The World of Jeffery Eisenmesser
A Storied Life
I. Mrs. Marcus of the Inkwell - 1956
II. Television! (TV!) - 1958
III. Picnic - 1958
IV. Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye
V. Why Your Grandmother Never Had a Brooklyn Accent
VI. You're Not in Bensonhurst Anymore
VII. The Tale of the Little Christmas Tree
VIII. A Summer School Trip to Radio City Music Hall
IX. August 11, 1968
X. Mrs. Rosenthal, Kindergarten Teacher (1949)
XI. I Feel The Draft
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Mrs. Marcus of the Inkwells
This Story was was submitted to the New York Times’ “Metropolitan Diary,” a section of the great newspaper’s
Metropolitan section published on Sundays. To date, it has not been accepted.
I remember Mrs. Marcus well, a handsome woman, but stern, humorless.
Mr. Barbieri, the amiable principal of P.S. 177 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, stood before 6-1 and announced that our teacher, Mrs. Doyle, was absent and we would be split up for the day. I soon found myself seated in the back of another class. My teacher was strict and somewhat intimidating, but didn’t come close to Mrs. Marcus. Her students sat erect, very erect. They waited for instructions. Suddenly, she loudly called out, “Ink Monitor!” A boy jumped up and grabbed a huge bottle labeled, “Board of Education Ink”. He went from desk to nailed down desk. As he passed, the students opened lids and had their inkwells filled. (Even at the age of eleven, I knew something extraordinary was happening. Of course, I had noticed them, but the inkwell was of the distant past. There were ballpoint pens. It was 1956!) An assignment was succinctly given, the students began writing with something that looked like a quill. I suspect that Mrs. Marcus might have been the last teacher in New York City to fill up the inkwells.
Years later, I learned that she was the widow of the legendary Mickey Marcus, an American colonel and the first Israeli general. In the film ,”Cast a Giant Shadow”, he was played by Kirk Douglas, Mrs. Marcus by Angie Dickinson. Life.
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Television! (TV!)
I often told this Story to my junior school students. I hammed up the end. It was received well, got laughs.
I became very involved in Storytelling in the 1980’s & 1990’s, belonged to a wonderful group,
New York City Storytellers. I told traditional folktales and personal stories.
I even told at a prestigious event, Telebation, ‘94. (*** - see “Toot Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye”).
I was thirteen and a student at a Brooklyn junior high school. A tight group of kids had formed within the class. Good, studious kids who met every Friday at someone else’s house and danced to 45 rpm records. We sent away for tickets to a popular teenage dance show on Channel 5, and were surprised and happy when we received ten tickets. Ten tickets! Five couples dashed out of school at 3:00 (February, ‘58?), boarded the Sea Beach train at Bay Parkway and just made it before the Manhattan television studio doors of Channel 5 were closed. We were going to be on Herb Sheldon’s teenage dance show, “Studio Party.” Television!
We found ourselves in a large room with older boys and girls, high school students, all of us in bleacher seats waiting for the popular host Herb Sheldon. A few minutes before 5:00, he suddenly appeared before us. We knew the on-screen jovial Herb Sheldon, but the off-air fellow was decidedly not a nice man. From the gitgo, he scolded, threatened and warned us not to misbehave. Huh?! We were stunned, but we sat still. When the red light of the camera came on, he abruptly turned around, his scowl turned instantly to a winning grin and he warmly welcomed everyone not in the studio. The guy was obviously a phony, but we didn’t let it bother us. Television!
Songs were played. Everyone danced. Then couples were selected by a tap on the shoulder. I was tapped. That meant that my date, Helene Wenzel, and I were to stay on the dance floor and be among the Chosen for “Rickey Tickey Tavey Piano!” That meant that we surrounded a piano when three young women came out to perform. The host, still with a fixed grin, introduced “The Lollipops.” Helene and I, with four other couples, stood around the piano, and per instructions lip-synced as they sang their hit song, “Lollipop, Lollipop.”
As a “reward” for our participation the five couples were then instructed to line up and one by one hit a red mark, look at the camera and clearly announce name and school. Since my partner and I were the youngest - and the smallest - we found ourselves at the back of the line. During intermission, we had been given precise instructions: when our turn came, we were to individually hit the mark, look at the red light on the large TV camera, and say our full name, the name of our school and then walk quickly back to the bleachers.
Finally, our turn came. Time enough for me to get nervouser & nervouser. Being the youngest among the five couples, we were last. Helene, being the Girl, went first before me. She smartly hit the mark. “Helene Wenzel, from Seth Low Junior High School.” My turn. My turn . . .
