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Bob Paul '39


Favorite Place to Hang at Penn?
Smokey Joe's but it was across from Alpha Chi Rho on 36th Street below Walnut. The only other bistro was Jake Stait's Inn above 36th and Walnut.  Note: students didn't carry "cards" in those days following the repeal of Prohibition.  
Where is your Penn diploma now?
I'm looking at it on the wall in my bedroom.
What memory from Penn do you wish you could relive again?Ý
The whole damn four years, I just loved the whole experience.
Who do you root for?
I was passionate for the Philadelphia Athletics (1924-1953) until they became the Kansas City Blues (now Royals), and always rooted for the Red & Blue and the Philadelphia 'Iggles' in football.Ý In 1946, I saw the original 76ers play every home game in the inaugural pro league, now known as the NBA.Ý
Favorite Movie? :
Citizen Kane written, produced, directed and starring Orson Wells. Several years later, Mr. Wells opened his only play, Five Kings, in Philadelphia.Ý In one matinee show I played a member of a continental army commanded by Burgess Meredith that got massacred by Wells' army on stage. The play closed down after three weeks. One evening the following year, I truly impressed a date in Washington's Mayflower Hotel bistro by introducing her to Lt. Meredith at an adjoining table.
Last Book Read?
The biography, The First Scientific American, Benjamin Franklin by Harvard professor Joyce E. Chapin
What have you not done because you were afraid to try? Not a thing because I was concerned I might roll a sseven if I let my imagination wander.
What turns you on?
Reliving those wonderful college days.
What turns you off/pet peeves?
The very recent realization that only persons of great means should run for president of the USA.
What advice would you give a Penn freshman?
Survey opportunities for extracurricular activities.  There is more to a college education than the academic requirements alone.  And when dubious of a solution, take two and hit to the right (A baseball expression).
What word(s) desscribe your life at Penn?
The rah rah boy.
What word(s) describe you at this moment?
"It Aint So."  As a child my ambition was to live to the ripe old age of 50.  I was convinced after 50 should retreat to a retirement home.   Well, I have been living down that belief for four decades.  "Say it aint so."
If you could have dinner with any three people dead or alive, who would you choose?
Babe Ruth, Harold Red Grange (a Zeta Psi brother at Illinois), and FDR.  I sat down at a cocktail party with Ruth four weeks before his death in 1948 but still have lots to talk about with him.  I saw Ruth hit a 1927 home run the first time my father bought us box seats behind the Yankee dugout in Philadelphia.  I did have a sandwich with Grange before he "did" the telecast of the Penn Princeton game in 1959 and I attended FDR's inauguration in 1941.  But I knew dining with Ginger Rogers was out of my league.

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