MY TRUMPET DAYS

John Dirlam

In the fall of 1952, at the start of my fourth grade at Stella Magladry School, the Wilson Junior High band director, Mr. Cal Martin, visited our classroom and told us that he would be giving weekly instrument lessons to any interested students.  He seemed like a great guy, and I was excited to tell my mom about this offer when I got home from school.  She too was eager to hear about the program, and she signed the required form for my trumpet lessons.  Some kids played the trombone, some the clarinet, and others the violin.  But for me, the trumpet had always seemed to me to be the coolest instrument out there.  My parents had 'Bugler's Holiday' in their record collection (they had mainly 78 rpm records, and some 45's), and I think I had the notion that I could maybe play that song too.  Thanks to Mom and Dad, I had my first lesson using my very own, brand new F.E. Olds & Sons trumpet.  They made monthly payments for two years until my trumpet was paid off.  I guess they thought I was really serious about playing!

There was no doubt that I was very proud of my shiny brass trumpet, even though I really couldn't play it.  It came in a custom case that was lined with a beautiful green felt.  I would polish my trumpet frequently, and lubricate the three values with a special oil.  I also made sure that tuning slide was well lubricated.  The pitch of my trumpet could be raised or lowered by the use of the tuning slide.  Pulling the slide out would lower the pitch, and pushing it in would raise it.  This was important when you were playing with others.  As with all brass instruments, sound is produced by blowing air through closed lips, producing a 'buzzing' sound into the mouthpiece.  This is hard to do, and my progress was very slow.  I would get a 'fat lip' or swelling from blowing too hard, or playing for a long period.  I soon found that it was important to play often, so my lips would stay in shape.

I kept playing in grade school and after several years, about the time I entered Wilson Junior High in the 7th grade, I was decent. My neighbor boy, Leroy Fish, who also played the trumpet at his Seventh Day Adventist School, and I would get together quite often and play.  I think that we both practiced a little more than we would have otherwise because we were trying to impress each other with our ability.  Leroy's mother, who was a talented artist, would heap praises on us now an then which made us feel proud.


I was also inspired after a very special school day when Mr. Martin invited one of the world's most renowned trumpet players, Rafael Mendez, to our band practice. Mendez was born in Mexico in 1921, and he moved to the U.S. when he was 20 years old.  He was living in Southern California, and I don't know how he happened to be in Eugene.  Perhaps he was in town to perform at the University of Oregon.  He played for our entire band and we were in awe.  He warned us to never have our instrument at our mouth when we were close to a door that might be opened unexpectedly.  Mendez told us that this happened to him when while he was warming up at the Capitol Theatre and he suffered a horrific accident:  smashed lip and broken teeth. We got the message, loud and clear!  Fortunately, you can watch Mendez perform some amazing trumpet songs on YouTube that were filmed back in the 50's.

Mr. Martin was very fond of the marches written by John Philip Sousa, so we did our best to play 'Stars and Stripes Forever' and 'Washington Post March'.  I thought it was very cool that my name was John Philip too, just like Sousa with one 'L' instead of two.  More about my name later.  We also played 'Our Director' and 'Mighty Oregon', which was the fight song of the U of O.

With some talent, and fair amount of practice, I was selected first trumpet as a ninth grader when I transferred to the brand new Jefferson Junior High, which was located just a couple of miles down the hill from our house.  Fortunately for my band mates and me, Mr. Martin agreed to be the band director at Jefferson too.  Once a week I played trumpet with the junior high orchestra, and I was in a bit of shock when the orchestra leader chose a musical piece for an upcoming evening concert at school for our parents that featured a trumpet solo as the introduction.  That would be me!  The fear of failure prompted me to practice my piece daily leading up to the big night.  I had to stand up in the rear of the orchestra, dressed in a white shirt and bow tie, and start the concert with my trumpet.  Thankfully, I pulled it off and hit every high note.  Patricia, who was playing first violin that evening, told me years later that she was so impressed the way I played so confidently.  Little did she know how nervous I was that evening!

Later that year, I had one other 'high pressure' moment when I was asked to play in a trumpet trio on Easter Sunday at Central Lutheran Church.  I played with Bob Moblo, the band director at South Eugene High, and a fabulous student trumpet player, Lael Weston, also from Central.  We were perched in the choir loft in the back of the church, and the folks in the congregation told us after the service that we were fantastic.  Dodged another 'embarrassment bullet'!

My music career as a trumpet player ended abruptly in the fall of 1958, the same time that I entered South Eugene High. In order to play in the band, all members were required to wear a uniform to the home football and basketball games. Regrettably, the peer pressure was too great for me to 'suit up' for the band.  I must also tell you that I never was able to 'triple tongue', where you play a note three times in rapid succession, well enough to play 'Bugler's Holiday'.  Perhaps in another life?

Planes, Trains & Automobiles: Oregon to Minnesota

Our family enjoyed traveling.  As I mentioned previously my father first drove to Oregon from his home in Redwood Falls, Minnesota in November, 1936 in his new Ford Coupe.  He and his brother Aubrey visited their Uncle John Durlam in Lebanon, Oregon.  Aubrey was eager to meet a women in nearby Portland that owned a parcel of land adjoining the Dirlam farm.  He was hopeful that she would sell it to him once she met him in person.  They followed US 30, a 2-lane highway, from Iowa to Nampa, Idaho, and then to Sisters, Oregon.  At Sisters, they took a gravel road, the old McKenzie Highway, through the Cascade Mountains to Eugene.  Then they drove 50 miles north on US 99 to their final destination.  There were no interstate highways in the U.S. in 1936!

