At the time of the war, San Jose was called Garden City. Back then, they had orchards and canneries. I went to three different grammar schools which are all gone now. I think they were after me for going to the schools!

The first was Saint Mary’s. I had a teacher who was a nun, who was a relative of ours. She was sister Matilda Carmel Berryessa. She was the toughest woman I’d ever seen. She would bring in paintings of Hell and tell us that we would end up here if we didn’t do things right.

I used to think: “Why doesn’t she bring us a picture of Heaven?”

I liked the brothers and the priests better than the nuns; the nuns were tougher. I talked to an Irish woman who was raised in Ireland and she said: “You’re right. The nuns are worse than the priests.”

Sister Berryessa passed away earlier this year, at the age of 103.

The Berryessas tend to live for a long time. My grandfather on my father’s side was almost 90 when he passed on. One guy in the family did die young; he was 86.

The German side of my family died younger.


I Learn How to Defend Myself

My second school was Sacred Heart Grammar School. I had more nuns there. One nun in particular was very mean to me. I used to walk to school to get to Sacred Heart, but I always got beat up. I was so small. When I sat in the car, I sat in the back and covered myself, because I was always afraid.

My cousin from Oakland used to come and beat the heck out of me. My father got tired of this. He said: “Bud, what’s wrong with you?”

He said: “Well I’m going to teach you how to defend yourself. Here’s a book on Judo; read everything about it. Practice with your brother in the backyard.

Well I beat the crap out of my brother, and that gave me confidence. There weren’t too many people who knew about judo.

My brother’s name is Richard; my sister’s name is Barbara. I have another brother who was born after the war, and his name is Raymond.

At Sacred Heart, I was afraid to get into conflicts. There were always people picking on me, but now that I knew Judo, I had confidence.

My Dad was like that: self confident, tough, but he had sense. He could teach you things, so I learned a lot from him.

So I’ll never forget. I was walking to school and a big blonde kid who was about a head teller than me walked up to me and said: “Hey, stupid!”

I said: “Are you talking to me?”

He said: “Yeah, get over here,” and he pushed me.

I said: “Well, I always like to shake hands with somebody before I fight, if I have to fight.”

He said: “OK, here’s my hand,” and he offered me his hand. But that’s where he made his mistake. I went behind him and threw him over my back. I got him down on the ground, and was beating the crap out of this kid, giving him a bloody nose and a black eye. I kept hitting him until someone pulled me off, otherwise, I might’ve killed him.

So I went to school the next day, and another kid came up to me and said: “I heard what you did to so and so. Do you think you’re that tough?”

I said: “I don’t know, but I always like to shake hands with people before I get into fights.”

So I reached around, grabbed his hand, pulled it behind me and threw him over my back and beat the hell out of him. Word got around to never shake my hand, but I could still beat them up.


“Flies Land on Dirty Things”

Eventually, I was called before a nun. This was Sister Aloysious Marie. (We all still remember our childhoods. When you think you’ve forgotten things they just come back to you. )

She put me on a platform and she always wore dark glasses so you never knew if she was looking at you or not. She was the toughest nun. She was my teacher in the seventh grade, and she was the ruler of the school. She had a clicker. Even through her dark glasses I could tell that she was stirring up. It was a hot day. When a fly landed on my cheek I brushed it away.

She said: “Flies land on dirty things.”

I remember what she said all these years later. Years later in the seventies when she passed away, I went to see my mother. My mom wasn’t feeling well; she was in the hospital. I found out later that this nun was in the same hospital, but in a different room.

I wanted to go in there and say: “Flies land on dirty things.”

I wanted to leave a message about what she had done to me. But I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t deliberately hurt someone. It wasn’t until this year when sister Carmel, who was my first grade teacher at Saint Mary’s, passed away, and I found the grave of Sister Matilda Aloysius Marie. There were much younger nuns there, and I told them about Sister Marie.

They said: “Oh yeah. She was the meanest nun. We still don’t think she’s dead. We go over to her grave just to make sure.”


In Eighth Grade, My Father Stands Up for Me

In the eighth grade, it was time for me to have yet a third nun as a teacher. It turned out that it was going to be Sister Marie again! But a friend of our family who lived nearby knew about what was happening to me. She knew how mean this nun was to me. She spoke with my father who spoke to the nuns. He said: “I didn’t know what you are doing to my son.”

