Chapters from "TIME TRIALS"
• 16 •
Post College
​
​
As my senior year of college drew to a close in late May 1961 with graduation approaching, I stopped after class to converse with philosophy professor, Joe Burrell.
​
He asked, “Van Scotter, what are you going to do after graduating?” I sensed that Professor Burrell took a liking to me—my personality, potential, or whatever—and I enjoyed his approach to the subject.
​
Standing in front of his desk, I raddled off the possibilities: job offer in executive training with Marathon Paper Company, scholarship from University of Chicago in economics, acceptance to University of Wisconsin Law School, and the opportunity to join Perry MaGill’s steel firm. (It was a superb time to be entering the job market.)
​
Joe addressed me candidly, “Look at you there full of energy; you don’t really want to do any of that, at least not now.”
​
Then he continued, “Take some time to figure out who you are, and where you are going in life. Attend Naval Officers School (OCS) in Newport, Rhode Island, get on board a ship, and travel to far off places,” he advised. “Then, you’ll know what lies ahead in life.”
​
Instinctively, I knew the professor understood my temperament and disposition better than I had.
​
The week after graduation, I contacted the Naval Recruiting Office in downtown Chicago and arranged to take the qualifying exam for officer’s candidate school. Soon I learned that I had passed the exam and was assigned to the class beginning in November. I would work at Wickes lumber yard through the summer and into the fall. It also would be good to have discretionary income to start a new adventure. I was relaxed but had little idea what I was about to get into. Nevertheless, Wes Erskine offered the opportunity to stay with the company and be groomed for a management role. He sensed that this would not be in my life’s path.
​
I came away with a similar awareness after spending a couple days at Uncle Perry’s steel firm in suburban Chicago. He and I both had strong personalities but different social temperaments as well as political attitudes. He was a swashbuckler at home in the country club set. I was more inclined to an academic life but did appreciate his Brooks Brothers’ wardrobe and yellow Thunderbird convertible.
Left: Perry MaGill - Beloit College 1926
Right: Uncle Perry 1970
On the train ride from Chicago to Lake Geneva after taking the exam for Officer’s Candidate School, I met up with Larry Margraf, who had been a terrific athlete in football, basketball, and baseball at Lake Geneva High. We were the same age and had gone against each other many times on the gridiron, hard court, and diamond.
Larry was returning from a four-year tour of duty as an enlisted man in the army, and I was about to start mine as a junior naval officer. As I related my experience in college sports expressing how he would have been an awesome football player at that level, I detected a forlorn look in his eyes at what might have been.
​
We had been two schoolboys from the same social-economic background now on different journeys. I had benefited from “divine intervention.” Later, I appreciated President Barack Obama’s message, “None of us really got to where we are going without the help of others.”
​
There, of course, are those who denied what the President offered saying, “No, I did all on my own!”
​
Nonsense! Such deluded beings are victims of an intensely individualistic, self-centered culture that corrupts souls and minds.
​
“As with driving in traffic and playing basketball, life is a team sport.”
​
Early that summer, EHS friend and teammate Bill Ward, who had attended OCS a year earlier, paid a visit to Elkhorn and described his experience. He was on leave from an East Coast shipboard assignment.
​
The summer passed swiftly with Roger still working at Wickes. He had gone on to Marquette University on a track scholarship and was accepted into the school’s dental program after his second year.
​
In the meantime, he starred on the MU track team, winning most valuable honors, and running to victory in the dashes and 4x110-yard relay at the Central Collegiate Championship. It would be the last time this premier meet was held in Milwaukee at Marquette Stadium. The university was one of several major Jesuit schools to drop football, and track, from its athletic program. As the school’s administrators and trustees explained, track and field, along with football, was a revenue losing sport.
​
Once upon a time prior to 1950, Marquette had been a football and track powerhouse. Track still was formidable with a stable of excellent runners and jumpers, but football had declined, unable to keep up with other big-time programs, who were putting more money into the sport. Television was becoming a significant revenue factor, and had Marquette held on for a decade or two longer, it might have reaped the revenue bounty to be found through TV sports. It also could have distorted campus life.
​
Our universities are described, quite accurately, as the finest in the world. Here pundits refer to the nation’s graduate schools and research institutions. Otherwise, the campuses have become virtual entertainment centers undermining undergraduate education. The highest paid staff on campus typically are football and basketball coaches, and many universities have “sold their souls” to be competitive in the pursuit of money.
​
Don, had enlisted in the Army after a year of college at Milwaukee State (later the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). While serving as a private, he tested for its officer’s training and became a 2nd Lieutenant. After three years in the military, he attended and graduated from Marquette Dental School in 1958. He did an intern year in Boston, while also serving as a military reservist. Don returned to Marquette entering the periodontal program completing studies in 1961.
