TALL TALES AND LEGENDS
The Cal Band is more than practice and performance. It is
more than reading music, wearing spats, and driving out
North Tunnel at 240 beats per minute. At any time, it is
over a hundred diverse individuals, working-and playing-
together. And that playing has led to a collection of
colorful characters and stories.
CONFERENCE CALLS
In the post-war years, the Band had a healthy sense of
humor, which was most frequently expressed on the field in
games with the two schools to the south, USC and UCLA. For
several years, the All-University Weekend celebrations,
which included the UCLA Band, were a prime source of
inspiration. But from time to time, the USC Band prompted a
jibe or two. Bob Desky, recalls one time in particular.
"We had been down to the USC game and we had seen the USC
Band put on a performance. They had herald trumpets, spear
carriers, and people with horses. They marched out on the
field with a chariot and each of the members carried a
pouch, and at the end of the stunt [each member] lifted the
pouch flap and a white pigeon flew out. Let me say that the
USC band was something that was a proper object for those
pigeons. I think the pigeons had indeed found their calling.
"But in any event, we were impressed. Herald trumpets
played and Tommy Trojan rode around the track on his horse,
and we got back up and we said, 'That is something.' We
decided that we were going to make up our own sedan chair
and get herald trumpets, so we went to everybody's dorm and
borrowed all the 'plumber's friends' in town and we dressed
everybody up in outlandish costumes. We went on the field
with a parody of the USC Band, playing fanfares and drawing
Chris Tellefsen's nine-year-old daughter in a sedan chair
with a crown on her head onto the field. And the rooting
section, which had been down south to see the USC game, went
wild. Chris was the inspiration of the ultimate parody-the
parody of the USC Band. The blighters."
SPINNING YARNS
Though almost lost today, for forty years the Band had a
tradition of using the art of twirling in its street
marching and its performances. Two of the prime artists were
Durward Howell and Art Robson.
The first tradition, one that lived through the thirties and
forties, was of the twirling drum major. Then as now, the
drum major's entrance had a ritual to it. Tom Simonson (DM
'39) recalls, "In my four years at Berkeley, I made that
march out of the tunnel for every single game, threw the
baton over the [north] goal post every single time and
caught it still twirling without a fall."
The tradition of twirling drum major had a healthy life,
extending into the early fifties with Tony Martinez, who
continued to twirl in 1952, the year after he was drum
major.
The next year, Durward "Rz" Howell entered the Band as a
junior college transfer. He holds the distinction of never
having been a musician; he was a pure twirler. A national-
caliber twirler, he was a featured performer-twirling flags
and fire batons in addition to regular baton-for football
and basketball games.
In 1954, Drum Major Bill Isbell eschewed the traditional
baton to perform with an English mace; the twirling baton
has since come and gone according to the skills of the
respective drum majors.
However, Cal Band twirling was picked up at about that time
by the drum section, thanks to Art Robson, a superlative
drummer and genuine eccentric.
Robson, trained in the art of the Scottish drum, joined the
Band in 1948 and impressed people with his skills for nearly
ten years. He was senior manager in 1952, but even his
brother said, "Most of his fame probably comes from the
amazing dexterity he exhibits with drum sticks, twirling and
clicking the sticks and hitting the bass drum in a variety
of ways-including swinging the sticks behind his back or
under his legs."
His twirling set the standard for a drum section that
carried on in the manner even after Robson graduated from
law school in 1956. As Jonathan Elkus (SD '52) has said,
"It was a Cal Band trademark during the '50s and '60s."
BIG GAME CAPERS
When dozens of college students spend the better part of a
semester together, sharing good times and bad, plots both
profound and profane are inevitably hatched.
The Band has always loved a good surreptitious caper. Many
of the tales revolve around Stanford and Big Game Week. It
is a time when imaginations run wild and Band members
frequently suffer an overdose of California Spirit. Herewith
a pair of Big Game Week stories.
The Band's relationship with the Daily Californian has had
its ups and downs over the years. The paper has been among
the Band's most ardent supporters and severest critics,
depending on the circumstances. As told in the 1961
scrapbook, the story goes like this.
In 1961, the November 13 issue (Monday of Big Game Week) was
published on pink newsprint. In the eyes of the Band, the
Daily Californian had been notably iconoclastic all season
and had aroused a good deal of antipathy among spirit
groups. Therefore the "ghastly pink" issue aroused the
fury of the Band and Rally Committee, whereupon they rounded
up 12,000 of the 20,000 copies and took them to the Berkeley
dump and deposited them in "a puddle of very gooey mud."