I watched Helene walk towards the bleachers. I think I saw the mark, a red blur. But the next thing I remember was walking past a very angry Herb Sheldon who was saying “stuff” directed to me from the side of his mouth. As I approached the bleachers, I was greeted by lots of laughing heads. I managed, disconcerted/confused, to sit down. Then someone explained what had just happened...
* * *
For many years, when Family would sit around the Thanksgiving table, my sibling, my brother, would never forget to ask, “Do you remember what happened when you were on television?” (He, and many other people had been watching.) I knew what had happened, but I didn’t/don’t remember. This is what happened 63 years ago:
I hit the red mark, stared vacantly at the camera and said, “I’m Seth Low from Eisenmesser Junior High School.”
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Picnic
This happened on May 27, 1958. I was 13 and a student in Seth Low JHS in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. I was in a very good class, the top class, 9SP1 (special progress). We had skipped 8th Grade and most of us were going to graduate from junior high at 14, some younger. My fellow students were/are memorable. A group of about 10 had formed within the class, a sort of “chevra.” We would meet every Friday evening at someone’s house. At least that was the initial plan, but soon we just showed up at Dede’s (Deidre Sklar). Her parents lived in a spacious apartment on Avenue O, and it came with two wonderful, tolerant, supportive parents. Her mother was a kindergarten teacher, and her dad was a NYC police detective - unusual for a Jew in ‘58. If they had any objections to our taking over their place every Friday, I never heard any.
Someone suggested a change in our routine, that we have a picnic on a Saturday. Sounded good! So we all showed up at Dede’s on a Saturday morning with blankets & food. I forget our intended destination. Wherever it was we didn’t get there. An unrelenting, heavy rain began early. We waited for it to stop. It didn’t. Someone turned on the radio for the weather report. Not good - it was going to come down hard all day.
We were disappointed, but not for long. Someone, I think it was Dede, came up with Plan B. We spread the blanket out all over the carpeted living room and proceeded to “picnic” all day and into the evening. I distinctly remember the sounds of the Everly Brothers’ pop-hit, “All I have to Do Is Dream,” being played over and over on the phonograph. The records were all 45 rpm’s. So we danced, talked, ate, noshed, laughed, grew bored - but no one made a move to go home.
Then Dede’s parents, who had thoughtfully been gone all day, returned. We heard them coming up the stairs. I positioned myself in a corner. Although we were good kids, there was obvious evidence that teenagers had been teenagers. I had no doubt that Dede’s parents would take note of the “crime scene.” Based on my Life with my aunt and uncle (a Dickensian life in a small, cramped apartment with the shades drawn to figuratively and literally block out the Sun) I expected anger, maybe even screams. So I waited. They entered. The mother was pretty. The father was handsome. I was taken by the leather patches at the elbows of his tweed sports jacket. If Memory serves, and often it doesn’t, I think he smoked a pipe. An attractive couple.
I was immediately “agog.” No anger, no screaming. They both stood there, smiling. The father looked around, asked about the picnic, asked if we were hungry. Then he asked, “Would you guys like a pie?” There was unanimous assent. So he ordered a pie (probably more than one pizza pie). We happily ate our unexpected supper, cleaned up and packed, not forgetting to thank the Family Sklar for such a good day.
I walked home, happy and agog.
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“Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye”
I told this Story at two Storytelling events (Israel/1986 & Manhattan, 1994).
It seemed to be well-received, except for my brother in ‘94.
He disconcerted me by continually shaking his head.
He claimed it never happened. He wasn’t there.
It was the Summer of ‘47 or ‘48. I was three or four. Our family lived in a huge apartment house in Crown Heights, a bustling post-war Brooklyn neighborhood. There was a large courtyard In the middle of 715 St. Marks Avenue. The adults, mostly elderly women and young mothers, would gather in the courtyard, sit and talk. The countless children would play.
One day, in late afternoon, I was playing by myself in the small garden. I was fascinated by a grating in the garden, the kind that is built over subways. I looked up and saw my mother, who everyone called Tootsie (after the song, “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye”) in animated conversation with an old woman. Everyone else had left for dinner. Just the three of us.
Curious, I easily put my legs over the miniature white picket fence and ran towards them. The woman was holding and excitedly waving a piece of paper. As I got closer I heard her proclaim that her wonderful son had sent this wonderful postcard from Florida. Florida! My mother was nodding and smiling. Then the woman thrust the postcard into my mother’s hands. My mother continued to nod and smile.