After Dad and Mom were married and living in Eugene, they made five trips to Minnesota by auto or train by the time I was born.  My first trip was by train in 1946, when I was only 3 years old.  My sister Deanna and I went with Mom, and then Grandma and Grandpa Hoffmann joined us on the return trip.  I recall my second train trip to Redwood when I was 5 years old for Christmas.  I got a bright orange, Adams Doepke toy road grader made of pressed steel.  Although it was quite large, my folks wrapped it up and took it along so that I would have a very exciting Christmas Day surprise.  I still have the road grader, and according to eBay it's worth around $300 today!  This was well before the days of plastic toys; my toy was built to last.   

When I made my third train ride to Redwood for Christmas with our family in 1956, I was in the 8th grade and old enough to enjoy the amazing scenery on the Great Northern Railway.  Deanna and I would spend a lot of time in the 'dome car' so that we could see the Rocky Mountains as we rode through western Montana.  The train, which was called the 'Empire Builder', traveled right through Glacier National Park.  This train line, which spanned over 8,000 miles, was the culmination of one man's dream, James Jerome Hill, who had been called the 'Empire Builder' because of his ability to create a prosperous business where none previously existed starting in 1898.  In my youth, it served the area between the Great Lakes and the Pacific Ocean.  We left Eugene early in the morning, and got to Spokane, Washington around 11 pm, in time to have our railroad car 'switched' to the train that had originated in Seattle.  We got off in Willmar, Minnesota thirty hours later at 5 am.  Uncle Dick, my father's youngest brother, met us at the station and after a car ride south on US 71 we arrived in Redwood at Grandpa and Grandma Dirlam's house for a 6:30 am breakfast.  Grandma had hot oatmeal ready for us, along with her homemade biscuits and strawberry jam.  Not too bad after a 2000 mile journey!

I had never seen an African American, or as they were called in the 1940's, a 'Negro', until I stepped aboard the train.   Prior to desegregation in the U.S. in the 1960's, the occupation of the train car porter was almost exclusively performed by black men.  It was the post Civil War policy of George Pullman, head of the Pullman Company, who wished to tap into a huge potential work force that was also non-unionized.  This eventually changed with the organization of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.  The porters were extremely polite and friendly, and sharply dressed in their uniforms.  Of course, the conductor was always a white man.

Deanna and I totally enjoyed going to the dining car for our meals.  Our family rarely ate out at restaurants when we were young, and for us this was like going to a restaurant three times a day!  Green split pea soup, served with french bread, became our favorite for lunch.  I had never tried pea soup, and I decided that it was a nice way to 'eat my vegetables'!

Our arrival in Redwood was filled with great anticipation.  Both sets of grandparents lived right in the center of  this small town of 4,000 people, as they had moved from their respective farms upon retirement.  Uncle Aubrey farmed the Dirlam homestead, and Uncle Orville the Hoffmann homestead, both of which were located near the tiny village of Delhi (10 miles northwest of Redwood).  We also had more than 20 cousins nearby to play with while we were visiting.  Most of them lived on farms, so that was great for me when I was invited to stay overnight.  On Christmas Eve we attended the Swedish Lutheran Church that was only a block away from the Grandpa and Grandma Hoffmann's house.  We walked to and from the church on a cold, snowy evening.  It was an exhilarating evening, knowing that the next day would be Christmas!

As a kid, I never made a plane trip to Minnesota, but Dad, Mom and Terri flew from Eugene to Detroit in 1954 on a United Airlines DC-3 Mainliner.  Deanna, who was 14 years old, took care of my baby brother Ron and me while they were away.  One of her girl friends, Patty Berg, 15, stayed with us too.  Dad was eager to pick up a brand new car at the Ford factory.  They took deliver of a Ford Crestline 4-door sedan, and then drove to Redwood for a short visit, before heading home to Eugene.  Airline travel was uncommon, and expensive, so quite a few years went by until I made my first commercial flight at age 20.

I made three car trips to Minnesota with my family:  in 1951, 1955 and 1961.  They were all in the summertime, and it was really fun traveling through the Rocky Mountains, and visiting Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.  Folks were still allowed to feed the bears from their cars, which is not really a good idea.  Several times the bears were right by our car as we drove by them as slowly as possible.  We stopped to see Old Faithful, a cone geyser in the Park, which was first discovered in 1870 by the Washburn Expedition.  What an amazing sight that must have been for these explorers.  Eruptions can shoot four to eight thousand gallons of boiling water to a height of 100 to 180 feet, and last from 2 to 5 minutes.  Intervals between the eruptions were usually just over an hour, but they have increased to an average of 90 minutes today.  We went to another other geothermal pool, or 'mudpot', which was bubbling, steaming, and stinking like rotten eggs from the hydrogen sulfide.  There was a boardwalk leading right to the edge of the pool, with no protective fence.  Instead a large sign was posted that read 'Extreme Danger, Hot Water Can Cause Injury or Death'.  We took a big step backward!

Our next destination was the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota.  Here we visited the iconic Mount Rushmore, which features 60-foot sculptures of the heads of four U.S. presidents:  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.  The carving of this granite mountain, which is 5,700 feet above sea level, started in 1927 and ended in 1941 with no fatalities.  About 450,000 tons of rock were blasted off the mountainside with the use of dynamite.  We took pictures with our Brownie box camera, which was a very simple and inexpensive camera made by Eastman Kodak that we used to take snapshots.  Needless to say, these photos did not do justice to this magnificent sight.  There was no large visitor's center as there is today, and we never saw large crowds.  Now, nearly 3 million people visit Mount Rushmore yearly.

