particular, enthralled the children. They wanted to know the difference between various sharks, how many people were killed by them, all about the shark-proof nets, and so on.
“Hey, kids, give Mark a break,” joked George, “poor Mark will not have anything to tell you to-morrow if you keep this up. Don’t you have some school work to do? Mark and I have a few things to talk about.”
“Oh, Dad, what a spoil sport,” said the youngest. “All the kids at school will not believe it when we tell them the stories Mark has told us.”
“Maybe, kids, but hop off, we must have a talk.” The kids moved away reluctantly.
“Well, Mark, welcome again. Now you met all the swim team to-day, and they are a great bunch of guys, as you can see. They have been dying to get in the water with you, and in any case it will be good for you to unwind after the trip and all the excitement. So to-morrow is your day off, and in the morning we will go to the pool for a splash around and maybe finish up by throwing the ball around to loosen up. How does that sound?”
“Sounds great, coach,” said Mark enthusiastically. “I had a swim or two on the way over, but I can hardly wait to get in a pool again. I will be pretty rusty, though.”
“Listen, to-morrow is just for you to get the feel of the place and get to know the guys a bit better. Then I will take you for a walk around the campus and down Telegraph Ave. It is all so you can get acclimatised. There is also someone I want you to meet. He has a job for you, starting the day after to-morrow, as many hours as you like. That will allow you to slot away as much money as you can before next semester.”
“What kind of work, coach?” enquired Mark.
“Well, let me say first of all that a good percentage of our student body works their way through school. As in the normal semester work has to be fitted in between classes. It is part-time work and not too fancy. You will be a bus-boy and work racking up pool balls, cleaning pool tables and stuff like that. The bus-boy stuff is pretty hard work, but the pool stuff is a breeze.”
“Excuse me, coach, but what is a bus-boy? That is a new one on me.”
“You don’t know what a bus-boy is? What do they teach you in Australia? My boy, half of America have been bus-boys at one time of their lives. A bus-boy works in a restaurant. The waiters put the dirty dishes in trays. It takes someone of superior intelligence like yourself to pick them up, carry them to the kitchen, put them in the dish-washer, dry them and return them to the restaurant. As I said it takes brains. It is a bit boring, I admit, but it pays good money and will make you appreciate the other busboys who do the same thing, unnoticed, in every restaurant in America. It requires no skills, so you might be the best yet. The bus-boy, my boy, is as much the core of American society as the hamburger. The work will make you feel humble.”
“I will have a go at anything, coach.”
“I know that, Mark. But let us put it this way. I can absolutely guarantee that you will be the only bus-boy gold medallist in the whole of Berkeley.”
Mark laughed. George had an easy-going, likeable manner, and Mark enjoyed talking with him. “And what about this pool hall business?” asked Mark a little anxiously.
“Now we are trying desperately to get you encultured, Mark. What with the bus-boy job, we have also located you in a pool hall. Actually, the pool hall and the restaurant are connected. You will be working at the Berkeley Cue Center. When it is busy, you are bussing the tables, as they say. When it is not busy, you are in the pool centre. According to the boys, it is the plushest job in Berkeley.”
“But what do I do?”
“As I said, Mark, the pool hall is another US institution. More people have failed university playing pool than any other game. Pool is addictive. It is a great American pastime. You do not have to play it yourself, in actual fact knowing nothing may be an advantage. What you do is clock people in when they come in to play. There is a certain charge per hour for playing. You collect the money, clear the table and rack up the balls. It takes two seconds to learn how. Then you check in the next customer. When it is sla
ck, you just sit in a chair and do some study or dream about your girl.”
“Sounds great, coach, thanks for everything you have done.”
“No problem, Mark. You will have to put in the time, not me, and you are paid by the hour. It is about a fifteen-minute walk from here to the centre, so you will not have to depend on me after that. You will be on your own. Oh, by the way! When you are working there the meals are on the house. The rest you have here with us, no special meals, just what we normally eat.”