I got close to her and began to jump and shout, “Let me see! Let me see!” The old woman was upset, horrified. She told my mother how important the postcard was to her and that I was too young to hold it. My mother gave back the postcard to her, but began to try to persuade her to let me see it, saying it was so beautiful and I just wanted to take a look (“givvakick” - Yiddish. Finally/reluctantly, the old woman put it in my hands eagerly reaching upward.
Initially, I gingerly held and studied the postcard. Indeed, it was very beautiful. On the front was a photograph of a Floridean scene. There were stately, long-necked pink flamingos on a blue lake with white puffy clouds in a blue sky, all fringed by lovely green plants. In the style of the day the photo had been touched up, colored. So the pinks, blues, whites and greens were intense/vivid. I was entranced, but it was the other side - when I finally turned the postcard over - that rendered me verklempt. The son had written to his mother in intricate/cursive writing with a bold black pen. Though I couldn’t read, I became almost hypnotized trying to follow the intricate curves. Gorgeous-to-die-for!
I broke out of my trance and looked up. The old woman and my mother had resumed their conversation and forgotten about me. They didn’t notice when I slowly, very slowly, walked back to the tiny picket fence, climbed over it into the garden and hovered over the grate, holding the postcard between metal bars. I took another quick look. This time the Old Woman noticed me. She stopped talking to my mother and froze. I turned away from her, looked down and released the postcard. I watched the pinks and blues and whites and greens and black turns over and over as it landed on the distant bottom.
She screamed. Tootsie tried to reason with her. “Why did you give it to him? He’s only a little boy.” This did not have a placating effect. Pointing a long, shaky finger at me and my mother she yelled angry words that I didn’t understand. Tootsie called me to her. I ran. Her arms reached for me, embraced me and held me close. The two of us backed out of the courtyard. My back was pressed against her and I saw the Old Woman diminish, standing, continuing to rant and rave.
* * *
That night Tootsie was getting me ready for bed. Our first floor apartment on St. Marks Avenue was separated from the sidewalk by large hedges. I can still feel the buttons of my pajamas press into me as she buttoned me up. I told her that I was afraid. She asked me why. I told her that I thought the Old Woman was a witch and when I went to sleep she would open the window, come inside, pick me up and take me away.
She stopped with the buttons, bent down and looked at me. Then she said: “She is a witch, but I’m a witch, too. And I’m stronger than she is.
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Why Your Grandmother Never Had a Brooklyn Accent
I knew and loved my machatunim (in-laws), Froim & Riwka Lumerman. I met their daughter, Malka, at a Brooklyn College houseplan (fraternity) in the Fall of 1961. Having just been accepted, as one of the new guys, I was assigned to get goils for the Friday night party. So I called up Shelly, a girl I had met and who was a friend of my neighbor. Not only was she receptive, but she had a friend! Shelly assured me that her friend, Molly, was sweet, attractive and intelligent. That seemed nice, but all I could think about was my social coup - 2 goils!
I wasn’t disappointed. It was the era of the ludicrously highly-teased sprayed hair. (I once accidentally set a girl’s hair on fire when I tried to pass a lighter to a friend!) The two young women, high school seniors, opened the screen door and slowly walked down the stairs. I expectedly looked up. Oy! Shelly was nice. Molly was beautiful - unique. Contrary to the Style of the Day, her soft long rich-blond hair fell to below her shoulders. Her eyes were a deep-blue, and she had a smile to-die-for. But it was her voice, something about her voice, that arrested me. It wasn’t that she had an accent. She spoke a beautiful melodious English. I couldn’t discern a recognizable accent. Unique. Shelly was right. Molly was sweet, attractive and obviously intelligent. But her hair, her way of being, and her mysterious voice! I was hooked. Who was this golden blue-eyed Jewess?
To make a long, very long, Story short, I gradually found out. Though a shy 17, I managed to ask for her number (Cloverdale 6 - 6134). Give me a dollah for every time I called. So we became friendly, she graduated from my high school, Lafayette, in 1/62, and enrolled in Brooklyn College. We dated. I gradually “solved” the Mystery; English wasn’t her first language. It was Yiddish. She was born in the Polish forest. She lived for years in a DP (Displaced Persons) camp in Germany. Germany! She arrived in the United States with her parents and siblings when she was about five. Only then did she begin to learn English. And she learned very well, but your Grandmother never learned to have a Brooklyn accent.
