Sure, the Hollywood Ten had a tough time of it, thanks to Joe McCarthy. But I, too, have been a victim of red-baiting.
A year after I graduated from Stanford, I started grad school in English at Berkeley. That was in 1972; I never left. I finished my master's and have been teaching freshmen there ever since.
More than once in the last 27 years, students have asked me where I went to school as an undergraduate. The first time, I'm sure I rose up to my full height and proudly said, "Stanford." That was the last time I blurted it out. What was I thinking? I was teaching at Cal, for God's sake, and to say I went to Stanford was like saying I had a personal relationship with Beelzebub and that I tortured neighborhood puppies every night after driving home in a Porsche.
Some of my students may have been impressed, but all were outwardly and loudly disgusted. I soon began to add, "But I was on a full scholarship. And not because I was smart, but because I was from Montana and my father was a minister. And all my friends there were on scholarships, too." That is, I learned to explain away going to Stanford.
Much has changed in our world since the '70s, but at least one thing hasn't: the reaction of Cal students who discover I went to Stanford. They hate us with a passion.
Yes, us. I've spent decades at Berkeley and just a few years at Stanford. Yet I'm a Stanford guy and always will be. I can never become an Old Blue.
I do love Berkeley. It's one of the best universities in the world, and I believe strongly in public education. I'm proud of the many firsts and bests here at Cal. There are wonderful students, terrific faculty and staff. And it's a beautiful campus. A creek flows through it year-round; there are redwood groves and a great botanical garden.
But my heart belongs to Mater.
Every time I come back, I have the same reaction: crossing El Camino, I relax and sigh. My best-loved classes were at Stanford, with Diane Middlebrook, Ken Fields and Bliss Carnochan. I get nostalgic when I think about hearing Joan Baez in Frost Amphitheater, hashing in Wilbur, attending MemChu on Sunday mornings, going to San Gregorio on a foggy afternoon. I wish I could spend days on end sitting outside at Tresidder, reading books, drinking coffee and watching the parade. I love the atmosphere at Stanford, both physical and intellectual -- palm trees, sandstone, fountains, red tile roofs, quail darting across the road.
And then there is The Incomparable Leland Stanford Junior . . . University Marching Band. I can't help it: Cal's band, complete with Music Man uniforms and goose steps, just can't compare with ours. I've never understood the particular venom heaped on the Band by Cal students. They may hate Stanford, but they loathe the Band -- that is, when they're not laughing at it. I, on the other hand, am dedicated to the anarchical spirit of LSJUMB, and if the Band weren't getting into trouble, I'd worry that Stanford was going downhill. The way I see it, the Stanford Band is utterly cool; the Berkeley band is kids with pocket protectors and taped glasses hoping to be cool.
Okay, I'll admit that Stanford has a deficiency. It's really hard to warm up to a Tree, especially one that looks like a reject from Beach Blanket Babylon. Oski the Bear may not be the greatest mascot in the world, but at least he is an actual mascot.
When it comes to student obnoxiousness -- acting up at football games, or whatever -- the two schools are tied. Likewise, the snobbery factor is pretty much a draw: Stanford students affect a certain noblesse oblige, balanced by the proletarian superiority of Cal students.
I do know the truth in all of this, of course: each school has its strengths, but your undergraduate years mean the most to you. Even so, I confess that after almost three decades, when a student or co-worker asks me where I spent those early years, I still mumble the answer under my breath. I mumble because, after all, I'm no idiot -- I went to Stanford, remember?
Stephen K. Tollefson, '71, teaches freshman writing at Cal.
