History of Civilization I

In September of 1962, I was sitting in my first history of Civ lecture with 400 other freshman in Thorne Hall at Occidental College.  This History of Civ course amounted to one half of a student's total units for the first two years and was required for everyone.  Thorne Hall seats  3,650 which was nearly ten times more than needed to hold the freshman class, but the furnishings and appointments made a statement.  Plush seats, natural wood trim and handrails, Doric columns that framed the entrance and supported a portico that resembled a mini Parthenon. It all seemed intended to convince us that a liberal arts education was to be taken seriously.

That day's lecture was on classic Greek literature and was presented by Basil Busacca straight from central casting – beard, tweeds, pipe, salt and pepper, mid fifties, the voice of James Earl Jones with an Italian accent, but appeared to actually be coming from God when amplified and reverberated inside the nearly empty hall. 

My thoughts at the time:  "I find this intimidating.  I don't belong here.  I am in way over my head.  I had no idea what was coming after the twelfth grade but more school was certainly not an option.  I'm sitting here now because my mother can be relentless and my plan to outsmart her went south."

My Mother insisted that I go to college and to finally get her to shut up, I applied to only one school – Occidental.  It was a perfect plan since we couldn't afford it and I could never compete with the thousands of applicants and their impressive qualifications and connections.  I didn't have a car and Oxy was within walking distance of my parent's home.  This was the keystone for the reasoning I presented to my mom for applying – live and eat at home, walk to school – it all amounts to major savings.  Unbeknownst to me, the college relied on funding that comes from the federal government with the proviso that a specified small number (5?) of applicants from neighboring public schools must be admitted regardless of their ability to meet any other criteria.

When the acceptance letter came, my parents almost soiled themselves because my dad would have to start a second job teaching adult education at night to meet the tuition and my mother always thought it was nuts to apply to only one school.  It made my mom proud.  She used to tell her friends that she was worried when I applied to only one school but it turned out that I knew what I was doing all along.   I didn't find out about the funding angle until many years later.  I never told my mother about the federal quota for local yokels.

Professor Busaca began his lecture and a pattern began to appear.  He would repeatedly mention the three tragic dramatists of ancient Athens like a metered lyric – Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus.  When he would end on the Aeschylus part he would lean slightly closer to the microphone turning the word into a sound like the air brakes on a Mac truck.  Meanwhile a gas bubble began working its way toward my alimentary canal.  I was sitting eight rows from the front intent on getting through this with a good set of notes in order to survive the competition made up of kids from private schools, kids from fathers that own companies, kids from fathers that have a II after their last name and the kid has a III after theirs, kids whose father is the U.S Attorney General – I was at least going to try. 

I was in the optimal birthing posture having scrunched way down with my head  below the top of my seat back, my knees up above my pelvic area and feet draped over the seat in front of me.  I determined I was going to have to do something about the gas bubble pretty soon.  It occurred to me that the next time Basil did the triple name thing I could squeak it out when he got to the Aeschylus part and no one would be the wiser. 

Sure enough, the moment came and he started it out yet another time "Euripides, Sophocles and ……" suddenly he stopped and reached for the glass of water sitting on the podium.  My entire physiology went immediately to DEFCON 5.  Reverse all engines!  Batten down the hatch!  A wave of muscular contraction drove down from my neck through my torso to my rectum and obliterated my sphincter.

It is difficult to describe the sound – kind of like the horn on an ocean liner.  It was so loud that no one could be sure where it came from and many people had no idea what it was.  The freakish nature of this phenomenal blast enabled me to remain anonymous fortunately.   I stayed frozen in place for several minutes until the lecture resumed.  I then carefully lowered myself to the floor, where I lay prone under a row of seats, and did my best to fight off a hysterical laughing fit. 

When the lecture was finished, I calmly walked out of Thorne Hall with everyone  else, overhearing an occasional "What the hell was that?"  I went home but I had no notes for the last half of the lecture.  I learned that the History of Civ lectures were taped and replayed each evening on the college radio station.  I tuned into KOXY that evening and followed along with the lecture tape, making revisions to my notes as I listened.  The tape reached the point in the lecture where my notes ended and then all hell broke loose all over again.  I had another laughing fit and said the hell with the notes.