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You're Not in Bensonhurst Anymore
I once thought that the World was made up of Italians & Jews. Of course, I knew better, but my second childhood neighborhood was Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. And in the 1950’s, it was. The Italians owned the small private homes. The Jews peopled the apartment buildings. I came to conclude, as I learned about Jewish history, that we had positioned ourselves to make a quick emergency getaway. Apartments could be quickly abandoned, homes were harder to leave, required more time. So I grew up in an essentially safe, architecturally drab/boring community. There was some contact between the two dominant groups, some close friendships, but essentially a functional co-existence. I did hear that there were Italian-Jewish riots at Lafayette High School in the late 40’s, but I personally never witnessed any serious problems. (I did have a Summer Friend - Michael Orlando - from across the street.) He went to St Athanasius, a parochial school, I to a public school, P.S. 177. Many kids would be gone for the Summer. We’d meet at the beginning of July and pal around until about Labor Day. Our annual coming together and separating was understood, it was a “given.” It is one of my life’s regrets. I miss my summer-friend. Oy.
So I got older. I went to elementary, junior high and high school. By my senior year, I believe I was seriously clinically depressed. More than 60 years later, I am happy & proud to write that I did-something-about-it! I got a job. It wasn’t my first job. It was my second. (My first was a “soda-jerk.” That’s a Story unto itself.) I applied for and got a job as a page at the great 42nd Street Library, the one guarded by stone lions. Why? Because someone I knew was doing it. [One of the things that saved me when I was young, was my mazel at being in classes with intelligent/resourceful people. On my own, I didn’t have a clue. It was why I applied to Brooklyn College. Why I joined a House Plan (a kind of fraternity). Why a lotta things. Even why I got married. And why I became a page at the 42nd Street Library (that before 1911 had been the site of a reservoir).
It changed my Life. It changed my Life. There were many Italians and Jews. But many Blacks - foreign & domestic, Ukrainians, Irish, Hungarians, Puerto Ricans, etc., etc. (Even a native American and a very wealthy Wasp Episcoplian -) It was New Yoik.
So I’m taking a break with some of my fellow pages. We have about 15 minutes to snack and talk in the cafeteria. I’m laughing, actively involved in the all-male conversation, feeling good about being one-of-the-guys, feeling good about being alive! Suddenly, I feel some thought, some realization trying to come to the Surface. Then it does!! Not one of the great guys seated around the table is, aside from me, a Jew or an Italian. Most are Black. And the World opens up. I’m not in Bensonhurst anymore. Yay!!!
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The Tale of the Little Xmas Tree
It was the Christmas season of 1953. December, 1953. I was nine-years-old, in Mrs. Lobel’s 4th Grade class at P.S. 177 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. I was happy about the coming vacation. Though Jewish, how could I not be affected by the joyousness, the warmth, the colors, the expectation? I especially liked, liked very much, the music. I loved the rich melodies of the carols, the clever and funny lyrics of the popular songs. I loved going to P.S. 177’s school’s assembly, listening and singing along. The teacher in charge of the music, a prim and stout Miss Nelson, did make an attempt at balance. It was a feeble attempt. How could you balance “Silent Night” with a song about some randomly spinning dreidels? (I didn’t know then what I know now: so many of the popular Xmas songs were written by Tin Pan Alley Jews. Go know & go figure!) What I was increasingly aware of was, in my nine-year-old way: there was no aesthetic/visceral contest between the holiday music of the Goyim and OUR music. Goyim win! Oy . . .
I lived with my Aunt Lilly & Uncle Irving. I shared my feelings with my Aunt. To my surprise, she listened. I knew she couldn’t do anything about the music, so I focused on the Xmas Tree. We didn’t do the menorah. We had no source of holiday light. When I sensed that she was, surprisingly, sympathetic, I stepped up my campaign about getting a tree. To my astonishment, she began to work on my Uncle. One cold and dreary winter day, I was throwing a bag of garbage down the chute when he hurriedly came upstairs to our small first-floor apartment holding on to something under his winter coat. (He wore a cloth coat. It was called, if memory serves - and it increasingly doesn’t - a Suburban. Made out of cloth, often a tweed - it was bulky and inadequate for the Winter’s cold, but that was what men and boys wore.) As I watched him climb, it was obvious that he was having difficulty navigating the stairs.. He had come home from another hard - and dangerous - day at a dry cleaning plant. He had come home with Something.