In 1955 we also stopped at the Little Bighorn Battlefield, which is also in the Black Hills on sacred land to the Lakota Sioux, and is the site of the infamous 'Custer's Last Stand'.  The battle, which occurred on June 25 and 26, 1876, was a prominent part of the Great Sioux War of 1876.  It was an overwhelming victory for Native Americans, led Crazy Horse, and was inspired by the visions of Sitting Bull.  The U.S. 7th Cavalry, with a total of 700 men led by General George Custer, suffered a severe defeat.  The U.S. casualty count was 268 dead, including Custer, and 55 injured.  The day we looked around the battlefield site, it was warm and sunny, and the view of the rolling plains was spectacular.  It was hard to imagine such a horrible scene as was painted by the great western artist, Charles M. Russell.

Traveling through the northern part of the Great Plains, as we did in Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas,  was very exciting for me.  As a boy, I frequently played 'Cowboys and Indians' with my friends.  We had our toy guns, cowboy hats, and I wore Roy Rogers cowboy boots.  Roy was a 'singing cowboy' that I saw in the movies, and heard on his radio show each week.  His nickname was 'King of the Cowboys'.  He had a beautiful golden palomino, Trigger, and a German Shepherd dog named Bullet.  Along the way there were many cattle ranches with real cowboys out on the land, and when we stopped in small towns for lunch we saw them at the local restaurants.  We also saw herds of buffalo in Yellowstone, just like the ones that the Native Americans hunted for their livelihood many years ago.

Once we arrived in Redwood, we would make the rounds among all of relatives.  I was very happy to spend a great amount of time at my cousins that lived on nearby farms.  Don Hoffmann was just two years older than I, and he and my Uncle Orville would teach me how to drive a tractor in the corn fields when it was time to cultivate.  It sure was fun, but I had to be careful not to wipe out 12 rows of corn at once!  We went to Belview on Saturday nights, which was 5 miles west of Delhi.  The men played horseshoes that were set up in a dirt side street, and I think they drank some beer at the Rainbow Cafe, which was owned by my mother's Aunt Hazel and Uncle Harry Montiel.  It seemed that everyone was in a good mood in this village of 400 people after another hard week of work on the nearby farms.
  

The Hoffmann farmhouse was built soon after the depression in the early 1930's.  Grandpa and Grandma Hoffmann lost their first farm due to the financial difficulties of this era, but fortunately they were able to buy their second farm just five-miles from the first in 1934, due to President Franklin Roosevelt's recovery policies.  Their Sears and Roebuck kit house looked like 'The Gladstone' that I found  online, which was delivered from Chicago to Delhi on the train.  The published cost of the kit was around $2,000, which was far less than a custom built farmhouse.  It was a two-story, square home with a wonderful front porch.  Uncle Orville would get out his accordion and play for us on hot, humid evenings.  He was really talented, and he loved to play well into the night.  Air conditioning was not available except in movie theaters, so the porch was a great place to hang out for a sing along.

Uncle Orville told me that their house had no electricity when he and my mom were growing up on the farm.  The U.S. lagged significantly behind Europe in providing electricity to rural areas due to the unwillingness of power companies to serve farmsteads.  It was not profitable.  One of the New Deal agencies created under President Roosevelt changed this when the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was created in 1935.  Within in a few years they had power lines on their road, and in December, 1937, Dad arrived from Oregon and wired the house and barn for electricity.  A few weeks later Dad and Mom were married on January 13, 1938, and then they headed west on the train to start a 'new life together' in Eugene.

Uncle Dick would always take me fishing sometime during our stay in Redwood.  He knew that I loved to fish, and that Dad did not, so he was eager to help me catch walleyes, which are a fresh water fish closely related to a Northern Pike.  The name 'walleye' comes from the fact that their eyes, like those of lions, reflect white light.  The 'eyeshine' is the result of a light-gathering layer in the eyes, called the 'tapetum lucidum', which allows the fish to see well in low-light conditions.  We could only keep walleyes that were 15 inches or longer when we would go fishing at Diamond Lake.  Uncle Dick would cook the fish fillets on the grill and it was so delicious.  No wonder that the walleye is Minnesota's state fish!  I always had a great time on my fishing outings with Uncle Dick.

Uncle Dick told me many fascinating stories about the history of southwestern Minnesota during our stay, and took me to some interesting spots.  The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, also known at the Sioux Uprising, broke out near Redwood.  Uncle Dick became the president of the Minnesota Historical Society and was responsible for the creation of the Lower Sioux Agency History Center in Morton, at the site of the stone warehouse that was attacked by Little Crow and his band of Sioux when they did not receive the food that was promised in a treaty with the U.S. Government.  I was so proud that my uncle would strive to present the 'true story' of what really happened to the Sioux to those that visited the center.  

Uncle Dick also showed me the old North Redwood railroad station where Richard Warren Sears, a 22 year old Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway Agent, first sold a shipment of watches from Chicago at the station in 1886.  This mail order enterprise eventually grew into Sears, Roebuck and Co. in Chicago.  Before the Sears catalog, farmers typically bought supplies at high prices from local general stores.  Sears took advantage of this by publishing his catalog with clearly stated prices, so that consumers would know what he was selling, and at what price.  As children, Deanna and I would spend hours looking through the Sears catalog, just imagining that we could buy whatever we wished.  We would also cut out some of the pictures to use as we played 'pretend' games together.

We also visited Uncle Aubrey and his family at the Dirlam farm.  Dad was eager to show me inside the big, red barn where he milked the cows as a young boy.  In the 1950's, Uncle Aubrey grew corn and soy beans, but no longer had any animals.  The white farm house was 1 1/2 story, and was modest in size.  Dad wired electricity to the house and barn while he was still a student at Dunwoody Institute following high school.  For sure, Dad hit the ground running once he started his formal training in electricity and refrigeration.  