The Daily Cal was expectably horrified and editorialized
against the "irresponsibility of a few," pointing out the
financial loss to the paper.
The Berkeley Daily Gazette quoted an unnamed Band member as
saying that "he didn't mind 'yellow journalism' but pink
was too much."
Campus sympathies rested, for the most part, with the Band.
The Daily Cal editor was hanged in effigy at Sather Gate.
Even the ASUC Executive Director, Forrest Tregea, took the
Band's side.
The Band marched into the editorial offices of the paper,
and were pelted with paste pots.
(Adding insulting to injury, two days later Stanford
students stole 16,000 copies of the Daily Cal, replacing
two-thirds of them with their own parodies.
Almost twenty years later, the focus turned to Stanford and
the Axe tradition. The tale of the fake Stanford Axe begins
the day after Big Game 1977, at the Freshman/Senior
Barbecue. Jay Huxman ('76) and Jamie Rawson ('77) were
lamenting the loss of the Axe at the game (Stanford trounced
Cal, 21-3) and wondering what they could do to get even.
They hatched a plan so clever that sports fans on both sides
of the Bay still talk about it.
Huxman, an excellent wood carver, got the idea to make a
fake Axe, take it down to Stanford for the basketball game
with Cal and then run it across the court and outrage
everybody in Maples Pavilion.
Jay carefully carved a plaque and an Axe out of wood. He
garnered the dimensions by taking calipers to an old photo
of James Berdahl holding the Axe. Jay stained the backing
mahogany and painted the Axe silver and red to match the
original. The difficult part, he figured, was to recreate a
realistic plaque; the original was bronze with the winners
and scores inscribed. For this job he enlisted Jamie Rawson.
Jamie did such a fine job painting it in the trompe l'oeil
style that one had to touch it to believe that it did not
have raised letters. Jay and Jamie hid the Axe in their room
at TH and told no one about it except their roommates Chris
"Iceman" Mosher ('75) and Eric Abrahamson ('77).
Jay and Jamie checked out Stanford's Maples Pavilion to
assess the security and select a get-away route. The get-
away car would be driven by Jay's friend John Gezilius
because his car was similar to those of the Palo Alto
Police. Knowing there would be quite a surge to get the Axe
back, they decided that Dan Blick ('77) would help Jay run
the Axe across the basketball court at half-time because
they were both tall and notably fast.
Before the basketball game, the trio smuggled the fake Axe,
hidden in a xylophone case, into Maples Pavilion. Just
before halftime, the rest of the Straw Hat Band was informed
that something big was going to happen, and they needed
people to be ready to create confusion and disturbances to
block for them. About half the Band shed their Straw Hat
Band clothes so that they would blend into the crowd.
Interrupting a pee-wee basketball game at the half, they
bolted across the court with the Axe, flaunting it to the
Stanford section. This caused quite a commotion among the
students. One Stanford student decided to make a valiant
leap from the stands but landed on a Stanford police
officer.
Dan and Jay ran up the steps, passing another police
officer. After they passed him, the officer saw the crowd
running up after them and-knowing something was wrong-he
blocked the doorway saying, "No one is getting out of here.
What's going on?"
The angry mob was slowed enough so that Dan and Jay could
vault the fence and get to the car. By this time the mob,
which now included Stanford football players and most of the
Delta Tau Chi fraternity, had done an end run around the
fence, picked up a parking lot barricade, and put it right
in front of the car. Gezilius made an immediate U-turn,
drove over several curbs, and raced out of the parking lot
ahead of the crowd.
The next morning the newspapers proclaimed that a band of
Cal desperadoes swiped the Stanford Axe but were apprehended
by the Palo Alto Police. Jay wrote a letter to the Daily
Californian telling exactly what had happened, and
Stanford's band sent a case of champagne to the Cal Band.
GETTING THERE IS HALF THE FUN
The lure of the road is a powerful force. There is the
mystery of new and exotic locales: Brussels, Seattle, New
York, and Japan; there is the camaraderie that knits a group
together.
