Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–255
navy, done the submarine thing. He ran some companies after the war, some of them connected
with the defense industries.
So anyway, off to the Grove I go, in the summer of 2006. You go into this redwood
grove, and they always talk about getting rid of “dull care.” The outside world is the world of
dull care, and Bohemia, the Grove particularly, is where you lose dull care. Well, the only way I
could describe my opinion of that is it had to be bullshit. So we go in through the gate. I would
say within a minute-and-a-half, two minutes tops, you’re in these groves, these big redwood
trees, with these little dirt roads running through these little camps. They’re not dilapidated—
well, a few are dilapidated—but they’re rustic. And they line the roads.
Bohemia started with a bunch of performers. They got rich people to pay for it. So there
are a lot of people there who perform. There are musicals. There are plays. There are
impromptu productions of various sorts or just performances. There are even strolling minstrels
who wander through the Grove and wander into a camp and, for a drink, will play for you.
Walter Alvarez, Luis Alvarez’s son, who’s a very good scientist in his own right, is one of the
strolling troubadours who appear in camp. Kevin Padian, who’s one of the really fine
paleontologists at Berkeley, usually joins Walter. They wander through, banjo and guitar in
hand, playing for people. So suddenly, I discover that Bohemian Grove is idyllic. It’s not Boy
Scout camp at all—or it’s sort of Boy Scout camp with hot showers and a good wine list. I
realize this is an interesting place—I might actually have some fun here. Bill and I run into
somebody at one of the camps. He’s in charge of some of the scientific talks they give there, the
museum talks. I give him some suggestions. He says to Bill—I’ve been in the Grove now
maybe thirty minutes—“So when are you going to put Tom up for membership?” Bill looks at
me, and I say, “Hey, go ahead.”
Tory and Bill were my sponsors. There are three classes of membership. There are the
real members. It takes forever to get to be a real member. But they have affirmative action.
Affirmative action means sort of special conditions for academics. There’s an even better deal
for anyone who is a performer. Clint Eastwood belongs. Jimmy Buffett belongs. Some really
good people belong, and they perform, and they love to perform. So then you fill out this
application form, send it in. Presumably you try to get people you know to write letters on your
behalf, and your sponsors spend a lot of time and money trying to put together this package. But
then at the end of that you have interviews. It’s like getting into a fraternity—not that I’ve ever
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