Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–236
This is something that has happened a couple of times. In California I was surrounded by
faculty members who were liberals. And I have to admit, I’m a social liberal and a conservative
economically—not that I believe the Republicans these days are any more conservative about
money than the Democrats are. I’m sort of none-of-the-above politically. I give my absentee
ballot to my wife, and she gets to vote for liberals twice. Somebody at the Bohemian Grove once
said to me, “You don’t vote?” I said, “Look I live in a blue state. It doesn’t matter what I do. I
give it to my wife. It makes her happy.” Somebody said, “You’re a genius!” I said, “Yeah, I
know.” [Laughter] Lionel and I often would set out to shock people. There’s a Southern sort of
black tradition of talking trash, you know?
ASPATURIAN: Yes.
TOMBRELLO: So Lionel and I would talk trash and people would be, if not outraged, mystified.
ASPATURIAN: In public? Where?
TOMBRELLO: Small social event—small encounters. Sometimes one of the Caltech trustees,
Shirley Malcolm, and I do this at Caltech events, because Shirley and I adore one another. She’s
a Southern girl, and I’m a Southern boy; and we can talk trash and they just look at us as if we’d
come from Mars. I remember we were doing that at the opening of Broad Center [for the
Biological Sciences], and they weren’t outraged so much as mystified. Where did this strange
pair of people come from?
ASPATURIAN: You want to give an example?
TOMBRELLO: No. I do not want to have it down on tape.
ASPATURIAN: All right. I’m not sure how it would transcribe anyway.
TOMBRELLO: It won’t transcribe well. Shirley is one of Caltech’s very interesting trustees.
Lionel Senhouse was an interesting grad student to have, and we had a lot of fun together. He
and Peter Parker and I used to do things. For example, we would be running all night down in
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