My morning ritual is to shower and shave and then make my breakfast. I read the New York Times over my toast and coffee, or to be more exact I always read the obituaries first. You know the old joke that a senior citizen reads the obituaries to see of his name is there. Well the other day, fortunately my name wasn’t there, but Spyros Skouras’ name was.
Reading his obituary brought me back to a day in 1945 when I returned to Yale from two and half years in the Air Force. I was lucky enough to be assigned a single room in Pierson, one of the 10 or so “colleges” in which students lived and ate.
That was a memorable day for me because as I started moving my things into the room a large number of students started to file into the room to say, “Hello”. I was astounded because I didn’t remember ‘Yalies’ as being so friendly. I introduced myself to each person who entered and noticed a surprised look on their faces when I told them my name.
One student put me out of (or into) my misery but announcing that the word was that Spryos Skouras (son of the shipping magnate) was supposed to occupy that room. Imagine their disappointment when no Spyros, and to add insult to injury for some, it was a Jewish student - - - one of the few allowed in under the University’s quota system.
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