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Small change. When basketball star Shareef Abdur-Rahim announced he was making himself eligible for the NBA draft, the reaction was sadness all around. But when Tremaine Fowlkes departed for Fresno State, the Daily Cal was scornful. "In his two seasons at Cal," the paper wrote on May 1, "Tremaine Fowlkes played in 41 basketball games. Considering he received $1,800 from sports agent James Casey, that averages out to $43.90 a game." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lonelyhearts. So how does hoops coach Todd Bozeman feel these days, as his talent leaves the program? Michael Shenon '83 tells all in a song composed for the occasion: We're Sgt. Bozeman's Lonely Front Court Band, We hope you have enjoyed the show, We're Sgt. Bozeman's Lonely Front Court Band, Sit back and watch the talent go. Here's the rest of Shenon's record: Side One: "Shareef's Leaving School." "Within You Without Any Depth." "When I'm Sixty- Four Points Down." "Getting Worse." Side Two: (Sorry, but Side Two was cancelled due to a lack of small forwards.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bombing at Berkeley. Those who can't teach, build bombs, apparently. When he taught math at Cal from 1967-69, Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski earned this review in the 1969 SLATE course evaluation: "Math 135. Introduction to the theory of Sets. The six available questionnaires from last year agreed that Kaczynski's lectures were useless and right from the book. Three questionnaires from the Math 120A class said he showed absolutely no concern for the students. 'He absolutely refuses to answer questions by completely ignoring the students.'" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Farewell to arms. When former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara '37 gave his Cal Day speech against atomic weapons, the San Jose Mercury-News reported it under the headline "Ex-defense chief asks Cal to phase out nuclear arms." Just when we were starting to enjoy being the only university in the world with a first-strike nuclear capability. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Poles apart. Joan Reutinger '37, M.A. '40, remembers being invited to President Robert Sproul's house when Leopold Stokowski--fresh from conducting Fantasia for Walt Disney- -was visiting the campus. Says Reutinger: "His Polish accent went on and off; sometimes he had it and sometimes he didn't. When Mrs. Sproul asked him about it, he said confidently, 'It's part of my charm.'" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stalling for time. Sign in jam-packed Moffitt Library at the height of finals cramming: "Janine and Sarah: I'm studying in the 4th floor bathroom. Look in stall #2. Monica." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Forgotten but not gone. As all really hard-core studiers know, the Physics Reading room on the second floor of Le Conte Hall stays open all night, but you can't get into the building after 10 p.m., so either you come before 10 or have someone who arrived earlier let you in. One evening before mid-terms, Mike Skarpelos '82 says he and dozens of other students were intently studying in the Physics Reading room when all of a sudden they heard someone shouting "Marcia! Marcia!" on the patio outside. "Most of us tried to ignore him," says Skarpelos, "but he persisted, so I went to the window and yelled back, 'Marcia left an hour ago!' Thankfully, he stopped shouting and went away. As I returned to my seat, a young lady thanked me profusely. She was Marcia." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lightness at noon. The Cal music department puts wit as well as woodwinds into the titles of its Wednesday noon concerts. Recent items: February 21: "Sing and String Theory (for non- physicists)." March 6: "Precocious Precollegians." April 10: "Almost Baroque (5 days until taxes)." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The letter of the law. At a dinner in San Francisco this spring, Robert Daggett '52, Boalt '55, paid homage to former California Supreme Court justice and Boalt dean Frank Newman, who died on February 18. Of Newman's legendary lecturing style at Boalt, he said, "At the start of class on a Thursday class, Newman would say, 'Your notes from Tuesday should end with, 'Similarly, comma...'" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best of both. At the 1984 ceremony in which Stanford awarded an endowed chair in economics to W. Brian Arthur, Ph.D. '73, then-president Donald Kennedy said, "Even though Brian's a Berkeley graduate, we still think he's good, and we're delighted to have him here." To which Arthur replied, "I do believe I have the best of both worlds: a Berkeley education and a Stanford job." (The five Berkeley alums present guffawed.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Too late for L-dopa. Professor Thomas Sloan, who recently retired from the Department of Rhetoric, was explaining his new status to his 7-year-old granddaughter. The girl then went to school, where she was asked what her grandfather did. "Oh, nothing," she replied. "He's retarded." --William Rodarmor |
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