He rang the bell repeatedly and rapidly. My Aunt, who had been in the kitchen, ran to the door. Huh? My Aunt never ran - for anything. He hurriedly entered Apartment I-D. I followed. She slammed the door closed. Huh? I was initially confused, but soon stunned when he opened his coat revealing a tiny Xmas Tree. It wasn’t real, but its branches were full of beautiful dark green needles threaded with tiny tubes of liquid lights. G2DF! (Gorgeous-to-die-for!) Without saying a word he walked straight to the kitchen and plugged in the miniature, perfectly proportioned, tree. The lights immediately came on, bubbling colors of the Holiday declared themselves. Not the colors of Chanukah - the colors of Christmas. A Jewish boy in Brooklyn was ecstatic!
Alles went well, felt good. I stared endlessly at the tree, had my meals as close as I could get to it. We bonded. I was grateful to my Guardians. However, there was one catch: my Aunt swore me to secrecy. I could not tell my friends in the building, 1502 West 5th Street on the corner of Avenue O. G-d forbid that a Jewish neighbor discovered our transgression! I was good with that; my secret, my special secret - transgressive, shocking and fun. My Xmas Tree! Yes!
“But Man plans & G-d laughs.”
Our apartment was small, too small for three people. When you entered, the “hallway” began. It was about three feet long, a yard. Then off to the left was a doorless room. It could have/should have been made into a sort of living room with, perhaps, a Castro sofa convertible. It should have slept no more than two, but when my Mother died in ‘49 and my father disappeared, my Aunt & Uncle took me back to their place. They placed my childhood crib against a wall, opposite their full-sized bed. Essentially, they made minimal changes and warehoused me. Not a good nor healthy arrangement. The rest of I-D consisted of what was essentially a foyer. As you walked towards the kitchen, it broadened just a bit, then narrowed at the bathroom to the left. A few feet further on there was a deadend at the kitchen table. A small table, stove and refrigerator. That was where I lived for about 10 years. Oy . . . (Now I suspect that this submarine-like geography intensified my need and love for The Tree. We were both small. We were friends.)
A few days after getting The Tree and being charged with the Secret, there was the proverbial Knock-on-the Door - a neighbor. Not just any neighbor. It was Marie McCauley! It was an extraordinary event for any neighbor to knock or to ring our bell. My Aunt, who I later realized was in the early stages of severe agoraphobia, did not invite people in. She increasingly lived with the “shades pulled down”. And even if she wanted to invite someone in, where would they sit? On the small couch in the foyer? .(Years later, when they were both coming home from hospital after a long stay, I had to clean up the apartment to make room for the necessary health-equipment. Alone, I sat down on the couch. And it turned to dust. Dust! (Move over, Dickens, you great writer and antisemite!)
Marie McCauley was not Jewish. She was decidedly Catholic. She sent her overprotected lovely daughter to St. Athanasius' school on Bay Parkway. The family attended church. It was a familial scandal when her son returned from the brutal Korean “police action” and married a pretty woman who was Greek Orthodox. Oy. And she was the only non-Jewish neighbor in the building. And she wasn’t even Italian. (My neighborhood was essentially peopled by two groups - Italian & Jewish. The Italians owned the small private homes und Der Juden inhabited the apartment houses.) (The McCauley’s were good/solid Irish Catholics. I liked them. Perhaps the MCauley family is the origin for my lifelong affection and attraction to things Irish, the Irish punim, the music, the a gleam-in-the eye wit. Indeed, I have always regretted choosing English literature over Irish literature years later at Brooklyn College. ) So Marie walking down the stairs from the 2nd floor was a Big Deal. Huh?
My Aunt (with trepidation): “Who is it?”
Marie (calmly): “Marie.”
My Aunt (panicked): “Just a minute!”
The thing of it was that the Xmas tree was plugged in and, as was its wont, gloriously proclaiming itself with its bubbling colors. It would have been so easy to silence it; pull the plug. But, instead, my Aunt ran, grabbed a thin white sheet and hurriedly draped it over the Tree. Then she ran back to the door and opened it.
I think she was hoping that Marie would stay in the hallway, but Marie, a large lady, just walked past the threshold. (Unlike Dracula, she did not wait for an invitation.) So there was Marie, there was my Aunt, facing each other.. And at the end of the foyer there was the Xmas tree.
Marie took a step inside. She wanted to borrow something, but stopped short when she looked in the “distance”. There, on the kitchen table, was a covered impressionistic tiny Xmas Tree underneath a white covering loudly stuttering its existence. An inexplicable and bizarre apparition.
Marie stared, her eyes opened wide, but didn’t ask. My Aunt didn’t explain. She again ran into the kitchen, got what Marie had come for, handed it to her, and closed the door behind her.