That's what the Public Relations Director tells the
prospective Band member and the parents. What he
conveniently forgets to mention are the other equally
compelling experiences found in Weed, Portland, Modesto, and
Westwood. And that camaraderie is sometimes no more than the
Band organizing around a common enemy: the weather, the
food, the condition of the buses, or the non-stop schedule.
Any member of the Band who has undergone a road trip has at
least one story to tell-and it usually doesn't take much
prompting. It might be about the time a group sang "Mighty
Oregon" two hundred times, or it might be about the fine
cuisine supplied to the Band by Dogs 'n' Suds. Nevertheless,
their stories do come out, and they vary subtly, according
to the kind of trip taken.
Bus trips elicit stories about bus drivers, accidents, fuel
shortages, rest stops, sleeping in the luggage racks,
pantsings, reading literature over the public address
system, running red lights, stolen civic signs, and mistaken
arrests.
Stories about Straw Hat Band trips in private vehicles tend
to revolve around long hours, accidents, weather conditions
(like snow and ice), mistaken directions, lost members of
the convoy, oil and gas consumption, and the lack of money
to get home.
Airline trips -few but relatively eventful-engender tales
about paging people in airports, crummy scheduling,
attractive cabin attendants, and long flights.
All trips have their stories about lodging, the hotels and
motels in which Band members have had fun with keys, ice
machines, swimming pools, wake-up calls, and roommates.
Foreign trips have all the ingredients listed above, but
they add a dollop of the exotic: the peculiar twist of novel
languages and customs.
Band trips are marvelous ordeals that most Band members
cherish above almost all else.
I LOVE A FOSSIL, I ALWAYS WILL
Bill Ellsworth marched with the Cal Band from 1946 to 1956
and was the Cal Band's announcer from 1957 to 1972. He
devoted his life to the University and the Cal Band and
served as the unofficial keeper of the California Spirit
because of his vast knowledge of Cal traditions. Every fall,
new Band members would gather to hear Ellsworth's pep talk
about the history of the Band and the University. He loved
the students, and he loved being with the Band.
Bill served with the U.S. Army in New Guinea and the
Philippines during World War II. He enrolled at Cal in the
fall of 1946 and joined the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. He
played the alto saxophone in the Cal Band and sang with the
Senior Octet of the Men's Glee Club.
Bill Ellsworth absorbed all the traditions and reveled in
the spirit of the campus. His treatment of his red hair
prior to Stanford games illustrated the degree of Bill's
enthusiasm: one Big Game Week, his fraternity brothers dyed
his hair Cal blue, and Bill continued this as a tradition
for every Big Game Week afterward until his death. For his
spirit, enthusiasm, and service to the Cal Band, Bill was
elected to the Baton Society.
Although he graduated in 1954, he just kept on marching and
marching. One day in 1957, the Band realized that this was
against all reason. The Band allowed Bill's love affair with
the organization to continue by making him its announcer.
Bill had been around for so long that, over time, he became
affectionately, and reverently, know as the "Founder of the
Cal Band."
Meanwhile, Bill's work with the University led to a position
with the ASUC store. During the ASUC's reorganization in
1961, the need for a coordinator and advisor to the student
spirit groups became clear. ASUC Executive Director Forrest
Tregea realized that Bill's dedication to school spirit made
him the ideal choice for this position. Bill became the
advisor to all spirit groups, including the Cal Band, the
Rally Committee, the Yell Leaders, the Pom-Pon Girls, and
the Oski Committee.
As announcer, Bill remained active in the Band's activities.
He rode in the buses with the Band members on all the trips
to Los Angeles, and he announced for all the Band's tours
and Spring Musical Revues. He even performed with the Band
in its stage shows, singing "Grand Old Ivy" with Bob
Briggs during the Fifth Annual Spring Musical Revue in 1973.
Bill was also famous for playing his saxophone while doing a
soft-shoe routine to the tune "Tea for Two"-he performed
spontaneously (at the urging of Band members) on street
corners, in restaurants, and in public plazas around the
nation, wherever the Cal Band appeared.
Shortly before his death in 1973, Bill learned that
Tellefsen Hall had purchased a new, larger house on the
north side of campus to replace the original house on the
south side. The house had been owned by Bill's old
fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha. The library in Tellefsen Hall
is named for and dedicated to William L. Ellsworth
Bill Ellsworth had a childlike love of life. He was
relentlessly enthusiastic yet he was gracious about all the
teasing the Band gave him while he was their announcer. He
accepted that his last name was always spelled with a little
"e," and he endured the endless jokes about his advanced
age, red hair, and his undergraduate years-all seven of
them. His retort to almost anything a Band member did that
wasn't up to his blue-hot standards was an emphatic, "The
undergraduates of today aren't what they used to be."