“Thanks, coach,” said Mark. “Well, it certainly has been a big day for me. See you in the morning, coach. Good-night, Mrs Schroth.”
“Myrtle!” he heard from the kitchen. “My name is Myrtle, Mark.”
“Yes, Myrtle! My thanks! And good-night, kids.”
“Good-night, Mark. How about another story before you go to bed,” said one.
“That is it, kids,” said George. “Enough is enough.”
“Dad is a spoil sport, a spoil sport,” said one laughingly, and George chased them into their rooms, everyone screaming in delight.
Mark went to his room and undressed. He loved the feel of his new home and family. On the wall were photos of Cal swim teams, and banners such as ‘University of California’, ‘The Golden Bears’, and so on. He felt he had found a second home, and soon fell into a deep sleep.
George and Mark walked from the home on Eunice Street near the Rose Garden the next morning. George thought it was a good idea for Mark to get his bearings, so that he would have no trouble walking to work. So they wended their way along Euclid Avenue, Mark taking in everything, some of the beautiful houses higher up, and the high, stuccoed walls that often separated them from public gaze. But a glance inside the gate was enough to see that there was a fair bit of wealth in the area. Much of the vegetation reminded him of Australia, but the style of housing did not.
As they got closer to the campus, there was an increase in older, wooden-style homes that had a certain character but were mainly the worse for wear. “They are the student boarding houses, they cost little to maintain and they have generally minimum furniture. But they are all close to classes, they are cheap, and they serve the purpose.” There were many apartment houses as they got closer to the campus. “Many of the married students rent these,” said George. “It is a lot quieter this side of the university, away from Telegraph Street and the action there. There are just a few shops on this side of the campus, as you see a pizza place, a laundry set-up and a few small restaurants. We like living on this side, as a lot of high school dropouts, and I hate to say a majority are drug addicts, are part of the scene on the other side. I want to keep my own family as protected as I can. There is no evident danger, but the environment has definitely deteriorated over the last few years.
“Now we are moving on to the campus itself. That big building next to us is the Education building, and you might be taking courses there in your junior year, depending on what you decide to take as your speciality. Most of the other buildings you see around here are Science buildings.”
Mark was impressed with the buildings he saw. They looked like university buildings, he thought. Though they were reasonably close to one another, the landscaping gave the feeling that they were further apart, and the roads meandered around the buildings.
“Let us walk by the Faculty Club,” said George. “It is a peaceful walk. No one is allowed in without a member of faculty. It is a bit stuffy, really, and I prefer to eat off campus. I keep absolutely clear of university politics. I have enough trouble running a swim team, and I have no other aspirations. I could not be happier doing what I do.”
They walked over a small man-made bridge. “I do not know what you know about art,” George said, “but that statue is by the famous sculptor Rodin. Look at the muscularity of the figure. You can pick a Rodin a mile away. He has a distinctive style; and over there is a Malliol, another you can tell a hundred yards away, and there near it is a Moore. The other one you can see over there I have always thought was out of place. It is a Calder, a nude on a tree, called ‘The Last Dryad’. Not my cup of tea, as you Aussies would say. We have some pretty wealthy alumni who have been over generous over the years. Each day you come by here, Mark, study them. They are among the great masters. Each time I look at them I see something different.”
“Coach, I never have thought much about art, or music either. I do not ever remember those subjects being discussed at home, and the only time I remember art at school was in primary or elementary courses as I think you call them here. I have vaguely heard of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’, but that is about all I know concerning sculpture. I have always been a bit interested in impressionistic painting, however, but just from what I have seen in various books. I never have seen the real thing. After being at Tahiti, I would now like to see an original Gaugin, to see if he really captures the colour and the feeling of the place.”
“I’m not sure about Gaugin,” replied George, “but San Francisco is a very wealthy city and it would not surprise me if they have one or two in their main gallery. When you get over to San Francisco you might have a look-see.”
