Old Man in a Baseball Cap [Hardcover]

Fred Rochlin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 1999

I went to the University of Arizona and I majored in civil engineering because that's what my two brothers had done.

I thought it was the right thing to do.

When I got there, I found that I couldn't pass anything. I couldn't pass a damn thing. I was flunking out and that would be a big scandal in my family. I was getting desperate.

I didn't know what to do.

That December, the Japanese government saw fit to bomb Pearl harbor.

So, next month, January, two weeks before finals, I got very patriotic and I went down and enlisted in the Army Air Corps.

Old Man in a Baseball Cap is a wonderful, hilarious, and haunting memoir. Written when Rochlin was seventy, after he took a storytelling workshop with Spalding Gray, it was originally performed as a monologue and was described by the New York Times as being "about an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances, [it] has elements of an epic: love and death, honor and betrayal, vengefulness and martyrdom, and ultimately, the fortuitousness of survival."

In 1942 Fred Rochlin joined the Army Air Corps. After eight months of training, he was stationed in Italy, serving as the navigator on a B-24 bomber and flying missions over Germany. Fifty such missions were required for a successful tour of duty. This was the first time that Fred Rochlin had been away from home. He was nineteen years old.

Old Man in a Baseball Cap is an astonishingly fresh, candid look at "the last good war." At once naive and wise, Fred Rochlin's voice is unforgettable.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While the public appears eager for sweeping, heroic histories of the "greatest generation," readers would do themselves a disservice to ignore this ground-level view of WWII written by a member of that generation blessed with superb storytelling skills and a survivor's sense of the absurd. This book version of Rochlin's critically acclaimed one-man show of the same name offers a look at WWII that is by turns horrifying, sobering and hilarious. At times, it reads like Catch-22, except it's not fiction. Rochlin was 19 when he joined the Army Air Corps in 1942. His drill sergeant explained how the army decided that Rochlin would be trained as a navigator: "Look, everybody knows you Hebes are good with numbers, and all a navigator is, is just a fucken flying accountant." His duties turned out to include finding a boyfriend for the colonel in charge of his base in Italy after he himself had rebuffed the colonel's advances. And then there was the combat: on his first mission, billed as "a milk run": his plane was hit, the nose gunner fell out and Rochlin wound up covered in the blood of his roommate and bombardier, whose head was blown off. On one of his last missions, his plane was shot down over Yugoslavia and he had to hike for 30 days back to Italy. Along the way, he was forced by Yugoslav Partisans to execute three Nazis point blank, and contracted VD from his walking partner, a Partisan whose seduction routine consisted of announcing that she didn't want to die a virgin. A retired architect who lives in Los Angeles, Rochlin was 71 when he took a storytelling workshop with Spalding Gray. The well-deserved encouragement he received led him to hone his recollections for the theater. The stories retain their power in book form. Dramatic rights to Disney. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This simple memoir is not your typical story of World War II. Rochlin has written a collection of brief remembrances that he performs on stage as a one-man show, a monolog of life and death as a navigator on a B-24 bomber in Italy from 1943 to 1945. The eight stories in this short book reveal much about the man and his wartime experiences, from training in Nebraska to bombing missions over Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Rochlin survived 50 missions and made it home, but most of his friends did not. His poignant acknowledgment of their sacrifice and his wonder at his own survival provide a stark glimpse into men at war. Rochlin delivers a baby one day and obliterates a Hungarian village the next. He later parachutes into Yugoslavia and walks more than 400 kilometers to safety, guided by a robust female Yugoslav partisan. His observations of people and events are keen, ribald, and very funny. The book is too short, thoughAjust an appetizer for the rest of Rochlin's tales. Recommended for public libraries.ACol. William D. Bushnell, USMC (ret.), Sebascodegan Island, ME
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1st edition (August 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006019426X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060194260
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,052,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Fred Rochlin (1923-2002) was an architect, artist, photographer, collector of Western Jewish Americana and, as a second career, monologist and author. Born in the Arizona border town of Nogales, he spent most of his adult life in Los Angeles, California, where he lived with his wife, author and historian Harriet Rochlin. They have four children and three grandchildren.

At the beginning of his career, Fred apprenticed in the offices of two renowned Los Angeles architects: Lloyd Wright and Charles Eames. From 1952 to 1986, Rochlin & Baran Architects, Engineers and Planning completed major medical facilities and observatories in California, seventeen other states, Iran and Israel.

