My most important learning experience at Cal Poly
Several months before I would graduate from Palo Alto High School in June of 1953. I was in a bit of a dither as to what school of higher learning I might attend as it was a given in my family that I would go somewhere. Friends and relatives suggested that I should go to Stanford as I would get a solid education in something that I had no interest in and my C average grades even back then were not going to let me into Stanford University. I obtained my C average by never letting my studies get in the way of a good time.
I knew that being outside and growing things was what I really wanted to do. I wasn’t going to make any world changing invention like my father and his brother Russel when they invented the Klystron microwave tube that would make RADAR a reality. My dad and mom were supportive when I told them that I wanted to go to Cal Poly College.
In 1953 to get into Cal Poly which was an all boys school at that time and had an enrollment of 3,500 students. The enrollment policy for the Agriculture department at that time was pretty much that if you could stand upright and had a somewhat normal heartbeat you were in for your freshman year, then if your grades were less than a C average to start your sophomore year you were out.
So in September of 1953 I paid my $19 dollar tuition fee and was assigned to the freshman dormitory that turned out to be a row of ex WWII wooden barracks that housed 2nd lieutenant officers in training during the war years. To use the bathroom or shower you had to go outside your room and walk to the middle of the barracks and there you would find the one bathroom that had several toilets and showers for the entire barracks. I think about 30 or so young freshmen had it for their use. That ment modesty was out. Welcome to Cal Poly!
Because of my C average grades I was required to take all the Boneheaded 101 courses that Cal Poly had to offer. The fall quarter of my freshman year got off to a somewhat rocky start as the need to do homework was new to me. By the winter quarter I was really getting further behind as I was spending most of my time skiing up in the Lake Tahoe ski area and the only thing that kept me from dropping out was I knew it would disappoint my parents immeasurable. So I touched base every now and then with a class or two that I liked. Well when the grades were handed out I knew that I had been missing in action quite a bit of the time but four F and a D on my report card, there must be a mistake. So to my counselor I went, who had absolutely no sympathy for my deflated condition except to say the spring quarter had better have at least a C average or you won’t be here for your sophomore year.
I met Greg Ward in a class we were both taking and we got to talking about how nice it would be if we could find a place to live off campus. We decided that we would look before Spring quarter started. Well it didn’t take long when quite by chance I met an old farmer in my bank and he told me that he was looking for four Cal Poly boys that could help with the care of a small cow herd so he could do his hay raising without having to look after his cows. In return he would rent us a two bedroom house with one bathroom and we could keep whatever horses we might have in the ranch corral that joined the pasture where his cow herd lived year round. His ranch was out on O’Conner Way about three miles from the campus. The rent would be $40 / month for the four of us. Greg and I needed two more Aggies to help with the rent and some of the work. Well it didn’t take long to find two more escapes from our living conditions at the barracks. Our soon to be held Rodeo Club meeting was the place to make the announcement and in only a moment Skip Parker and Louie Esparza said yes. Thus would begin a friendly four year relationship until we all graduated from college. The best part for all of us over the next four years was that Louie, being a little older than Skip, Greg and I. Louie was a Korean War veteran who liked to cook and he was really good at it. So Skip and I took turns dishwashing and sweeping the house while Greg fed his horse and mine and he and I built a usable arena where Greg who was already a pretty good horse trainer could work his horse and I think he had one in training from a customer. Louie was sure of his needs for our evening meals so each of us chipped in $25 a month for food. As for breakfast and lunch we were on our own.