Dunwoody was founded in 1914, when Minneapolis businessman William Hood Dunwoody left three million dollars in his will to 'provide for all time a place where youth without distinction on account of race, color or religious prejudice, may learn the useful trade and crafts, and thereby fit themselves for the better performance of life's duties'.  When his widow, Kate, died a year later she left additional funds to the institute.  Dad had enough money for the tuition at Dunwoody following the Great Depression only by chance.  He was in a car accident during his senior year in high school when a reckless driver ran Dad off the road and into a ditch.  His chin was cut badly and required many stitches.  He received a court settlement in which the judge ruled that he had to use at least half of the money towards further education.  Dad was an outstanding student in high school, and was the class valedictorian.  He did extremely well on the state exams, and was offered a full-scholarship at Harvard.  Grandpa Dirlam felt that Dad was needed on the farm, and at the Dirlam Meat Market in Redwood.  Once the judge handed down his ruling, Dad's further education was secured.  As I became older, I realized that Dad was very proud of the fact that his own children were allowed to pursue higher education if they so desired.

It was always fun to talk to Uncle Aubrey.  He was keen about politics as a teenager, and worked as a legislative page at the Minnesota State House following his high school graduation.  He successfully won 17 elections as a non-partisan state representative, and served for 34 years as Speaker, Majority Leader, or Minority Leader.  Uncle Aubrey was instrumental in the expansion of the U. of Minnesota to branch locations.  He knew many of the leading politicians of the day including Vice President Hubert Humphrey (l.) and Vice President Walter Mondale (r.), both of Minnesota.  Each summer, during the State House break, he would return to Delhi to farm.  Too bad our democratic system doesn't have more folks in office like Uncle Aubrey!

In 1961 I did some of the driving from Eugene to Redwood.  I got my driver's license at age 16, so I had almost two years of driving under my belt.  We traveled in our tan 1958 Plymouth station wagon.  My brother-in-law, Claude Canfield, joined our family and he was behind the wheel for many hours too.  Our car had three bench seats, with the rear one facing backward.  My sister Terri, my brother Ron, and I took turns sitting in back, but the key was not to be there on winding roads as you were sure to get car sick.  I remember being the driver on the curvy highway near Cody, Wyoming.  This was a great way to avoid being uncomfortable!


   
In addition to seeing all of our relatives, Mom took us to the site of the one-room school house near Delhi, where she taught grade school before she got married.  The octagon building was razed many years prior.  She told us how she would start the wood burning stove each morning before the students arrived on the cold winter days.  We also drove by the Delhi School in the village, where Mom and Dad went to school prior to attending high school in Redwood.  It was a two-story red, brick building just a block from the grain elevator.  The local public library was so important to mother as a young girl, as she would eventually read nearly every book they had on their shelves.  She told us that the long winter nights provided her with more than ample reading time.  She read the entire collection of Shakespeare's work.  In high school she learned Latin, so she decided to read the Latin translation of 'Julius Caesar' as well.  

On our return trip to Eugene we got back to Central Oregon, where we could see the Cascade Mountains directly ahead.  Just north of Bend, the Three Sisters, each of which exceeds 10,000 feet in elevation, towered majestically into the blue sky.  This sight was like a welcome mat with only 3 hours of driving remaining.  We were eager to complete our journey by getting to the other side of the Cascades, back home in the Willamette Valley.  I was thankful that we were not traveling by 'Wagon Train' on the Oregon Trail as the nearly 50,000 folks had between 1849 and 1860!  From Bend, they still had a difficult and dangerous time ahead.  We just had to watch out for logging trucks on the McKenzie Highway!

Why chemistry? Who needs it?

I was in the fifth grade when my father gave me a chemistry set for my 10th birthday.  My set, which was made by A. C. Gilbert Co., came in a bright blue box that contained nearly 20 small amber bottles filled with different chemicals, two test tube racks, a dozen test tubes, and an alcohol lamp.  No safety goggles, no protective gloves; but it did have a chemistry manual and a copy of the periodic chart!

Gilbert was the inventor who, in 1913, struck it big with the Erector Set, a child's construction kit that I would receive on my 11th birthday, and he was eager to expand his toy business to include selling science.  There were ads in kids' and science magazines, marketing their chemistry set as a path to a future career.  World War II brought a rush of scientific research and booming times for American companies such as DuPont and Goodyear.  Following the success of the Manhattan Project in the development of the atomic bomb, science became a part of America's identity as a world superpower in the years after the war.

A few of my friends also had chemistry sets, so I was eager to get started with some experiments in our kitchen.  My set was well stocked with cobalt chloride, sodium nitrate, sodium ferrocyanide, potassium permanganate, ammonium chloride, and ferric ammonium sulfate, just to name few of the chemicals at my disposal.  Mom would help me start the alcohol burning lamp, and would look over my shoulder as I performed various experiments when I got home from school.  She loved to tell me the story how she had taken chemistry in high school, and just hated it.  Her teacher took pity on her, and said that he would give her a passing grade if she promised not to take any more science or math classes.  'It's a deal', she told him.  Mom was brilliant in art and literature, but in actual fact she really liked helping me 'play' with my chemistry set.  She was a great cook, and perhaps helping me in her own kitchen was more like cooking.  Dad was mainly interested in the periodic chart, and he took great pride in the fact that he had memorized the symbols for all of the elements, i.e., C for carbon, O for oxygen, Na for sodium, etc., as a school boy in Minnesota.

A few months later I watched my teenage 2nd cousin, Johnny Brownlee, generate hydrogen by dissolving aluminum foil in a solution of sodium hydroxide in a bottle.  Johnny had a make-shift lab in the basement of his house in Lebanon.  He placed a balloon on the bottle, and as the hydrogen was generated by the reaction it inflated the balloon.  To end the experiment with a bang, Johnny lit the hydrogen with a flame, causing a small explosion!  That's when I realized that chemistry could be fun and exciting, and that it also could be dangerous.

