International House Berkeley

96 couldn't join them in America unless I had my own visa. So I decided I might as well join the RAF. I wasn't flying, but I was in the Signals — again radio. Later I was in Ceylon for a while, in India. Well, I was actually for two years in India in Ceylon, in Colombo. I was running a radio station on top of the whole town, as part of the Royal Air Force. Later, when I came to I-House, I met a Ceylonese—Sam Vimalasaikara (his picture is in the gallery). I was telling him about Ceylon, and how I liked it there, and I told him that I had run a radio station on top of the Gold Face Hotel. He looked at me and said, "That belongs to me auntie." So, there…. Finally, while I was still in India, I applied for the visa. In the Signals, there was an announcement that any foreign national can be repatriated to his homeland, or anywhere in the world where he would like to go. I think they misconstrued the word "repatriate." So I applied for America, and they immediately sent me back to England. I don't know why — I could have applied for a visa in India too, or Ceylon, rather, where all my friends were – but that is the Air Force for you. I applied for a visa, and it did not come through for about two years. This was the end of 1947, and I arrived in Boston in 1948. I had tickets to San Francisco. The train stopped in some place called Oakland. All I knew was I wasn't in San Francisco yet, so I just sat there. Everybody got out of the train; I still had a little stub left out of the small ticket that they used, so I waited. Finally, somebody told me: "You get out of the train and get on the boat here." So I got out of the train, and there were my parents. We hadn't seen each other for nine-and-a-half years. My brother was there; his wife was there. The first words of my mother were in Czech: "Do you still speak Czech?" And I answered in Czech a little bit, but it was so convoluted — so much English in it — that she burst out crying. So those were her first words: "Do you speak Czech?" What were my impressions of America? It seemed opulent! My parents had a very nice, small but nice, apartment in the Marina. The cheapest place in San Francisco, by the way, with the fog and all that. But it was a very nice apartment — I was sleeping in a little cubbyhole there. After all, I wasn't going to stay long. I thought I really should pick up some schooling, and then turn around and go back to Czechoslovakia. But of course, the communists took over Czechoslovakia in the next six or seven months, and that was the end of that. At that time, I selected Marin Junior College as my place to get a little bit of schooling, and when I went on to get into the University [UC Berkeley], my parents were just overwhelmed. I did try to get straight into the University, but with the report card that I got from my high school — I was hoping that they didn't speak Czech and wouldn't re-check, but the Slavic department at the University was really good — all they could do was laugh. So, it followed me. I went to Marin Junior College; later on it became College of Marin. It turned out to be a super school — out in the open, Spanish buildings, beautiful architecture – in Kentfield, Marin County. It was very easy, commuting from my parents' apartment. All I had to do was to go up to Main Street, and there was a Greyhound bus. Those were the buses at that time; it was easy commuting – no cars.

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