Don Van Scotter - Army Lieutenant - Korean War 1953
Roger would follow in his footsteps at Marquette then serve as a dentist in the Air Force for two years. From there, he enrolled in the periodontal program at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. Roger didn’t appear to go through a rigorous thought process rather followed in Don’s footsteps. Nevertheless, he performed extremely well in the classroom and graduated in just six years with a bachelor’s and DDS degree. This led to a prosperous dental practice.
​
These guys pursued what I refer to as an instrumental vocational track in contrast to my liberal arts education. And I suspect this reveals the way we approach social issues and the political world.
​
Roger’s journey through his undergraduate years were expedited by Marquette allowing him to enter dental school after just two years. His early studies were loaded with science requirements at the expense of the humanities and the social sciences. This fast track to vocational studies narrows a student’s education and risks leaving them shortchanged as a well-rounded person and citizen.
​
Nevertheless, all of us served in various branches of the military. Alan would come along in a few years enlisting in the Army also after one year of college. He eventually earned a B.A. degree from UW-Milwaukee then an M.A in International Relations from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.
​
The G.I. Bill was helpful to all of us. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (1944) was not a waste of government funding, as critics had argued. I wonder if guys like Larry Margraf also might have benefited under different circumstances from this feature of a good society.
​
As I reflect, Alan’s likeness to Larry Margraf was striking. Both at a solid 5’9” and 185 lbs. were elusive and rugged in football, yet agile and creative on the basketball court, while being a mainstay in baseball. These are guys you build teams around.
​
It was a bitter, rainy November night when I arrived at the naval base via an air flight from Milwaukee to NYC then to Providence. From there, we traveled by bus to Newport. This was the second air flight in my life; the first, two years earlier, was in a small propeller-driven plane taking our track team from the Rock County Airport to Rochester, Minnesota. We then drove by van to Northfield, to compete in the Midwest Conference finals at St. Olaf College.
​
The suit that I wore traveling that night was soaked through and what I thought might not be worthy of reviving and renewing. It had been a dank, cold rainy night that tested the officer candidates’ resolve. But the laundry/dry-cleaning trucks that frequent the base every evening, and thrive on the “spic and span” navy requirements, do an admirable job restoring clothing.
​
Not all my mates in Bravo Company fared so well, and one came down with pneumonia. We occupied old barracks through which the winter winds off Narragansett Bay penetrated its walls from November through March.
Newport Rhode Island Officer’s Candidate School
I had little idea what to expect at OCS but soon learned that it’s academics that count—celestial navigation, maritime engineering, operations, seamanship, weapons, and orientation. “Study and don’t fret physical fitness” was the message. Low grades will get you sent home on the “Wolverine Express” not the inability to do 50 push-ups. I graduated in the top third of the battalion class, excelling in navigation and operations that is a rigorous form of applied geometry. Seamanship and weaponry did not play to my strengths.
​
This is a different message then portrayed in the 1982 movie Officer and a Gentleman starring Richard Gere and Debra Winger twenty years after I graduated from OCS. There was a great deal of physicality and little academics in the film, I suspect, for compelling reasons. Physical action is more interesting than classroom work. Typically, Navy flight school takes place after the candidate has received an officer’s commission and heads to Pensacola, Florida for training that includes taking off and landing on aircraft carriers.
​
At Newport, we did have a brush with physical activities. This included such events as pushups, chin-ups, standing long jump, and 600-yard dash. Out of the 100 plus officer candidates in Bravo Company, I had the highest score.
Richard Gere & Debra Winger in "An Officer and a Gentleman" - 1982
RVS - Naval OCS Graduate 1962
The movie’s drama included the desperate personal situation of Zach Mayo (Gere), who “had no place to go,” if he washed out of OCS. Candidate Mayo, however, would have been a college graduate with ample career prospects. What was authentic adding to the drama was the plight of Paula Pokrifke (Ms. Winger) and her dead-end factory job. On the other coast, comparable women were referred to as “pedal pushing debutants” toiling in the textile mills of nearby Fall River, Massachusetts.
​
I had my romance while an officer candidate but not by way of Fall River. Joan Tiska, who had graduated from SUNY at Binghamton, was a first-year school teacher. We met during a long weekend at mid-break, when she accompanied three other women to Newport, one of whom was visiting a Bravo Company classmate. This was a sweet interlude, and Joan returned for my graduation eight weeks later. Brief romance or not, I foolishly let her get away being anxious for my West Coast assignment.
​
Joan longed to teach in California and landed a position south of San Francisco not far from where I was stationed at Treasure Island. The island was developed for the 1939 World Fair, where the Bay Bridge runs through Yerba Buena that connects San Francisco with the East Bay. After arriving in California, Joan sent me a letter minus return address. In an age of emails, cell phones, and text messaging, I would have reconnected.
​
Another of life’s regrets.