The safety-conscious 1960's brought a quick end to the chemistry set's popularity.  I guess that kids started watching a lot of TV about this time too.  You can buy new chemistry sets today, but they contain chemicals such as sodium chloride (salt), calcium carbonate (chalk or limestone), and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).  Can you imagine the liability Target would have if some child accidentally ate a full bottle of cobalt chloride from a set that was purchased at their store?  Not quite like the good ol' days.

I really enjoyed math and science in school.  My parents were totally involved with me when I worked on the required science projects in junior high.  As a senior in high school I took my first chemistry class.  Mr. Hale, our teacher, was quite proud of the fact that a 'B grade' in his class was equivalent to an 'A' in any other class at South Eugene High School.  I had gotten more A's than B's going into my final semester in my senior year.  At a time when a 'C' was an average grade, I was determined to get through high school without a single 'C'.

Dale Christensen was a great friend of mine from school, church, and Boy Scouts.  Dale and I were taking chemistry together, and his father, who owned a local pharmacy near the U of O campus, offered to help us with our chemistry problem sets.  I would go to their house once a week in the evenings for our tutorial.  Dale and I were pretty excited that we were starting to understand this stuff with his dad's help.  As an added bonus, Mr. Christensen offered me a job delivering prescriptions around town after school.  Once a week I would use the company car, which was a 1959 Triumph TR3A, providing their 'Free Delivery' service.  For me it was fun, not work, and I got paid to do it!  Over time, I was also assigned some other routine tasks at the pharmacy.  Mr. Nelson, who was a long-time pharmacist at Christensen's Pharmacy, was eager to show me how he compounded prescriptions using a mortar and pestle.  This was fun too!  He encouraged me to apply to Oregon State, where he had obtained his pharmacy degree.

I missed four weeks of school in the spring of my senior year due to pneumonia.  I was on the golf team, and I got soaking wet and cold during a practice round after school in early May.  The following day I felt horrible, and soon I was 'down for the count'.  When I finally got back to school in June, I made up all the exams, but I wasn't allowed to do the chemistry experiments that I missed while I was ill.  Mr. Hale told me that I did great on his test, but that I would get a 'C+' for a final grade since I had not completed all of the lab assignments.  I was pretty discouraged, and vowed that I was done with chemistry.  Who needs chemistry anyway?

Just before graduation, I got word that I was accepted to both Oregon State and Pacific Lutheran University.  I was done with chemistry, no pharmacy school for me, so I decided to attend PLU in Parkland, Washington.  During the summer I had to make a tentative decision on which courses I would take as a freshman.  I showed my father my list, and he immediately said, 'what about chemistry?'  Oh no, I didn't want to hear the benefits of taking chemistry.  Dad, too, had helped me with some of my chemistry problem sets.  He recalled how to 'balance equations' from his high school chemistry class taken 27 years prior, and he made sure that I understood how to do this important exercise.  Pretty impressive when you realize that he never studied chemistry beyond the high school level.  He told me that I was good at chemistry, in spite of my 'C+', and that this might be an important course for me in the future.

Professor Anderson handed back our 'blue books' from our first exam in Chem. 101.  I had studied hard and I felt that I had done well.  I got a 91.  Anderson then tabulated the results of our exam on the blackboard by score, not by name, and 91 was the top score.  Wow, I can do this.  Needless to say, I kept studying chemistry for many more years.  Thanks Dad!

I've kept in touch with Dale over the years, and visited with him at our 50th Class Reunion in 2011.  He received his degree in pharmacy at Oregon State, and then obtained his Ph.D., and was a Professor of Pharmacology at the University of North Carolina for many years.  Not too bad for a couple of kids that took Mr. Hale's course, and that were trying to be 'above average' in chemistry.

Famous Chemists and the Nobel Prize

As a boy growing up in Eugene in the 40's, the notion that you could meet a 'famous person' seemed quite remote to me.  How did I know who the famous people were?  Mainly by going to a Saturday matinee at one of our local movie theaters, and by watching a newsreel prior to the featured movie.  A newsreel was a form of a short documentary film, in black and white, that was the source of news, current affairs, and entertainment.  At a time when there was no TV, this was my first opportunity to see what presidents, generals, top athletes, and movie stars, looked like in 'real life'.  People like President Truman, General Eisenhower, Jesse Owens, Clark Gable, and Elizabeth Taylor, come to mind.

Of course at school, we heard about many famous people in our lessons, and by reading our Weekly Reader.  Weekly Reader was a weekly newspaper for elementary school children.  It was first published by the American Education Press of Columbus, Ohio, in 1928.  By 1950 it had a circulation of nearly 5 million!  At Stella Magladry School it was handed out each Friday afternoon by our teacher.  It featured current events, and had a many pictures to go with the articles.  It was our own copy that could be taken home for further reading.


In grade school, I think that the most famous scientist that I knew about was Albert Einstein.  We were told that he was a genius, and I was quite sure that this was a very special attribute.  I imagined that any genius would have hair that was uncombed, and I didn't run into anyone that had a hairdo quite like that of Albert Einstein!  We learned that Einstein received a Nobel Prize in physics, and developed the general theory of relativity.  I didn't know what this theory really meant, but I did know that he came up with his well-known equation, E = mc(2).