After retiring from architectural practice, Fred wrote and performed a monologue on his experiences as a navigator in Italy during World War II. The show was lauded first by New York Times Arts in America critic, Bruce Weber (who said the performance "has the elements of an epic: love and death, honor and betrayal, vengefulness and martyrdom, and ultimately, the fortuitousness of survival"), then in newspapers throughout the country. The monologue opens with the following passage:

"My name is Fred Rochlin. I was born and raised near Nogales, Arizona. My parents had emigrated from Russia. I had two brothers and two sisters. I was the youngest. We lived in the country. We had chickens and turkeys and a black and white Holstein cow named Bossy. Nogales had about 5,000 people in it. It had a school and a library and a city hall and a county courthouse. It was a ranching and mining and railroad center and a border town. I liked Nogales. I thought it was a nice town. I had a summer job working in the stockyards. In high school, I was sort of a flash. At graduation, I got to join the National Honor Society. I went to the University of Arizona and I majored in civil engineering because that's what my two brothers had done. When I got there, I found that I couldn't pass algebra, couldn't pass calculus, chemistry, surveying, physics, differential equations. I couldn't pass a damn thing. I was flunking out and that would be a big scandal in my family. I was getting desperate. I didn't know what to do. That December, the Japanese government saw fit to bomb Pearl Harbor. So, next month, January, two weeks before finals, I got very patriotic and I went down and enlisted in the Army Air Corps."

The resulting book and audio, Old Man in a Baseball Cap, was released by Harper-Collins in 2000 and is still in print. A DVD of his performance is also available at www.rochlin-roots-west.com/books-and-art.

Fred also became infected with Harriet's passion for Western Jewish history, which culminated in their co-authoring of Pioneer Jews: A New Life in the Far West, in print at Houghton Mifflin from 1984 to 2011 and still available. Fred's research on Southwestern history -- general and Jewish -- became an important archival resource for historians. Some of the materials he collected are now part of the Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives at the University of Arizona Library, Special Collections.

Fred also filled 114 personal journals, which he illustrated with sketches and watercolors and bound himself in rustic covers of rare wood. Some of his larger scale watercolor paintings of his native Arizona have been made into beautiful notecards (available at www.rochlin-roots-west.com/books-and-art).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Old Man in a Baseball Cap, November 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Old Man in a Baseball Cap (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful book of stories, not so much about war, but about a young man's experiences in extraordinary cirumstances. Rochlin is funny and moving as he recounts bizarre tales of humanity in all its ugliness and beauty. I couldn't put the book down. I loved Rochlin's voice, his plain-talking, no-nonsense appraoch to love and war. This is a must-read for anyone interested in truth, memoir, and coming of age. A classic that will keep you laughing and crying, and unable to stop thinking about it for a long time.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Old Man Gets It Right, December 15, 1999

By 

Chuck Freadhoff (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Old Man in a Baseball Cap (Hardcover)

The magic of Old Man in a Baseball Cap is not the marvelous people you meet or the enduring glimpse of humanity Rochlin provides. The magic is the images that you unknowingly absorb while reading this book, images that come back to you and provoke thought, laughter and reflection. Rochlin writes with incredible ease and grace about what he saw as a young man in Italy during World War II. Most of us, I fear, would lock those images away in the darkest closet we could find. But Rochlin shares them with us in such an accessable manner that when reading this marvelous book we're able to touch the highs and lows we're all capable of. And isn't that what good writing is all about? I had only one regret in reading Old Man in a Baseball Cap. It ended much too quickly. Which is why I'm going back to page one and starting again.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I simply could not put it down., November 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Old Man in a Baseball Cap (Hardcover)

After reading this book, I'm stunned by how easy us Gen-Xers have it these days. I thought about the life or death choices this poor guy had to make before he was twenty years old and it stunned me. The fact that Rochlin is so articulate, witty and charming is actually a bit disarming. He talks about war, fear, sex, survival and lust with such honesty and clarity that I wondered why he waited so long to put this book on the page. Whatever the reason, it's finally here for you to read and I highly recommend it. There's one more thing I'd like to add: some people create incredible stories...other people live them. Hats off to this incredible person.