I was once known as Nature Boy.
I was in the seventh grade at Bancroft Junior High in Hollywood. One night, all the sports clubs at Bancroft met at the Hollywood YMCA for a swim meet. It was the same Y where I had learned how to swim when I was eight in 1948. In 1952 I became known as “Nature Boy.” I was entered in the 25-yard freestyle race. I was a pretty good swimmer for my age. I didn’t own a bathing suit, so I had to borrow my older brother Bob’s.
Six of us junior high school swimmers stood at the edge of the pool, a whistle blew, and we were off. I was out in front of the pack when, all of a sudden, my brother’s bathing suit started inching its way down my hips. Little by little it kept sliding down my legs, preventing me from kicking, and finally it came off as we neared the end of the lap.
How embarrassing! Thank goodness there were no girls in attendance that night.
But here’s the thing: I took second place in the race. Marshall Barnes, two years older than me, barely beat me.
The next day, when I entered woodshop class, our teacher, Mr. Thompson—who’d been told of the incident by a few of my classmates—gave me a name that stuck for a couple of months. He called me Nature Boy, after the song that Nat King Cole made famous in the late 1940s. Although the song was called “Nature Boy,” neither word appeared in the lyrics. The lyrics describe a strange, enchanted boy who wanders over land and sea and discovers that human connection is worth far more than material wealth. The central message comes through in the song’s final line: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
“Nature Boy” was the theme song of the 1948 anti-war, anti-prejudice film The Boy with Green Hair. I identified with the curly-headed, green-haired orphan in the film, played by a young Dean Stockwell. His hair turned green after he learned his parents had died in London during Nazi Germany’s bombing campaign against Britain early in World War II. The boy’s green hair was meant to symbolize two things: prejudice against those who look different, and the evils of war, especially the harm it does to children.
To this very day, October 7, 2026, we human beings are still prejudiced against those who look different, and we’re still inflicting pain on children as nations keep warring against each other.