At a young age, I learned that a Nobel Prize was given for outstanding work in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature or peace.  In 1984, our family traveled to Sweden, and we visited our friend, Klas Nyberg in Karlskoga, which is a town of 25,000 about 150 miles west of Stockholm.  Alfred Nobel was forced to relocate his explosives company after a serious explosion at his factory in Stockholm.  Klas showed us the beautiful two-story home where Nobel lived in Karlskoga the late 1800's, after he moved his company to the country.  Money from his estate has funded Nobel Prize winners since 1901.  When I was a child, the prize was worth around $50,000 dollars, and today it's $1.2 million.  That's in addition to the gold medal.  What an interesting legacy for the man that invented dynamite!

As I studied chemistry, first in high school, and then in college and graduate school, I began to learn about a number of chemists that won a Nobel Prize.  In some cases, they were well know before they won the prize, but more often they became famous after they won such a prestigious honor.  My first organic chemistry textbook, by Louis and Mary Fieser from Harvard, cited Nobel Prize winners in reference to their work.

Over the years, I would hear 12 Nobel laureates present chemistry lectures, and see four others at chemistry seminars.  One of the most notable lectures was by Linus Pauling in 1966 at the chemistry department of UCLA.  At the time, Pauling was 65 years old and had already won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1954) and the Nobel Peace Prize (1962).  I was most eager to hear him speak, knowing that he was born in Portland, and had graduated from Oregon State.  Without a doubt he was the most famous scientist Oregon had ever produced.  He gave an engaging talk about how he conceived the idea of the alpha helix for protein structures.  He was at home, ill with a cold, when he built some simple molecular models made of newspapers and magazines while recovering in bed, which over a short time would lead him to yet another amazing chemical discovery in 1951.

Soon after I heard Pauling's lecture, he made headline news when he proposed taking 3 grams of vitamin C daily for the common cold.  His work on vitamin C generated even more controversy when he advocated high doses for the treatment of cancer.  As a peace activist, Pauling was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, and in 1968 he led a demonstration against the war in downtown Los Angeles.  My friend and colleague, Peter van Konynenburg, and I attended the rally.  We were among the nearly 10,000 people marching down Broadway Blvd.  Needless to say, I wasn't able to get a glimpse of Pauling at the head of the line.

During my career, I knew two chemists that won the Nobel Prize later in life.  Donald Cram, one of my graduate school professors at UCLA in 1965, was awarded the prize in 1987, at age 68. I first heard Cram give a seminar at the University of Washington, when I was an undergraduate at nearby PLU.  My undergraduate advisor, Bill Giddings, took me to Seattle so that we could hear Cram present his research. I was using Cram's well known organic chemistry textbook, co-written with George Hammond at Cal Tech, and this was the first time that I had such an experience, i.e., meeting a top scientist and textbook author. This opportunity was very influential in my decision to apply to UCLA for graduate school.

At UCLA I found Cram to be a very friendly guy, with a boyish grin and hearty laugh. He routinely wore one one of his 150 'trademark' bow ties. He would bring his guitar to the last day of class so that he could sing to his students!  Whenever I talked to him in his office, I noticed that his surf board was always upright in the corner so that he could head to Santa Monica Beach for some surfing on a moments notice.  Little did I know that Cram would one day win a Nobel Prize!  This was exciting news, and I wrote him a congratulation note shortly after the announcement.  He then sent me a nice thank you card that featured the structure of one of his interesting organic molecules.  My final visit with Cram, who was born and raised in Chester, Vermont, was at Wesleyan U. in Middletown, Connecticut, where he gave an excellent seminar on his Nobel Prize winning research in 1990.  I never met another chemistry professor with a personality quite like Donald Cram.

E. J. Corey of Harvard was a consultant at Pfizer for over 50 years.  He would take the train from Boston to New London about once a month in order to discuss our chemistry problems.  I first met him in 1973.  I would usually see him over his lunch hour, which he chose to spend in the consulting room.  I would stop by and ask him what he would like for lunch from the cafeteria.  Each and every time it was the same, a tuna sandwich and a chocolate milk!  Fortunately, he took interest in my synthetic work, particularly when we were looking for new routes to bicyclomycin and indolmycin.  The news that Corey won the Nobel Prize in 1990 was very exciting.  More than 250 molecules have been synthesized in the Corey Group since 1950.  His 1969 total syntheses of of several prostaglandlins are considered classics. I was pleased when E.J. made reference to the synthesis of indolmycin that Dave Clark, Scott Hecker, and I published in the Journal of Organic Chemistry in his book 'The Logic of Chemical Synthesis' in 1991.

In the field of organic chemistry, I do not believe than any scientist gave a more impressive seminar than Robert B. Woodward of Harvard, who won the Nobel Prize in 1965.  He is considered by many to be the preeminent organic chemist of the 20th century, having made many key contributions to the subject, especially in the synthesis of complex natural products and the determination of their molecular structure.  I became familiar with his work while I was a graduate student at UCLA, and my research professor, Saul Winstein, knew Woodward very well from their collaborative studies at Harvard in the early 1950's.  While I was at UCLA, Winstein showed me an amusing photo of Woodward all dressed up for a backyard barbecue in sunny California.  Woodward wore a chef's hat and apron as he stood in front of the grill, ready to do some serious cooking.  This seemed quite out of character for a fellow that almost always wore a blue suit and a blue tie.

In 1972, I was introduced to Woodward in Middletown, Connecticut by Jerome Berson, my Yale postdoctoral advisor.  I mentioned the photo to Woodward, and he broke into laughter recalling the scene in Winstein's backyard.  Woodward was about to present a lecture at Wesleyan U., on his collaborative synthesis of vitamin B12, which had just been finished.  Albert Eschenmoser of the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, and Woodward, together with 99 graduate and postdoctoral students, had worked for 11 years to complete this monumental task.

