Page 168 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
Sons of the Blue and White,
Fight for your alma mater.
Fight for the fame of your high school name, Forever and a day . . . day . . . day . . . day.
Hearts that are brave and true, Loyal and eager too,
Shoulder to shoulder fight, fight, fight! Sons of the Blue and White.
• A month or so later, in one of a series of ambassadorial trips that I had arranged to other high schools, I traveled to Poly Prep with Linda Lee and met with, among others, Michael Rebell. It was the first time that I had met him since our first, to me unfortunate, encounter: Three or four years before the meeting at Poly, my cousin Peter and I were drinking Cokes at Irving’s, a candy store with a soda fountain in Manhattan Beach. In walked Michael, who knew Peter because Peter was friendly with Michael’s older brother, Arthur. A year older, Michael was much taller than I was at that time. Knowing Peter, smiling, and walking with a swagger, he squeezed up to the counter, said hello to Peter, and, without so much as acknowledging my presence, picked up my Coke and proceeded to drink it! As you might imagine, this did not please me. (I told this story when I acted as the master of ceremonies at the luncheon that Michael and his then wife, Susan, gave in honor of the bar mitzvah of their son, Joshua. At that time, I repeated the story in full, prob- ably with some embellishment, and expressed my obvious displeasure. I allowed as Michael was too big then and that I was too civilized to do anything about his outrageous act. I ended by saying that I pledged to myself, then and there, that I would seek retribu- tion: I told the bar mitzvah guests that I swore to myself that someday, I didn’t know when, if it were to be at all in my power, I would get even with Michael. How? By sleeping with his kid sister!) But the meeting at Poly was cordial, if not fun.
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