As I sat on a curb in Watts, sharing an ill-gotten bottle of Ripple with three newly acquired soul brothers, the question crossed my muddled mind: What is a Princeton graduate doing in this predicament?
Sadly, the question had been asked before-by me, as well as about me. A year and a half earlier, for instance, I had joked that I was the only person with a Princeton degree driving a taxi in Fort Lewis, Washington (for $15 per 12-hour shift, no less).
Except it was different this time, this unforgettably dreadful day in the seamiest section of Los Angeles. It was no joking matter. Finally, after 18 years of steady imbibing--very heavy the final five or six years--I had touched bottom. On that fateful day in September 1969, I had reached what I believed was my point of no return.
Never had I experienced the feeling of total helplessness and hopelessness that I felt that day. On the outside, I laughed as I told my black friends there would be no Ripple for those who refused political allegiance to Richard M. Nixon. On the inside, terror gripped my guts, because I feared I could not get out of Watts alive.
Why such despair after a mere five days on Skid Row? Probably because I had been powerless over alcohol for more days than I ever will remember--and the Skid Row of self-destruction can exist wherever and whenever an alcoholic drinks.
Curiously, the disease of alcoholism first afflicted me in 1951--after I had gone through Old Nassau, a year of graduate study at Penn, two years in the U.S. Marine Corps, a first marriage, and two and a half years of newspaper work virtually alcohol-free.
I learned a long time later from a bright, young county psychologist in Phoenix that my problem stemmed from placing my father, Asa S. Bushnell '21, on a pedestal. When I concluded that I was not destined to attain his heights of professional success, I apparently decided in my subconscious to escape from reality into a bottle (almost any brand).
Of all ironies, it was in the FBI that I began to drink. And I started right out as a morning imbiber, influenced by a couple of good ol' Southern boys who convinced me that special agents could benefit from an eye-opener, too. I eventually would discover that alcoholism is a cunning ad baffling disease--and I would think back to those days of wonderful innocence in the Bureau.
My Princeton classmates and colleagues, of course, had no idea I already had shoved off on a downhill toboggan ride. They rewarded my years of service as class secretary by electing me president of '47 for five years. I also became class representative on the Alumni Council. No one realized I was riding for a fall, least of all yours truly.
For me, the days of wine and roses seemed to roll merrily along. At age 26, I left the FBI and returned to the Tucson Daily Citizen, my first employer, as the newspaper's youngest city editor. Disdaining Thomas Wolfe's admonition against going home again, I subsequently accepted the position of managing editor of Town Topics in Princeton, where I had grown up (in the shadow of Dad's pedestal). That, in turn, led to a promising appointment as public relations director for New Jersey's attorney general.
Behind the journalistic challenge and the political glitter, however, a disproportionate share of my waking hours was spent caressing the grape. Nothing seemed quite as important as the next drink. While composing safety slogans for the New Jersey Motor Vehicles Division, I totaled three cars in a six-month period--one of them a "loaner" from my disbelieving parents. Finally, after concluding that work occasionally got in the way of fun, I resigned from the attorney general's staff--by slipping a letter under his door at 6 a.m., because I lacked the courage to face him any of my peers.
That spring and summer of 1962, in retrospect, should have opened my eyes. But the booze blurred them. I could not focus on the telltale signs of my illness. By hitting the then-illegal numbers game--047, fittingly--I paid for my 15th Reunion and assured my classmates that a new career beckoned in New York City. I commuted to the Big Apple about once a week, fully expecting Time magazine or a top ad agency to roll out the red carpet. It never occurred to me that they were not in the market for a 37-year-old unemployed newspaperman with bloodshot eyes and whiskey breath.
I usually began those days on a barstool at Rosso's now-defunct tavern on Spring Street, a half-block from my domicile, dreaming of future glories and postponing attainment of same in favor of another round. If I live to be 100, which is a physical impossibility due to damage to the vital organs, I will not forget the morning my father detoured by Rosso's--en route to a train he seldom missed in 32 years as commissioner of the Eastern College Athletic Conference--and asked from the doorway, simply yet sternly, "Ace, is this a way of life?"
Indeed, it was--a devastating way of life. I hated it. I hated the embarrassment, particularly to him. But I could not change it. In fact, I was even unable to face a third season as PAW's football correspondent, so I slipped out of town in early September, in the dark of night, in order to duck any lingering responsibilities (my wife and young son understandably had already flown the coop).
