Self Evaluation − First Stage

There are many times in our lives in which we sit down with ourselves and ruminate about how our lives have progressed up to that point. Most of us start to form a base on which we can plot our course through life in a manner that brings about the most degree of happiness. My mother, having put my brother and myself into a Catholic school starting in first grade, was instrumental in the formulation of a Christian basis for our lives. We became Catholics at the end of our grammar school years.

Born on the first day of the year in which James Braddock defeated Max Baer to become world boxing champion; in the city of St. Francis; in the 49er state, my playground was the Palace of Fine Arts kept intact from the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition; we fed the ducks and swans and learned to climb to the top of every small tree by the pond. My transportation was my English bike, and the streetcars and cable cars which took me everywhere before they ripped up the rails and replaced them with buses.  

Attending high school meant traveling a longer distance so by this time we managed to have our own jalopies; they were not new and mine was a red Ford which had been burned out on the inside by a lighted cigarette falling on fabric, so a friend of mine and I had to replace enough of the insides to get the car running. It was a frightening experience for a number of dates I had when they discovered there were no indoor handles to open the door; you had to pull a bar.  I loved baseball and I wanted to be a pitcher but when I joined the baseball team I sat on the bench for most of the season until I realized I couldn’t pitch; so I took up tennis with a bit more measure of success. 

College took me to Notre Dame University in Indiana where I learned that a year had four seasons: Autumn with it’s beautiful greens turning into red, orange, yellow and brown mixtures before turning into bare trees of Winter with snow and ice and drab grey and black.  When ice formed on the sidewalks after a storm, my classmates could tell I was from California when I could not help slipping and when they asked me from what city, they declared I was from San Francisco from my accent!  Spring was a delightful contrast to Winter as I watched with eagerness each new bud and leaf turn into such luscious green as one can only experience then, before Summer appears with its heat and it’s time to go home.

Home to San Rafael airport north of S.F. where my friend, fellow interior car designer, and I were going to learn to fly.  The plane was an Aeronca, a high wing, single engine, two seater with one behind the other,  It had two main forward wheels with a small tail wheel.  It was small with a 65 H.P. engine.  $7.50/hr for instruction; it took me 11 and a half hours before my instructor got out from the back seat and told me to take it up!  Solo!  With mounting fear I taxied along the 800 foot runway, got onto the end of the runway having cleared myself for takeoff. I thought of just taxiing back but I knew I wouldn’t be able to face others if I did that much less myself. So I pushed the throttle forward and felt the plane lift off the ground and made my right turn so I wouldn’t hit the power lines and was just thinking of making a little trip over San Francisco but then I remembered the hardest part of flying is LANDING! So I quickly turned right again and entered the rectangular pattern for landing and brought the plane down just off the ground, pulled the stick to make it stall and there I was on the ground, safe and sound. I taxied to the end of the runway, pulled up to the office and cut the engine. “Aren’t you going up again” asked my instructor. I was so nervous and shaking I had to relax inside the office. 

A gentleman in the office who had been watching my landing dared me to take it up again and see if I could land it as perfectly as I did the 1^st time. The congratulations of my having made a perfect three-point landing encouraged me to go up again. He was right!  My 2^nd landing was sloppy, but I went around the pattern and landed a total of 7 times with another 14 times just touch and go because I was not in a good position to land. 7 near perfect landings out of 21 and I was still alive made me feel great! 

My friend soloed after me after only 8 ½ hours of instruction but unfortunately on his last attempt he nosed over and his solo attempt was a failure. He flew with me on many many occasions afterwards and I had him fly and land the plane; he did perfectly but he would not go up by himself, so great was the trauma he experienced.

Aeronautical engineering was my major at Notre Dame but having felt rather homesick I decided to stay in California and went to Santa Clara, registering in their engineering department. A friend of mine, Duncan, at Santa Clara was an actor who asked me if I would like to go to an audition at a girls high school nearby; It seemed an interesting idea and I was sure that any part I got would be only minor; but my failed solo friend and I had played around with accents and I love to play the accent of a Chinese man. Using that accent at the audition gained me the 2^nd to the star role played by my new friend Duncan. I was so frightened of getting on stage and not being able to remember my lines that I not only thoroughly memorized my lines but also Duncan's lines so that I could not possibly miss a cue; it’s good that I did because Duncan memorized the essence of his lines but not word for word. But I could pick up the cues anyway. Well I won great applause for my acting the role of Chang in Lost Horizons but my grades went down the tubes. I not only flunked most of my courses but when called in by a professor of engineering whose exam I had taken, I was told that never had he ever experienced anyone getting a flat 0 in any of his exams. I felt very little chagrin because success at something like acting on the stage was just like soloing in an airplane; such events are unique in a person’s life.

During the next semester I went to the University of San Francisco and majored in history because I like history; but disaster again looked me straight in the eye and I quit that semester and went into the Army because I realized that new experiences were what I needed to outgrow our a shyness and a self absorption that I needed to correct in order to accomplish what I felt God wanted me to. Relating this military experience will be for another time as the post is long enough already. Suffice it to say, during this period before I joined the Army I had experienced events that would change the course of my life and more was to come. I never forgot that it was my trust and Faith in God that had put me through these new experiences to bring me to a better place of getting outside of myself and being challenged with difficult tasks and, with his help, succeeding!