GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

Combined Science, known to students as "Com Sci", was a required course for non-science majors at Occidental.  In today's world, Com Sci would be renamed: "Science for Dummies".  If you wanted to avoid taking advanced math, physics, chemistry, marine biology, or geology; you had to take Com Sci in order to graduate.  Not a bad deal actually as there was an implied agreement that the Com Sci instructors were going to go easy on us schmucks. The Com Sci classes drew about 150 students instead of 400, as was the case with the other required class - history of civilization.  The instructors were drawn from the science department faculty and didn't seem to mind covering the basic fundamentals in their respective specialties.  I would usually sit with a handful of guys that I was just getting to know.  In high school, I had a few friends but I was an outsider with no social activities or groups that were of any interest to me.  I was finding t

My parents were good friends with Judy Parker.  In the 1950s, between the ages of 10 and 14, I spent a dozen weekends with her son Maxim at their house in Long Beach.  Judy was about forty and had been through 5 husbands, which I thought at the time deserved some discussion, but the subject never seemed to come up.  I was certain it had something to do her daily vacuuming and dusting regimen.  Maxim and I would always be required to pitch in and help.  My dad used our vacuum to paint with more often than it was used to clean our floors.  Even at the age of ten, it was obvious to me that this was irrational behavior.  What did she think had taken place on the living room carpet in the brief 24-hour span since it was last vacuumed?  The worst part about this for me was that I had to keep quiet and go along with it.  My upbringing had required that I display good manners, always be polite (even if it meant telling a lie), and to conform with the local traditions when a g

In May of 1964, I was looking forward to the beginning of summer vacation and the end to 2 years of history of western civilization lectures.  The freshmen that I had entered Occidental with were now sophomores and had reached the last page of the syllabus for this mandatory 30-unit course.  Today's lecture was to cover 20 th century art.  I was going to attend the class since I liked art and the lecture would likely be accompanied by lots of slides.  I hadn't made it to a great many of the lectures since the midterm incident of my freshman year.  Since the course amounted to half of one's total units, I had begun the freshman year intent on doing my best.  I had been accepted into a small and highly respected private college that was beyond my family's financial means.  My dad had taken a second job so that I could attend "the Harvard of the west", to quote one of Occidental's more ludicrous claims.  A federal funding requirement w