With a roof over our heads and the food situation settled for the next four years, I came to the realization that school wasn’t going to be too bad after all, plus I was willing to change my study habits. So I succeeded by studying enough to make it to my sophomore year. I was now mostly following the recommended class schedule that kept my interest up but I wasn’t burning with desire and curiosity with my class schedule. On the other hand with Louie my mentor, boss, and Cowboy all rolled up in one, I was now in my fourth year of work at my summertime ranch job, under Louie’s tutelage. I was learning all the practices as to handling cattle, horses, building fences and my love affair with Ranching still shone brightly. So as each year passed I knew that a cowboy's life would be my occupation but unknown to me and everybody else around me that after 30 to 35 years of traditional practicing traditional ways that were becoming less and less profitable I watched myself as did the other people around me, morph into a better definition of who I was. I had turned into a Grassman, it’s a person who puts the land before the livestock. It happened after attending a three day conference that was sponsored by Holistic Resource Management and taught by its founder Allan Savory. The gist of his teaching was how to make better decisions and how to graze your livestock in ways that were land friendly and he gave all in attendance, the necessary permission to know longer follow tradition but to use his decision making methods to create practices that would build soil rather than mine it and would change the bottom line at my bank which left me and my banker on better terms. Wow, how simple, honest and sensible why hadn’t I discovered Allan Savory sooner. So there was now, renewed hope, the kind of hope that always floats like a cork waiting for those that want to stay afloat no matter how badly their ship was sinking. Hope for me was just waiting for me, to grab ahold and pull myself up by my bootstraps
By my Junior year at Cal Poly, I knew that being a Rodeo star wasn’t going to happen for me as I was a mediocre roper and after being bucked off a saddle bronc at the annual Poly Royal Rodeo I was going to have to look elsewhere, for that extra curricular activity that would capture my imagination and I found it at the schools livestock judging pavilion.
Mr. Richard Johnson would be the class livestock judging coach and we would meet several times a week to practice the art of livestock judging. Mr. Johnson had a winning way about him that was infectious and fun. We were required when going to a livestock judging event,that each of the five members of my team would be able to pick from a group of 4 animals in each category. That being cattle, horses, sheep and hogs from best to last. As I surveyed each class of numbered animals I would write notes as to each animal's strengths and weaknesses then number how I placed them. An example might be 3-4-1-2. After all the classes of livestock I had judged and with notes on each animal and how I placed each class. Then there was a time allotted to memorize your reasons and how you placed each class because next we we’re required to stand in front of the official judge of each class and tell him why I placed the class as I did and the reasoning behind my decision.
So how did Mr. Johnson get his team ready for a contest in which the 5 member team would travel by car. But I do remember going to the farthest contest which was to Chicago by train but all the rest would be by car 3 in the front seat and 3 in the backseat and our suits and ties in the trunk. We would switch off drivers and drive until we were to our destination of Denver Colorado, Fort Worth Texas, Portland Oregon, the Cow Palace, San Francisco and possibly some more that I’ve forgotten.
The Cal Poly livestock pavilion had a small grandstand where all the judging student members sat while two members would be in the middle of the arena floor standing on chairs, possible 5 feet apart facing their classmates in the grandstand wear upon Mr. Johnson would give you a handful of Peanuts that filled your mouth to almost full to further challenge our abilities to concentrate and with the wave of his hand, You would start yelling your reasons why I placed the class 2,4,1,3 while my friend standing next to me had placed the same class and was shouting his reasons why he placed the class 1,4,2,3. This method of learning to concentrate above the din and observing what I really saw and not just conjecture would stay with me the rest of my life. If I remember right we had a first and second team as ten and a coach wouldn’t fit in a six passenger sedan. I believe the top five after all the practicing was over went to the bigger events and the second team would enter some of the more local events. This time I didn’t get bucked off but was on the first team.
Organic chemistry was my favorite class that I would call upon for the rest of my life because you can’t have life without Carbon. One more class that challenged me and would serve me well was an economics class that at test time you could answer either true or false, then if my explanation was good enough as to why I answered the way I did, even though it was contrary to the way the instructor had it. If your answer was reasonable and made sense it went to the column of correct answers.
All in all I found Cal Poly, a most remarkable place to get 5 years older and smarter. Wiser came later. 1956 for some reason our school president thought that Cal Poly should become a Co- educational college so with the start of a new school year, 100 girls were admitted and Cal Poly would never be the same again. Graduation came after finishing the summer quarter of 1958 when I received my diploma in the mail, five years older and smarter and with my diploma in hand I also got my loving wife Zee from that first one hundred girls and we have now been together for 64 years and in her dowry I got a thoroughbred mare called Pocahontas that when bred to Cal Poly’s Bras D Or. This matting created all of our many wonderful horses that Zee raised, trained and showed for 40 years. So Cal Poly has served my father in the early 1920s myself in the middle 1950s our 4 children in the 70s and 80s and 3 of our grandchildren in the 21 century thanks Cal Poly.
See Ya
Jack.