Woodward started his talk by placing a country flag, about six inches tall, on the cabinet counter top at the front of the auditorium, for each country that was represented by his coworkers.  After all of the flags were carefully lined up on bench top, I counted a total of 11 different countries!  He didn't say a word.  Woodward then lay out two large white handkerchiefs on the bench top.  Upon one he placed five colors of chalk, all new pieces.  On the other handkerchief he placed an impressive number of cigarettes.  In an age when most formal lectures were presented using slides, Woodward proceeded to give one of his famous chalk talks, in which he painstakingly drew all structures on a large chalk board using these five colors of chalk.  He lit his first cigarette, and just when it got to the end, he used it to light the next one.  His chain-smoking continued throughout his talk. One of the key steps near the end of the synthesis was performed by my friend, Helmut Hamberger from Austria, who had been a postdoc with Winstein at UCLA before he went to Harvard to work with Woodward.  The several hundred  scientists and I, which were packed into this 'full house' performance, remained spell bound for the entire three hour lecture.  I remember this fine afternoon like it was yesterday.

I had an interesting encounter with a 'future Nobel Prize winner' in 1972.  I was making a connection in Chicago at O'Hare Airport, when I recognized Herbert Brown of Purdue University and realized that he was waiting for the same flight.  My graduate work at UCLA with Winstein on 'nonclassical ions' was highly contested by Brown in the chemistry literature, since he believed that 'classical ions' were rapidly equilibrating, and did not have a delocalized charge as had been proposed by Winstein in 1949.  I heard Brown give a lecture on his work at UC Riverside in 1967.  I introduced myself, and he was immediately friendly toward me.  We discussed my published results, and he was eager to know why Winstein, who had died unexpectedly in 1969, had remained so opposed to his theories.  It was a great opportunity for me to defend our research results with him.

A few years later George Olah, who pioneered the use of 'superacids' to generate carbocations in the 1960's at Dow Chemical in Ontario and Case Western Reserve University, was able to directly observe the delocalized charge in the same molecular structure that I studied in my thesis work, using low temperature nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).  I was very excited to read Olah's published data, which gave further support to the nonclassical ion theory originally proposed by Winstein.  In 1968, my friend and colleague, Maurice 'Brook' Brookhart, in his Ph.D. work with Winstein and Professor Frank Anet, interpreted some NMR signals in 'superacids' that proved to be useful in Olah's studies.  Olah received the Nobel Prize in 1994.

Herbert Brown did all right, too.  Even though he was on the 'wrong side' of history in the nonclassical ion controversy, he did receive the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of boron compounds into important reagents in organic synthesis.  In fact, I used his hydroboration reaction to my benefit in my work at UCLA, and also at the University of Lund, Sweden.  When I mentioned this to Brown, he was extremely pleased to know that I had such great success using his reactions.  Winstein told me more than once that Brown should have 'stuck to synthetic chemistry', and not engaged him in what became one of the greatest academic feuds in physical organic chemistry, a controversy that would last nearly 20 years by the time Winstein died.  Many leading scientists published work that would claim to support, or refute, the nonclassical ion theory.  Entire book chapters were written on this one subject alone!

Perhaps no one lost more in the nonclassical ion controversy than Saul Winstein.  I first met Winstein in 1965, shortly after I started graduate school at UCLA.  Winstein was 53, and had been a full professor since he was 35 years old.  I talked with four professors, including Winstein and Cram, before I decided that I wished Winstein to be my Ph.D. advisor.  His research group numbered 28 graduate and postdoctoral students, nearly half of whom were from Europe.  His work was exciting, and he was brilliant.  I knew that Winstein was a very demanding guy, but I thought that 'I could take it' for four years.  I recall that I worked 23 consecutive days between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 1967. Winstein wanted to submit my latest results to the Journal of the American Chemical Society before I went home for Christmas, and he was determined not to get 'scooped'.  I was more than eager to get my first paper from UCLA, and so I worked as hard as possible to make it happen.  Fortunately we did it!  About a month later, in January, Winstein stopped by my lab late one afternoon and asked me if I could use his tickets to the UCLA Bruins basketball game against Oregon State.  I did indeed!  I took this offer as a thank you for a job well done, although he never actually said those words.

Winstein conducted a weekly seminar, dubbed 'The Thursday Night Seminar', that would start at 8 pm, and would sometimes go well beyond midnight!  One professor from UC San Diego was given such a 'bad time' by the penetrating questions that Winstein posed about his research, that he vowed never again to return to UCLA.  Over time, these seminars became known world wide among organic and physical organic chemists. Years later while I was studying with Berson at Yale, he told me that when he began his academic career as an assistant professor at USC, he would make the hour drive to UCLA to attend these seminars each week.  He felt that the scientific rigor of these talks were second to none when it came to a discussion of the presented work, and that it was like 'obtaining a 2nd Ph.D'.  Winstein told me that the key to debating scientific issues is to be seated at the front row as he was, and have the speaker, or 'opponent' standing at the blackboard, where they must 'think on their feet'.  He said that this is always more difficult to do.  As you have probably have guessed by now, Winstein was eager to compete in the field of chemistry.  I had no idea that when he signed my completed Ph.D. thesis on October 2, 1969 that I would be his last graduate student.  I was one of seventy-two students that obtained their Ph.D. under his supervision.  He died suddenly six weeks later on November 23rd.