He really chewed them out. He said: “We’re pulling Robert out of the school because of you!”

She said: “Why? Did he tattle on me? Did he tell?”

My father said: “He was nice enough not to. Another person told. And I’m not going to give you that person’s name, because you’ll get mean to that person as well!”

In 1946 I left that school and went to my third school. This was Saint Joseph’s. My father had gone to school there is well. It was in downtown San Jose. They tore it down a while ago, which I think is terrible.

I went there for one year, and I really enjoyed myself. I had learned how to protect myself. Belive it or not, I had a reputation by now. I was the gunslinger of the town.


I Didn’t Start Fights, But I Finished Them

When I got to Saint Joseph’s school, two kids walked up to me and said: “I heard about you and what you did at Sacred Heart school. You beat kids up. You think your Mr. Tough guy, huh?”

I said: “I don’t think I’m Mister Tough guy.”

They said: “Prove it. Show me how tough you are.”

I said: “Well, I always like to shake hands before I fight anybody, and find out their name.

He shook my hand; I pulled him over, and threw him behind my back. I almost broke his face. And this was a big kid.

Later on he put me on his shoulders and carried me run the school. He said: “here’s the champ! If anybody wants to fight him, they fight me!”

I had gotten a reputation, but it was all because of my father, who taught me how to protect myself.

One time my cousin from Oakland, who used to always beat the hell out of me, came to visit. He would beat me up, and then he’d have something to eat. His name was Eugene Allen, and he reminded me of a tough – guy actor named Martin McLean.

So Eugene comes over one time, and by now I’m good at fighting. When he tried to beat me up, I beat the hell out of him.

My mom said: “What did you do to your cousin?”

I said: “Well, he started the fight, and I finished it.”

She said: “When your father comes home he’s going to talk to you about this!”


Dad Teaches Me an Important Lesson about the Real World

So my father came home; I could hear him coming up our gravel driveway. That crunching sound meant: “Oh no, Dad’s home!”

My mom told Dad that I had beat up Eugene. Dad was sort of smiling, because he knew that I had learned what he had taught me.

My mother said: “I want you to talk with him and give him a spanking for what he did.”

So we went in the other room, and my Dad asked: “did you really do that?”

I said: “Yeah, Dad.”

He said: “OK, here’s a quarter. Don’t tell your mother. I’m gonna hit the wall over here and I’m going to act like I’m beating you up. You cry real loud!”

Dad hits the pillow and hits the wall and I was fake crying.

Meanwhile, my Dad was saying: “Louder, louder” and we were both laughing. Finally he stopped and said: “Have you had enough?”

My father finally opened the door and said: “Well, I talked to the boy.”

My mother said: “You didn’t have to beat him up so bad.”

My father said: “You told me to.”


We Took Care of Our Own Problems

One time I went to Oakland where it was a lot tougher than San Jose. While I was in Oakland, there was a kid across the street from the Allen family. His name was Elsie; I thought it was like Elsie the cow, which was a popular brand of milk.

So I went across the street and said: “Elsieeeee, Elsieeeee the cow. Can you come out and play?”

So the kid comes running out, and we’re fighting right on the front lawn when his dad came storming out. Today, the whole thing would involve a lawyer. But back in those days, it would be sissy stuff. Family took care of everything.

If someone beat you up, your family would go and beat them up. We were all the Mafia! I loved it.

So the dad comes out any says: “all right you two go in the backyard.”

We went in the back. Elsie’s dad told him to take his shirt off. He told me to take my shirt off too.

I want you to raise your fists like this, and fight like men. Fight!

So we fought for quite awhile before Elsie’s dad said: “OK boys have you had enough? Now shake hands like real men.”

So I walked out with this guy who has now become a friend. We solved our own problems; we didn’t leave it up to lawyers, judges, injuries. If you picked on one of us, you picked on all of us.

During the late fifties I was at a house my father owned on West San Carlos, near downtown San Jose. I grabbed a Mexican kid and was going to toss him off a bridge. He would have died!

I never thought about that until much later. Guadalupe Creek was below, and I had this kid up in the air and was ready to toss him off the bridge. A kid came running across the street and said: “Leave my brother alone!”

I said: “Why?”

He said: “Because he’s my brother!”

I said: “That’s no excuse.”

The kids said: “Look, don’t hurt him.”

