College Daze

Here's another excerpt from my book on growing up in the '60s.  I'm actually close to finishing this bad boy.  Anyway, travel back to UCLA in the turbulent spring 1969.

I met someone in my “History of Documentary Films” class. To this day I have no idea why I took it. Three hours a week of Eskimos freezing to death in 1910 or Nazi propaganda films.

But I met Honoria Feldman. She had the most beautiful olive skin, the most gorgeous blue eyes, and the worst name of any girl I ever dated. In a desperate attempt to stay awake during these interminable exposes of 1937 Russian smelt fishermen I would mutter snarky comments to my friends within earshot. Think: live Mystery Science Theater 3000. Honoria overheard, found me amusing, and that’s pretty much how most of my relationships began.

I asked her out to a movie we could stay awake for and she accepted. Honoria was in a sorority so I picked her up at the house. Wow. I had never been in a sorority house before. Sure not like its frat equivalent. There was a lovely main foyer with a chandelier. A chandelier for godsakes! Everything was clean. Everything was painted. There was no smell of vomit anywhere. I wanted to pledge.

Honoria and I went out for about a month. Things might’ve worked out much better had it not been for the class itself. After the great George Stevens directed Gunga Din and Woman Of The Year, he made a documentary set in the deep South called All My Babies. Honoria and I were watching it. I had my arm around her. A midwife is seen entering some filthy shack. Ho hum ho hum. And then, in the most graphic detail you can possibly imagine, in this absolute squalor, we see a mother give birth. The blood, the ooze, the umbilical cord. This made the abortion scene in Alfie seem suitable for Hannah Montana. As we fled the auditorium, both nauseated, all Honoria could say was “I’m never having babies, NEVER having babies!” and “if you even come near me with that thing I’m CUTTING IT OFF!”

Have you noticed a pattern in the women I dated? Strong-willed and no sex. Honoria had maybe the most rigid personality of all. Early on I casually asked, “Do you go by any nicknames? Honey or something?” “No!” she exclaimed, “My name is Honoria!”

Ohhhhh-kay…

(Years later, when I was writing for MASH, we needed a name for Charles Winchester’s sister. Honoria Winchester was born. Honoria is pronounced “Ha-NOR-ee-a” by the way. But Hawkeye had some fun at Charles’ expense by pronouncing it “Hana-rhea”. This is why you don’t want to go out with writers if you take yourself too seriously.)

Honoria was very big on Feminist causes. That was fine but I did get a little tired of hearing how I, by inference, was holding down an entire species. One major contribution our generation made was in the area of women’s rights. No longer was a woman expected to just be Suzy Homemaker. She could enter the workforce. And not just because she knew shorthand or could serve a highball at 30,000 feet. For the first time, women joined the executive ranks, not to mention the police force, military, and Teamsters. Today, half of law and medical school students are women. 60% of married couples have two incomes. And women are finally beginning to earn the respect they deserve in the workplace, although it’s a slow process. Men are learning not to treat them merely as sexual objects one lawsuit at a time. That said, it’s not like I ever asked Honoria to iron a shirt.