Back in 1974 I spent a sabbatical year taking various types of art courses at the college where I first began my teaching career. The strongest pull on my interest was sculpture even though I had never built anything at all with my hands. I had always very much admired the works of Michelangelo. Over the year I ended up taking several sculpture classes and learned a great deal. In addition, I purchased and studied several books about the artist and his works. The most interesting from both an historical and personal point of view was Irving Stone’s The Agony and the Ecstasy.
After completing several smaller statues in plaster and clay, my teacher, Harriet Hughes, took me down to the stone quarry to pick out a stone for my introduction to sculpting in stone. She talked me into a beautiful pink alabaster piece which weighed over 100 pounds and cost $100. Being a rank beginner I would have preferred a sandstone rock, but she said: “If you are at all successful you will kick yourself for not working on a beautiful stone. “
I chose a picture of one of Michelangelo’s sketches to use as a model for my own clay piece, which I then had cast into a small bronze statue about one foot in height. The process of transforming my clay piece into bronze, by a professional
caster, was for a neophyte like myself a fascinating one in and of itself. So then, armed with my little bronze model I confronted this beautiful hunk of alabaster, lying there on the table, with fear and trembling. I was only going to copy the middle section of my small bronze, not the whole thing.
I had a few good tools and decided to work very slowly, turning the stone over whenever I did not know what to do next. The first day I must have turned the stone over a dozen times, really only staling until I saw something I could do. Each day I worked for several hours on my stone, inching my way around it with an eye on my little bronze statue. Ever so slowly I edged my way around, simply trying not to make a mistake.
Well, after a couple of weeks, it began to appear that this piece of alabaster was beginning to resemble my bronze model. My teacher was pleased, and every day offered encouragement and suggestions. She had seen me develop through several plaster sculptures and thus had some confidence that I knew what I was doing. My alabaster piece was beginning to take a real shape of its own. It was an exciting time for me, and I was gaining confidence. I could visualize the outcome.
When I returned to my home college the next fall, I gave a presentation about this great experiment to the whole college community showing this Michael Angelo piece and several of my other plaster pieces. My best friend, an art teacher himself, said to me afterwards, “You could make a living doing this.” I was pleased, of course to hear him say this, but a bit dumbfounded over the possibility that his statement could be true. I have continued my work as an amateur sculptor down through the years and have generally been pleased with the results.
Since that life-changing year, I have continued with my interest in sculpture, being attracted especially to the work of Henry Moore, much of which I have seen in England, and, of course, the work of Michelangelo himself. Indeed, it was with great excitement that I was able to see some of his works, especially his David, in Florence, Italy. I must say that this huge and marvelous piece of sculpture continues to amaze me.
Indeed, my wife Mari and I got to visit the town of Carrara on the west coast of Italy on one of our trips to Greece. There we saw the huge mountain and quarry from which Michelangelo took his stone, particularly his David. I even got to pick up a couple of small pieces of marble and have had some luck shaping one of them into a rather beautiful female figure. Fancifully, I like to think that the master himself might cast an approving eye on her.

The few days back American baseball celebrated Jackie Robinson Day, #42 to honor the first Black major league baseball player. Most folks have heard about Jackie but many do not know how truly amazing he was, as a person, ballplayer, and American citizen. Although I was never really a baseball player, I grew up fully aware and in awe of this young man who revolutionized the “American Pastime.” Most people do not know that Robinson was a truly outstanding all-around three-sport athlete at UCLA before breaking into fully segregated American baseball right after serving in the army during World War Two.
It is often surprising for some to learn that West Coast universities were largely integrated in the 1930s before the war. At the first of his baseball career Jackie played for a minor league team, the Montreal Royals. But then the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Ricky, signed him to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1941. Although Robinson had already established himself as a great athlete (he long-jumped over 25 feet in college and played varsity football, basketball, as well as baseball. Nonetheless, there had never been a Black player in the Major Leagues. Before the that Jackie served in the Army during World War Two
Branch Ricky made Robinson understand that he would simply have to ignore and swallow all the abuse he would receive from rival players and fans. He was abused greatly as a Negro both off and on the field, but basically, he learned to swallow and endure all the racial slurs and monkey imitations, etc.
Robinson found this very difficult, but he tried his best to do so, in spite of being razzed and ridiculed by rival players, he simply went out and played very outstanding baseball, which earned him the “Rookie of the Year” award. He was faster than almost all the other players and drove the rival pitchers crazy with his antics on the basepaths. I once saw a newsreel account of the time he turned a bunt into a homerun. He was so fast that the other team’s players kept throwing the ball to the base he had just left in trying to throw him out. He made it all the way home without being tagged.
From then on it was just better and better baseball, and Robinson became a favorite of the Brooklyn fans. As the years went bye he was regularly chosen on the All-Star teams and received many other awards. Jackie Robinson became the most popular Black sport star in America. Along the way he also became a strong spoke-person for national civil rights all over the country. A number of years back the Major League teams set aside a special day every year as “Jackie Robinson Day”, a day on which all the players in both the National and American Leagues wear Jackie’s number, 42, on their uniforms.
Jackie retired after ten years of baseball and devoted his extra time to political activities. He suffered from diabetes and was slowed greatly in his last years. I grew up having great respect for Jackie Robinson, taking his as one of my boy-hood heroes, along with Jesse Owens and the Harlem Globetrotters. There were no black people in my hometown, and I never had any black friends through my school days. It’s funny because I never even played baseball. But for me Jackie Robinson was and stood for everything I was taught to honor and admire. He was then and still is one of my all-time heroes.