And as we talked I began to feel like this kid was a real person, not a punk. So I put him down, but I said: “You better shake hands with your brother because he saved your life!”

One time, my brother was on Autumn Street, which is near downtown San Jose where grandmother and grandfather Weiss lived. He was getting beaten up. I found out about it, and beat the hell out of that kid. Then, his brother came over and we had a fight. After that, we shook hands and walked off his friends. That’s the way it was back then.


I Go To High School With The Stars

After all those grammar schools, I did go to high school: Bellarmine College Preparatory. I went there from 1947 to 1951, and I graduated. In fact, in 2001, we had our 50th reunion.

This was a very strict school that was run by priests, and well known people went there. Bing Crosby’s son went there. Gary Crosby was in my class.

One time, a girl came running up and said: “Gary Crosby just stepped on my foot!”

All the other girls said: “he did? He did? Where is he now?”

Gary was a nice guy, I liked him. He’d get rambunctious when we went to the movie theater. Bing and some woman would be on the screen.

Gary would stand up in the middle of the theater and say: “Dad, I’m going to tell mom about this!”

Other well known people went there as well; there were people with wealth. Even though my Dad didn’t make much money, he wanted me to have the very best.

I loved the school. I learned not just English, but Latin too.

I liked history a lot. I read the Iliad and the Odyssey in Latin class. But when I found out what it was really all about, a man and a woman in love, I began to learn to translate quickly. I got one of the highest grades in the class, but they didn’t know it was for a purpose. I wanted to find out what was happening!


I Do Well in Sports

I was very good at swimming. In fact I found out that I had set a record in backstroke during the nineteen thirties. It was all done by accident. We were at a plunge that might have been located at Santa Clara University.

I hit the water, and I was back stroking. I saw someone who looks like they had passed me up. So I really sped up, hit the turn. I found out later that he hadn’t passed me; instead he was trying to catch up to me!

That record stood for about three or four years.

I was also in basketball along with a couple of the Crosby kids. They were always getting into trouble. I called one of them Dennis the Menace. They were Phillip and Gary. I was good in track too; I was really a fast runner.


I Meet the Smothers Brothers (Before they Got Big)

The nineteen fifties were the rock and roll period. I had worked orchards, cut cots, picked prunes, but I also wanted to get to school. I left Bellarmine in 1951 and went to Santa Clara University. This was a tough school. I went there through 1953.

I never graduated because I went into the military.

While I was at Santa Clara we used to go out to clubs and things. One time, we went to a club called the Kerosene Club, and I saw two of the worst comedians I had ever seen. The Kerosene Club was run and owned by some Santa Clara University guys. It was cheap; they only served beer.

Eventually, the club moved to Fourth and Julian. That brick building is still here today. So, these two guys get up and started to play some country music.

One of the comedians came up with a stupid joke that went kind of like this: When he got drunk, everything got large for him. So he went to a bar, walked in through the doorway, and a huge leg walks over to the bar.

He thought: “My God, a huge leg!”

He sat down next to an elbow that kept hitting him, and looked over at this big eye that said: “What you want to drink, Mr.?”

He said: “Anything you got.”

So he drank, and he said: “So I ran out of the door so scared, and a huge mouth swallowed me up, and that was the end of me.”

I thought that this guy would never make it. These guys were terrible. But they were the Smothers brothers. That’s the kind of talent we had coming into the kerosene club.

Eventually the guys who owned the Kerosene Club made so much money that somebody came in and bought them out.


After the Air Force, I Return to College

Now it’s 1957 or 1958 and I decided to go back to school. I went to San Jose Junior college, and I used to work on the newspaper there. I used to ask: “Why did they name it as a junior college?” Later on they changed the name to San Jose City College.

Then I went to San Jose State College which was what it was called before it became San Jose State University. I took a degree there in 1960 studying journalism, advertising and things like that.


I Learn My Most Important Lesson about Teaching: Let Students Teach

I learned something in San Jose College that would help me later on when I was a high school teacher and that was: don’t teach. Have your students teach. They learn more that way. We had to go up in front of the class and tell the other students about our projects and I really enjoyed that.

I also learned something from the Air Force. When I was learning to be a lab technician the Sergeant started out by telling me all about the microscope.

Along the way he stopped me and said: “By the way everything I’m telling you, you’re going to have to tell the next guy. So you better learn to ask all the questions you want now.”