Now I was observing all this. Though I was only nine, I found it all very interesting and very amusing. The Weissman’s had been discovered! It would have been bad enough to be discovered by a fellow member of the Tribe. But by goyim? Oy vey . . . As far as I know I don’t think Marie spread the word, divulged our secret. And that was good. And after Xmas, when my Uncle asked me if he could take The Tree and give it to Jimmy, a close friend and the owner of a Greek diner near the dry cleaning plant, I readily and happily said yes. I had known from the getgo that our relationship was destined to be temporary, intense but temporary. For one Holiday season there was color and warmth in Apartment I-D. Yay! What I didn’t know was that in about a month my Aunt would have to go to Memorial Sloan Kettering for her second mastectomy in eleven years, that I would be taken out of Class 4-1, deposited at my Grandmother’s and I would have to talk my Uncle out of suicide. But those are other stories.
I had had my Xmas Tree. The Tree and I.
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A Summer School Trip to Radio City Music Hall
1969 and I had been teaching for a few years in a junior high school in Brownsville, an impoverished neighborhood in Brooklyn. It was a tough place to be a student and/or teacher. It was a tough place to be. But this was summer school, and today was going to be special. A trip had been organized to Radio City Music Hall. We were going by bus to see a movie. The teachers boarded first. My colleague and friend - my best friend, Don - stood at the door of the bus, greeting his fellow pedagogues with a Cheshire grin as he passed out brownies he had lovingly baked the previous evening. Indeed, he had stayed up till late in the night to finish the large batch. We looked out the windows and saw the two trip leaders addressing the students as we munched.
The students were being admonished, warned in no way to misbehave because-there-would-be-consequences! Several students had been prohibited from going for behavioral reasons, but they weren’t taking any chances. They need not have worried. The students - the kids - were more anxious than they were. At “home” - in Brownsville -our students had to negotiate the neighborhood’s notorious mean streets, but Brownsville was home. Many had never left, let alone crossed the bridge (literally & metaphorically) to Manhattan. They need not have been told to behave. They were excited, but not a few were anxious.
Finally, everyone came aboard and the bus pulled out. It was a sunny day, a hot New York City July day. We departed from the gray sidewalk in front of JHS 263, David Marcus Junior High School (named in honor of an American WWII officer who had agreed to help Israel in their War of Independence and was tragically and mistakenly shot by an Israeli sentry near war’s end). The bus crossed the beautiful Brooklyn Bridge, blue sky overhead and blue river below, and arrived at the hustle and bustle of 50th and 6th Avenue. The trip had been uneventful, peaceful.
The bus pulled up in front of the famous landmark. We all disembarked. But!: as the teachers disembarked, the special ingredient announced itself. In other words - the Stuff hit the fan! Don had not been untruthful. He had, in passing out the brownies, joked that hashish was an ingredient, but he downplayed it. Perhaps he was being sincere, being honest. but when I recollect my best friend’s grin and laughter more than fifty years ago (he’s been gone for about half that time - Blessed Be His Memory), I think not. I think he was deliberate, knew exactly what he was doing. However, I don’t think he could have imagined how successful he would be.
The students stayed close together, very close. The two leaders, a gentle music teacher and a stern and demanding master English teacher, also Ethel Shapiro,(also of blessed memory), the only members of the staff who had not partaken of the magical brownies, stayed close to them. I’m sure they expected to see the other eleven teachers to be actively involved. And I’m sure - positive - they were verklempt when they looked around and saw eleven teachers from Brooklyn walking off in eleven directions. The music teacher stared/froze, his mouth hung open. But Ethel Shapiro, umbrella-in-hand, was not silent; angry/loud words came forth as she waved her umbrella in the air.. (She always, regardless of the weather, carried an umbrella a la Mary Poppins. There is so much to write about this woman, this Mensch. Initially, I intended to write more about her at Story’s End, a kind of postscript in a feeble attempt to give her her due, but I have changed my mind. She deserves a separate Story. How I miss her . . .) Her voice got louder, her words angrier. We, the Dazed & Happy Eleven, paid no heed. We were off to destinations unknown. Happy day!
Somehow, Miss Shapiro, who had a pronounced limp, through voice, words and will, somehow corralled us and forced us back to the students/the children. The latter were obviously confused; this was not the way teachers behaved! Our group was ushered into a holding area. I can only recount the “reality” of what I remember: A strange room. Walls slanted inward, stained glass windows on the walls, warm dark colors. The gestalt suggested below decks on a ship, perhaps the Captain’s cabin (I suspect the other ten of the Eleven may, if still alive, have different hash brownie-induced recollections.) Finally, we were led to our seats in the huge hall.
