Fresh Prospects: Another Excerpt From “Camelot Lost”
During the past summer, one of my classmates heard I was getting straight As and he advised me to take “a real challenge”—Zoology, the hardest class at the college. It was taught by Erwin ‘Doc’ Telford. No one had gotten an A in his two-semester class since around 1950 and only one person did it then. My ego was titillated. I signed up even though nothing was farther from my career goals. Zoology was the final resting place for generations of pre-meds at Pierce that had managed to survive the chemistry department.
He started with the evolutionary tree of invertebrates and plugged in vertebrates through a common ancestor, the Acorn Worm. In the distant past its larvae developed pedogenesis (the ability to reproduce without being an adult form). As epiphanies go, that was about the foremost in biological history. He injected genetics and physiology into his lectures. The afternoon lab was challenging, two hours twice a week. It definitely cut into my work and study time. Needless to say, it was extremely difficult.
During one lab session, we were to find the pedal ganglion in a clam’s foot. I dug around with my probe and could not find anything identifiable. Just muck. Jan Rosing cleanly sliced the foot down the middle. Voila! The ganglion was readily identified. It was brilliant. This is one smart lady. I asked how she did that, and she shrugged like it was perfectly obvious.
She was a transfer from LSU New Orleans, who had complained about the rigid rules at the nearby four-year college, Northridge State, which refused to give her credit for several of the freshman classes that she took in Louisiana, including biology. This put her in Zoology as Pierce didn’t offer a biology class, a dilemma about which she seemed quite snooty on my first contact with her. I tried again to break the ice. Her clever approach to dissection was worthy of further comment.
“Congratulations. Nice work on the clam. What brings you to California?” I’d heard that she accompanied her father for his new pharmaceutical job, but I wanted to establish contact in a positive way to correct her initial impression.
A petite blonde, she spoke with a soft accent somewhat like Brooklyn mixed with Texas that supposedly was a true New Orleans accent. No drawl. No twangy sounds. No ‘H’ sounds either (It’s yumid outside).
“My daddy left a faculty job at Tulane for pharmacology research with Riker labs. He likes to travel, and getting a pay raise for doing so made the job irresistible.”
“Where is the company?”
“Granada Hills. As a late applicant I couldn’t get into Northridge State. They said if I went here and made up a couple of classes, I stood a good chance of making it to UCLA.”
“What’s your major?”
“Pre-med, just like about two thousand other students here.” She treated it as a stupid question and turned away to finish her lab work.
Damn! Beauty and brains, my fatal combination. Her aloof demeanor was a challenge. Maybe she had other things on her mind. She looked a lot like Karla but had a delicate southern mien and a folded pink silk scarf extending from her neck to the top of her head, a look that pinned her in the early sixties. Pink was definitely her color. The cold shoulder didn’t bother me. I needed to do some reconnaissance, and I loved her aquiline nose—very French. Silky blond hair may have come from a bottle, but the ensemble was all of a piece.