THE PERFECT YEAR
By Larry Anderson (SD '58)
In looking back over the years, I believe my first real
awareness of Cal and the Cal Band came as a pre-teen. My
father and mother took me to a Cal football game one fall
Saturday. Before I ever played an instrument, I announced to
my parents that "I wanted to be in that band someday."
What started on that crisp early fall Saturday afternoon
turned into a lifelong affair and involvement with the Cal
Band and the great University which became my alma mater.
I recall my very first day in the Band. I was going to my
locker in the Band's old quarters in Number 5 Eshleman Hall.
A few of the older Band members told me many things, but the
one that stood out in my mind was, "Larry, you are joining
the best Band in the land." I'll never forget that. I
believed it then, I believed it when I was in the Band, and
I believe it now!
I did not realize it at the time I was elected [Student
Director], but the 1958 season turned out to be momentous
for the Band. It was one of the high points of my young
life. Three major events occurred that year which will
always stand out in my memories of the Cal Band. First, the
Band was invited to play at the World's Fair in Brussels,
Belgium. This was the first time that the Band went abroad.
Second, the football team went to the Rose Bowl, and I not
only marched with the Band in the Rose Parade, but I also
conducted in front of 101,000 people at the football game.
Third, the Cal basketball team won the NCAA Championship in
Louisville, Kentucky. The Straw Hat Band performed
throughout the playoffs, and it was my privilege to conduct
on those occasions as well. Any one of these events would
have made a spectacular year to be in the Band, but all
three in one year was almost too good to be true! It was the
culmination of my undergraduate days in the Band.
Cal to me was so much more than a place to go to school, to
study, and to learn. I'm so proud to be a graduate of one of
the greatest universities in the world. I wouldn't have
traded my experience as a member and student director of the
Band for anything. The Band helped shape my life and
certainly my lifelong career as a music educator. I treasure
and cherish what the University has given me. The Band truly
"made" Cal for me. It gave me lifelong friends and
acquaintances with whom I share a special bond and the
unique feeling of what it means to be a Cal Bandsman. I have
been accused on many occasions of having blue and gold blood
in my veins. Yes, it is true-I am an "Old Blue," and I
make no bones about it.
The Band was, and still is, an important and vital part of
my life. It afforded me some of the best and most remembered
times anyone could ever have in their college years.
A WARDROBE NOTE
Over the years, many a freshman has been stunned when a
group of Band members charged someone and stripped him of
his pants during a rehearsal. Pantsing has been a part of
the Band for over a half century, usually frowned upon by
Directors but tolerated by most everyone else. While the
drum major has represented the official authority at
rehearsals, the Band's own social mechanisms have played an
important role in Band rehearsal. Herb Towler ('41) comments
on the phenomenon of "pantsing":
"From time to time, someone wasn't in the mood to rehearse
and would be disruptive. That's when it became necessary for
the rest of the Band members to pants the individual. Part
of the routine was to make his pants hard to retrieve, such
as running them up a nearby flag pole or throwing them very
high in a tree or on top of a fence. This served the
effective purpose of annoying the recipient to the point
where he was less likely to misbehave."
When women were first accepted into the Band in 1973, male
members were worried that customs like pantsing were
unsuitable. But women were very capable of making the most
of a good pantsing. It occurred during rehearsals and for
the same reasons that it had for the all-male Band.
Stories of pantsing could probably fill a volume, but one
incident, told here by Chris Bailey (SD '73), shall serve as
representative.
"In 1971, Archie Lachner was a freshman with an attitude.
His personality demanded that he be pantsed often. For his
first L.A. trip, Archie climbed onto the Bass bus and
declared that he was not going to be pantsed on that trip.
He had a bicycle chain through the belt loops of his jeans
and a large lock holding it in place.
"However, he made the fatal mistake of using a padlock with
a key rather than one with a combination lock. The Basses
simply held him down, removed the key from his pocket,
unlocked the lock, pantsed him, and locked his pants to the
overhead rail of the bus. Archie rode all the way from
Berkeley to Fresno in his underwear. His pants were returned
there long enough for him to play the rally downtown, and
when we got back on the bus, his pants were again locked up
and he rode the rest of the way to L.A. in his underwear."