All took their seats. There was no further attempt by the Eleven to escape, We, for the most part, sat quietly among the students, probably in a collective state of withdrawal. However: the movie was a poorly made war movie. I cannot recollect the title, let alone the war. I am sure it didn’t do well at the box office and has long been forgotten. But: it did have recurring large explosions. Every time one went off and filled Radio City’s screen, one of us - the one who had had two brownies - would shoot up and exclaim, “Orange! Whatta an orange! Man, orange . . .” He would then sink back into his plush seat and await the next massive explosion, smiling contentedly.
All must end. The movie ended, even the admonitions and glares of umbrella-shaking Ethel Shapiro ended. We boarded the waiting bus and returned to Brownsville - the disconcerted students, the recovering teachers. On arrival we disbanded. My last memory of the journey is looking back and seeing Don throwing the now empty bag into a NYC Dep’t of Sanitation can on the corner of Chester Street and Sutter Avenue. I miss my diabolical Friend.
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August 11, 1968
The Summer of ‘68. The country, the whole bloody world, was in turmoil. Vietnam, San Francisco, the elevated? Pentagon . . . We, Molly ( wife at the time and mother-to-be of my #1 son, Elan) were essentially immune to the domestic & international Mishegoss. We had been preparing to make Aliyah (Hebrew - ascension, a going up to a literal & metaphorical Jerusalem). In other words, we were leaving Amerika, intending to permanently/forever live in Israel. Married in ‘66, we had worked, saved our $, taken courses, studied Hebrew, handed in our job resignations, made arrangements with the Jewish Agency on Park Avenue in Manhattan (got our required shots, reserved an apartment in a newly built “Absorption Center” in Upper Nazareth. Upper was then a raw development town-in-progress. Lower was/is Palestinian, ancient & biblical.) In other countries our destination might be referred to as an Immigration Center, but in ‘68, in Israel, we were invoking Israel's “Law of Return”. A Jew, born in the Polish forest, and a Jew, born in Brooklyn, were “coming home”. (Oy . . . ) We were going to be absorbed.
Our possessions were expertly boxed by Itshe & Fage (of Blessed Memory), Holocaust survivors who had had a lot of life-experience packing/unpacking, moving. The boxes were placed on a Zim-line ship. We could have traveled by sea, but we opted to fly El Al and stop over in rockin’ London of' 68. I immediately regretted not taking my raincoat; it was constantly raining British cats and British dogs. After an unhappy Dickensian experience, we cut our intended stay short.
On arrival at Lod Airport in the early A.M., we got a service-taxi. Molly told the driver our initial destination, Kibbutz Lohamei Ha Geta’ot (The Ghetto Fighters). She had mishpucha (family) living there, Lilca & Felix (of Blessed Memory), Holocaust survivors. They had been founding members of the kibbutz after leaving a toxic/lethal Europe (with a stopover, courtesy of the British, in a detention camp on Cyprus, surrounded by British barbed wire). I will never - never - forget Felix & Lilca. He was a master Storyteller, she a master puppeteer. When they arrived, the country was at war, fighting for its existential survival. Felix was immediately greeted with the gift of a rifle and sent off to one of the many fronts. He was immediately severely wounded, treated and eventually settled on the kibbutz. Lilca became a famous puppeteer. Felix farmed and told stories in Yiddish & Hebrew aided & abetted by such a handsome/warm impish grin.
Molly and I stayed for a few days on the kibbutz. The children, visited (they lived in the Children’s House). Dudu, the youngest, had “attitude.” Though only six, he knew a non-socialist (at the time) and was sarcastic. He also could identify, without looking up, airplanes when they passed overhead as he peeled and ate a grapefruit picked from a tree. An Israeli child of the late 60’s.The Six-Day War had been waged only a year before.) I liked him and his two older siblings. The family would come together in the evenings on the communal ground, surrounded by other kibbutzniks. The first night there, feeling rested, relaxed and happy, hearing small talk in beautiful Hebrew, I laid down on a blanket, closed my eyes and dozed off. Awakening, I kept my eyes closed for a while, then suddenly opened them. I closed them immediately! I was very disconcerted because what I had glimpsed I did-not-understand. Slowly I took another look. Understanding took time. I was looking at the cloudless night sky over Israel. There were stars. Such stars! It wasn’t the countless numbers.