Jobs, when obtained, lasted for shorter durations. The Citizen offered me another chance, though a few rungs down the ladder--as police reporter rather than city editor. Then I spend almost a year with the Upland (Calif.) News, a past-its-prime weekly that was fast fading into the Pacific. From there, I migrated to Montesano, Washington, to labor for the weekly Vidette--a perfect place for a practicing alkie, because the paper's unsuspecting absentee owners were 80 miles to the east in Tacoma. Then followed my brief stint as a cabby, a three-month whirl with the Phoenix Gazette, and an eight-month ordeal as an ad salesman/PR officer with the New Mexico Lawman, a monthly magazine in Albuquerque.
During this terrible period of decline and deterioration, I somehow managed to return for my 20th Reunion in Princeton. When asked later to submit my most vivid memory of the weekend, I responded with a one-word summation--"Arriving"--that was duly recorded in our 25th yearbook. Other than that I could recall little, for it proved a blur of orange and black, a disjointed series of vocal and musical noises--a truly lost weekend. And how any of my classmates could stomach me remains a mystery, except that '47 is populated by magnificent fellows, headed by Jack Madden and Bob Wohlforth, two enduring friends from Nassau Street Elementary School.
In the summer of 1969, I surfaced on the beach in Malibu, where I fancied myself a latter-day F. Scott Fitzgerald '17. The party never seemed to be over, and I just knew my writing for the Palisadian-Post in nearby Pacific Palisades would stimulate a career as a crafter of scripts in Hollywood. Instead, the summer of my discontent led to the lowly perch on that unforgettable curb in Watts.
How I climbed out of the gutter and back into civilization, after a long absence, I still am not sure. All I know is that I awoke outside my favorite Malibu watering hole, sick and tired of being sick and tired. I wanted help in the worst way, but I had no idea how to seek it. I was a basket case.
In the next few days, then weeks, miracles took over my life. By happy coincidence, the Post's advertising director--unbeknown to our bosses--already had chalked up six weeks of solid recovery from alcoholism. A fellow refugee from New Jersey, he came to my rescue. By happy coincidence, some of the other recovering boozers to whom he introduced me made a great deal of sense. I identified with their stories. By happy coincidence, four other people in my apartment complex informed me that they were in the same boat. They refused to let me stray off course.
I have thought a lot about these "coincidences" in the last 14 years, and I am now convinced they may have been more than that. I like to believe that a higher power just may have intervened to put me back on track.
Whatever the circumstances, my comeback proved quick and dramatic. Changes in my lifestyle resulted in a promotion, election to several community boards, and, most significantly, a rebirth of my self-respect. So many good things have happened since I relinquished my glass that I cannot chronicle them here. In 1971, for example, I attended my Dad's 50th Reunion, a remarkable weekend in that it enabled me to reaffirm my closeness to him while reaffirming the values I learned so long ago at Old Nassau.
Also in 1971, the Citizen invited me to return to Tucson for a fourth and final tour of duty. There followed a rewarding decade-plus in various middle-management posts, coupled with the writing of more than 600 opinion columns, primarily political in nature. Involvement in civic affairs became equally important, climaxed by an elegant "roast and recognition" luncheon in mid-September of this year. Paradoxically, my cup runneth over, because it has not been filled at all.
Recently, since career changes obviously can take place at an advanced age if one is sober and feeling young, I switched from the paper to the Pima County's Sheriff's Department as community service manager. It has done me a world of good, permitting me to increase my civic commitment--I hold a number of board positions in crime and alcoholism-prevention groups--and to toil as a liaison official between our department and our splendid volunteers' organization, as well as media relations spokesman for the sheriff (visitors to Tucson, please note: I am not empowered to fix tickets).
Perhaps the ultimate compliment I have received in my recovery years was the request by the Class of 1947 that I serve as its secretary again--after a 30-year hiatus. It is a real thrill for me to be "all the way back" at last.
I no longer have the urge to get up on my late father's distinguished pedestal. I now have my own pedestal--on which I am happy.
It seems incredible that 14 years have elapsed since I emerged from Watts and poured my last drink of alcohol. Just as I always will appreciate the timeless values taught at Princeton, so I always will remember the lessons learned in Watts.
Believe me, I do not want to forget. If I cannot recall vividly my last drunk, it might not be the last one.