ALUMNI BAND DAY
General Douglas MacArthur said, "Old soldiers never die;
they merely fade away." Some former Band members can't even
fade away. For them there is Alumni Band Day.
Alumni Band Day has been an annual tradition since 1952.
Every fall, Band alumni check their mail boxes for the North
Tunnel Echo, a quarterly newsletter edited by Band alumni,
and make arrangements for the trip to Berkeley. They rummage
through their closets for instruments and squawk out a few
notes before deciding that it just isn't worth practicing
and that it just doesn't matter anyway, because the whole
point of Alumni Band Day is to have fun.
It all began as an idea one evening in late October of 1952,
as three alumni, Herb Towler, Dave Wenrich, and Dick Auslen,
were having martinis at Wenrich's house. The trio was very
resourceful in contacting local Band alumni, and-three
weeks later-on a rainy November 15, approximately 75 former
Cal Band members gathered in the stands at Memorial Stadium
for the first-ever Alumni Band Day.
Within its first few years, the Alumni Band acquired its own
"Alumni Band Fanfare." Written by Jon Elkus (SD '52), this
piece combines melodies from "The Old Gray Mare," "Happy
Days are Here Again," and "Hail to California." It is the
traditional opening of the Alumni Band half-time show.
Alumni Band Day occurs annually at a home football game when
there is no visiting band. Alumni Band members arrive
wearing a white shirt, navy blue Alumni Band baseball cap,
dark blue pants, and white shoes.
After the early morning check-in and a quick musical
rehearsal, the Alumni Band walks up to Memorial Stadium for
a joint field rehearsal with the Cal Band. After the Cal
Band completes its rehearsal, the alumni begin learning the
continuity to their show. One of the most remarkable
features of Alumni Band Day is that Alumni Band members
learn the entire show on the morning of the game.
As kick-off time approaches, the Alumni Band gathers in the
north tunnel and enters the stadium to a military cadence.
After a quick trip around the field, the Alumni Band joins
the crowd cheering on the Cal Band as it takes the field.
Following the pregame show, the two bands take turns playing
Cal songs in the stands until it is time to gather on the
sidelines for the half-time show.
Until the early 1980s, the Alumni Band called the opposing
team's band director and had him send the music for their
fight songs. As a matter of courtesy, the Alumni Band played
the fight songs when the opposing team scored. This practice
was very popular with the opposing schools' fans, and many
wrote letters of appreciation and praise to the Alumni Band.
Prior to 1983, the Alumni Band performed at pregame; since
then, it has performed a joint half-time show with the Cal
Band. The Cal Band first performs its own short half-time
show and exits to the side lines to watch the start of the
Alumni Band show, which begins with the performance of the
"Alumni Band Fanfare" and then adds one or two other
tunes.
Then comes the impressive finale: while playing "Fight for
California" under the direction of Bob Briggs, the Alumni
Band forms a script "Cal," and the Cal Band forms the
"ifornia" in an end zone-to-end zone formation, similar to
the Script Cal performed by the Cal Band in the pregame
show. The drill concludes with the requisite ripple bow, and
both bands perform "Hail to California," usually under the
direction of former Band Director James Berdahl.
Following the game, both bands assemble on the field for a
short postgame performance. The day ends as the Cal Band
marches energetically out of the stadium and the Alumni Band
casually strolls back to BRH, sore of lip and limb but
refreshed in spirit.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
The Band has for decades loved to sing. It sings the first
verse of "Fight for Cal" on the field. It often will raise
a glass and sing "Toast to California." Any time of the
year, the Band will spot someone wearing the cardinal of
Stanford (or any shade close to it) and break into "The
Lady in Red," a song that flirts with the risqu but is
redeemed by its glorious harmony. It is in this latter vein
that Band members through the years have sung parodies to
express themselves.
After the wildly successful Brussels Trip, which had many
carpetbaggers, the Band broke out with a song containing the
barbed lyrics (sung to "Colonel Bogey March" from the
movie Bridge on the River Kwai: "Cal Band has really got
some class/But it has far too many brass/It's gay to/Attempt
to play to/Sixteen directors who sit on their ass." There
were additional lyrics referring to the attributes of
individuals, lyrics adapted in Stunt Comm workshops to each
successive Ex Comm for a decade.