“I will,” said Mark, “my education is really lacking in that direction.” “Talking about sculptures, we just passed the Life Science Building. I have actually taken you a bit out of your way to show you over the campus.” Suddenly there, right in front of him, was a beautiful life-size bronze of a rugby player standing, with his foot on a rugby ball, and having his leg bandaged by a player or handler. It said it was a gift from James Dual Phelan, and was by artist Douglas Tilden.
“What is a rugby player doing here? It has to be rugby with the short pants. Your players here wear those long pants, which we think are pretty silly.”
“Well in the old days, in 1898 and 1899 I think, well before the First World War, football was banned in the State of California, and rugby was the game in the schools and the universities.”
“How did that happen?”
“Well, football just got too rough. This was before the forward pass, which revolutionized the game. Yardage was the important thing, and so they came up with a move called the flying wedge. The quarterback was always a little man, like your scrum half, and the team linked arms in a wedge formation, like a Roman phalanx, and rushed forward. It was mayhem! And they did not wear helmets in those days. A few sissies, isn’t that what you call them in Australia, would wear leather covering over the head like your scrum caps. Anyhow, people were actually getting killed playing football, mainly head injuries, and it reached the point where the President of the United States, a rugged character called Theodore Roosevelt, called for banning the game unless it changed its rules. Some states decided to stop playing, and California was one of them. Why, about 1911 or 1912 an Australian team visited here, and the Big Game, which is Stanford versus Cal, was actually rugby. Hard to believe, but there you are.”
“So how did football get back on top?”
“I am not certain,” said George, “but I think it had to do with the war. When the boys came back American football just seemed to start up again. But Notre Dame by then had started the forward pass, and it changed the nature of the game. The flying wedge became obsolete, the game opened up and the American game won out in popularity over the English game.”
“I never realised,” said Mark, “that the forward pass only developed during this century.”
“That is for sure. Until then all the passing was lateral, like rugby. All we did was spread your scrum out and into a straight line.”
“Well,” said Mark, “I can hardly wait to see a game of gridiron.”
“Gridiron? That is what you Aussies incorrectly call it. When they divided the field up in the early days it resembled a grid, and the word gridiron developed. But you rarely hear the expression now. It is called American football.”
They then walked towards the ‘Harmon Gymnasium’. “Before we go into the pool, Mark, there are a few people I want you to meet.” They walked into
the gymnasium, and first George showed Mark the basketball court. “This is where the basketball team plays its games. We may not have the best team in the world, but it is always competitive. Pete Newell is a fabulous coach, one of the nation’s best, and his assistant, Art Gallon, has just finished his doctorate degree in physical education in this building. I rarely miss a game, and I always take Myrtle and the kids. It is such a great atmosphere. You will really love the basketball.”
“I have read about it, and played a few games at school, but we know little about it in Australia. It is actually considered a bit of a girl’s game, which they call netball.”
“A girl’s game,” laughed George. “That it certainly is not”, as they stood there and watched a pick-up game. Though Mark was to learn later that the players he saw were rather ordinary, but fanatics, they looked outstanding to his untutored eye. “They are called gym rats,” said George. “They are here every day, and they play as if they are in the Olympics. But they would not even get a look-in with the ‘Varsity team.”
George then walked in to the main office of the Department of Physical Education. As he did, a slight woman lowered her glasses, and looked up with an alert and smiling face. “Hi coach,” she said, her whole expression being one of interest, “what brings you in here?”
“Florence,” George said, smiling, “I have a new student I would like to introduce you to. This is Mark Jamieson from Australia. Mark, this is Mrs Stumpf. She is the real brains behind the whole operation here.”
“He always exaggerates,” laughed Florence, leaning on the counter. “Anyhow, your fame precedes you. I read about you in the Daily Cal newspaper on Friday. Welcome to the USA, Mark.”
“Thanks very much, Mrs. Stumpf,” said Mark, drawn immediately to this woman with an obvious interest in students.
“We had another Australian here, you know, Max Howell. He received straight A’s with us academically and is now teaching at the University of British Columbia. He always comes in to see me every year when he comes down from UBC to play Cal in rugby.”