The following year when I was studying in Sweden, I met an Uppsala University chemistry professor at a meeting near Stockholm.  He was a member of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry nominating committee.  He told me that the committee had seriously considered Winstein as their top choice for the prize, but ultimately recommended a much older scientist since posthumous nominations are not permitted.  He felt certain the Winstein would have won the Nobel Prize the following year, if only he had lived.  How sad, as this achievement would have been one of Winstein's proudest moments in his illustrious career.  His work contributed mightily to the maturing of physical organic chemistry as a discipline. Winstein's discoveries of neighboring group involvement in cation formation, which was an outgrowth of his studies on nonclassical ions, became an integral part in the understanding of many important biochemical reactions.  As I recall my years at UCLA, I can still hear Winstein say 'how goes it?' as he would each and every time when he walked into my lab.  He would go to our lab blackboard, and we would discuss my latest progress by drawing structures, reactions, and tabulating any new kinetic chemistry results.  If it happened to be a Friday afternoon, he would always say 'I'll stop by tomorrow and see what's new'.  Needless to say, we worked most Saturdays in the Winstein Group.

As scientists, our discoveries are built on those that come before us.  Richard Heck, who received his Ph.D. degree at UCLA in 1954, initiated his physical organic chemistry career under the supervision of Winstein.  Heck then went to work for Hercules Powder Co. in Wilmington, Delaware, where he developed the 'Heck Reaction' that uses palladium to catalyze organic chemical reactions that couple aryl halides with alkenes.  He performed his early work single-handedly, without a research team commonly found in academia.  This reaction was used to couple fluorescent dyes to DNA bases, allowing the automation of DNA sequencing and the examination of the human genome!

Winstein's last consulting trip was to Hercules, just a week before he died, and I imagine that he met with Heck during his stay.  At the time, they were collaborating on a palladium catalyzed chemistry project, which was being performed by my Winstein Group colleague, Jack McCaskie.  In 2010, Heck won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and I am certain that Winstein would have been extremely proud of his former student.  I regret that I never had the opportunity to meet Heck.  However, it's quite remarkable how many amazing scientists I was able to know, or come in contact with, as I pursued my own career in chemistry.

Yo-Yo

In 1950, my neighbor boy, Jim Olsen, was in the sixth grade at Stella Magladry School, and I was a 2nd grader, when he showed me his new Duncan yo-yo.  He could do some fancy tricks, and he was eager to impress me with his skill.  He was also kind and generous, and he wanted to teach me how to yo-yo, too.  He would even loan me his yo-yo for a day or two at a time, and soon I started to get the hang of it.  I was finally able to 'sleep' the yo-yo by keeping it spinning while remaining at the end of its uncoiled string, just above the ground.  A tug on the string, which was fastened on my right hand middle finger, would bring the yo-yo quickly back into my hand!

Fortunately, I was able to get my own Duncan yo-yo within a few months.  It was a lathe-turned, wooden yo-yo, and had a beautiful navy blue, enamel finish.  I could take it anywhere in the front pocket of my jeans, and whenever I had some spare time, I would get it out and practice.  Several kids at school would do the same during our playground recess, and we could compare tricks.  I'm not sure where I got it, but I had a small book called 'The Art of Yo-Yo Playing'  that described over a hundred different tricks.  Slowly, but surely, I would work my way through the book and try to learn new tricks.  They were hard, and my progress was slow.

Even though the yo-yo was invented around 500 B.C. in Greece, this toy remained in relative obscurity until 1928 when a Filipino American named Pedro Flores opened the Yo-yo Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara, California.  Yo-yo means 'come-come', or 'return' in an ancient Filipino language.  Within a few years, an entrepreneur named Donald F. Duncan recognized the potential of this new fad and he bought Flores's company, and obtained the 'Yo-yo' registered trademark.  In 1946, Duncan Toys Company opened a yo-yo factory in Luck, Wisconsin, prompting the town to dub itself the 'Yo-yo Capital of the World'.

By the late 40's, Duncan was conducting yo-yo contests at many of the grade schools in Eugene.  In the spring of my 3rd grade, Jim encouraged me to enter the after school contest at Magladry.  I was really nervous.  I had never competed in any athletic contest, let alone a yo-yo competition!  The 'Duncan Judge' had a clip board, and he lined us up in alphabetical order.  He would call out our name as we took turns working our way through the required 10 trick list.  We each got points based on how we did on each trick, and the boy or girl with the most points would get 'First Prize, followed by a Second, or Third Prize'  Each prize was an embroidered patch, in the shape of a shield (about 5 inches x 5 inches) which could be sewn onto a jacket or coat.

As the competition moved along, I had a feeling that I was doing a little better than the other kids.  And to my surprise, when the judge announced the winners, he called out my name for 3rd prize.  I was so proud of my patch!  During the year, I was eager to improve my skills on following tricks:  sleeper, walk the dog, forward pass, rock the baby, around the world, three leaf clover, loop the loops (looping both inside the hand, and outside the hand),  and the flying saucer.  If you go to YouTube.com, you can see yo-yo experts doing all of these tricks, and illustrating proper techniques.

My practice paid off, and I won 1st prize in both the 4th and 5th grades!  Not only did I received a 'Golden Award' patch both years, the judge also gave me a light blue Duncan Jeweled Tournament Yo-Yo, which had 4 rhinestones on each side of the yo-yo, after the competition in one of those years.  I later learned that Duncan used an Austrian crystal factory for their rhinestones, and the wood was 'genuine' Hard Rock Maple.  Not only did this yo-yo look very cool, it actually made it easier to do the tricks!  I was able to do 'around the world' 3 times in one trick, and I could sometimes do around a 100 loop the loops.

Not sure why, but in the 6th grade there was no contest.  Too bad, because I'm pretty sure that I would have also won that year.  That would have made me eligible for a city-wide contest, where the winner got a Duncan denim jacket.  Every once in a while, I would see a kid around town that would be proudly wearing one of those jackets, with their 'patch prizes' sewn on the back.  Fortunately, my mother tucked my prizes away in my scrap book, so I still have them today!