This idea of Stunt Committee song writing became a 1960s
tradition of taking music from the marching shows and
adapting them to the personalities within the Band. The 1962
Stunt Committee, fresh from a spectacular season and its
plentiful alumni support, rebelled and wrote a ditty to the
show tune "It's Gonna Be a Great Day" that included "Grab
your hat and shout/We kicked Bill Colescott out/It's gonna
be a great day."
In the mid-1960s a group of energetic Band members known as
"The Skinnies" took it upon themselves to present a new
song each week at the Band's Thursday training table. Their
targets included the senior manager, Dick George, and the
uniform manager, Steve Whitgob. The latter, parodying "The
Pink Panther Theme," was titled "Whitgob the Mouth" and
ended with the falling jazz riff, "Our white kits have no
spats or gloooooooves."
Their crowning achievement was probably the song aimed at
the player who lead the wedge during the 1966 season (sung
to "76 Trombones"):
Leading the wedge down field, Willard Alloway.
You must march eight-per-five all the way,
Cuz if you don't the band will get all screwed up
And we'll kick your ass 'til Labor Day.
The Band's staff wasn't exempt from these masterpieces. To
the tune of "I, Don Quixote" from Man of La Mancha began
"I am I, David Tucker/The Cal Band arranger." These songs
stayed within the Band until the 1968 California Tour. The
Stunt Committee wrote its own parody and included it in the
show. In an interlude explaining the frantic tour logistics,
the Band sang (to the tune of "Hello My Baby")
Jim French arranges
Quick costume changes
You really have to move
It seems to take an age,
To find your place backstage.
And when you get there,
It's a safe bet there
Isn't much room for you etc.
Song parodies went from underground lyrics to a Spring Show
feature in just a decade.
Incidentally, the Band continues to write pointed parodies
as the situation arises.
The March to Stanford, 1968
In its enthusiasm to celebrate the Centennial and to show up
Stanford, almost two dozen Band members undertook a plot to
hang a replica of the official emblem from Hoover Tower.
Over a couple of evenings, they painstakingly decorated a
bed sheet. Then the group-with Bill Ellsworth high-stepping
the ceremonial first fifty yards-headed south from Sather
Gate after sunset the Saturday before Big Game, each member
taking a shift along the way. They marched overnight, the
only real incident occurring when Jim Baker ('66), walking a
train bridge across the Bay at three in the morning, had to
dodge an oncoming freight train.
Upon arriving at Hoover Tower, the marchers were thwarted-
the observation deck was closed because of a suicidal jumper
earlier in the week. The group had to settle for the picture
to the left.
HI FOLKS
The films and tapes taken by the Cal Band Camera Crew are
used primarily for public relations and stunt planning, but
it has put the films to other interesting uses over the
years. In 1965, the Stanford Band spelled out the words HI
FOLKS and used a rank drill whereby the "O" became a "U"
and the "L" became a "C" for a brief period of time. The
camera crew captured this moment on film and still pictures
were sent to many Stanford University officials. During Big
Game 1970 a riot occurred during the Stanford half-time show
when members of their band attacked a demonstrator who was
running through their ranks carrying a flag. The camera crew
filmed the action, including appropriate close-ups. The film
was later subpoenaed by the campus police to use as a record
of the disturbance.
A Cal Band Sonnet
Outside it is November afternoon,
But inside, cool and dark, there is no time,
Until at last we hear the stirring tune:
A single note from Campanile's chime,
A tunnel yell, a whistle blast, and then
We burst in pounding waves upon the turf.
The drums drive forth a hundred twenty men
who kick the lime to foam in rumbling surf.
And there they are in every single seat
A thousand they for every Bandsman one,
They rise at stirring fanfare to their feet,
And cheer each California Fav'rite Son.
'Tis sad that nary one amongst us knows
The squish of Pasadena 'twixt his toes.
-Jef Feldman ('65)
(written his junior year and published in the 1968 Blue and
Gold)
"Jamie, mustering his artistic skills and knowledge,
carefully and painstakingly lettered the plaque and did an
edge on it with trompel'oeil, shading every edge lighter so
it looked like it was stnding up. The greatest flatteries
ever paid to it was the fact that streams of people coming
to look at it had to touch the plaque to make sure that it
wasn't three dimensional."
- Rob Rawson
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