That in itself would have been jarring. I discovered, for the first time in my twenty-four years on Earth, that stars are alive. Alive! Coming from Brooklyn, having gone to the country only a few times, I had seen night skies with few stars diminished by the lights of the city. Brooklyn-stars were - flat and dry. Israeli stars
Were full of palpitating juices.
Fifty-four (54!) years later, I can see that sky, those stars.
We stayed on the kibbutz for a few days, then traveled to Upper Nazareth’s Mercaz Klita (Absorption Center) and its Ulpan (language school.) We did not make Aliyah although life was often surprising, wonderful, eventful. I think of those days with joy and sadness, laughter and regret. So many stories! But the story of that first morning in Israel is essential. The poem about that moment follows. Take it - or not - any way you want. Personally, I take it literally and metaphorically. Best with a cup of coffee.
August 11, 1968
On the Eleventh of August at Lod
My then wife and I arrived direct from Heathrow
To the New Jew’s Land.
Not having time to change,
A service-taxi deposited us in our Anglo garb
On a collective field of Warsaw Ghetto survivors.
A bouncing Israeli farmer exited a grapefruit grove
And closed in on his machine
And struggled with me as vision:
Under a bluing no-cloud sky
I leaned on an oversized black umbrella.
I sweated at dawn in my Marks and Spencer raincoat.
I connected with the socialist soil in rubbers.
And to Molly’s query about the Family Lumerman
He could barely point in a loose direction
For most of him was trying to come to grips
With me.
The tractor and man approached, passed, diminished.
And the man never looked away
From me.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Miss Rosenthal Goes to Lunch
1949 - 1950. My first school was a public school In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, only a few blocks from the family apartment. It was to be my first and last year there. I liked going to school. I loved my kindergarten, so full of color and active post-war kinder. And I liked, really liked my teacher, Miss Rosenthal. I noticed, in my five-year-old way, that she was youngish & pretty.
Miss Rosenthal (this was decidedly pre -Ms) wasn’t overly warm, but nice enough. There were, however, moments of warmth. I remember her gathering us around and passing out a paper. The kinder (most of whom would not have been there if the Germans und Friends had won only a few years before) could not read yet, so she carefully/warmly explained : “Girls and boys, Miss Rosenthal loves being a teacher - your teacher. But there are so many children in our class it’s so hard to get to know you well.” (This was true. Classes were overcrowded. There was double-session, morning and afternoon. Seems the returning G.I. 's and their wives hadn’t wasted any time!) “I want to get to know you better. So I am going to try to visit all of you at home. Be sure to give the paper to your Mommy. It’s very important .All right, girls & boys?”
[in unison] “Yes, Miss Rosenthal.”
And it came to pass that all the good little boys and girls gave the papers to their mothers. It was an invitation for an invitation - to Lunch. An opportunity to discuss the Child’s needs, answer any questions. If the response in my classmates’ homes were similar to mine, Crown Heights must have experienced a neighborhood Panic Attack: Huh? What? When? Menu? But somehow the parents consulted each other on their party lines (most people didn’t have private phone lines), contacted Mis Rosenthal and things were sorted out. Efficient Miss Rosenthal created a schedule. Each Mommy knew when Teacher would visit. I vaguely remember her visit to my house. My mother had died and my aunt was running the household. She was frantic. But somehow she got a meal together, Miss Rosenthal arrived promptly, ate hurriedly but well, smiled, said a few things between bites and was gone in time to make the afternoon session.
Miss Rosenthal ate well that year.
Miss Rosenthal Shares Her Feelings
Again, we kindergartners, Class of “50, were called to gather around and sit cross-legged on the floor. Our teacher sat on the rocking chair. Initially she didn’t say anything, just looked at all the well-behaved children with expectant upturned faces.
“How does Miss Rosenthal look, girls and boys?” It was an unexpected and confusing question. Huh? Miss Rosenthal looked like Miss Rosenthal.
One of us tentatively responded, “Sad?”
“Yes. And do you know why Miss Rosental is sad?”
(in unison) “No, Miss Rosenthal.)
“Miss Rosenthal’s radio stopped working last night. It’s broken and can’t be fixed.” And do you want to know why I’m especially sad?
“Yes, Miss Rosenthal.”
“Because this is just before the Holidays.”
“Oh . . “ *
[ * In 1950, a transformative time, people often went to the movies weekly, many went multiple times. There was television, but development had been halted by the War, and it was wanting and expensive. Our first TV was a Crosley. For $400! (about $4500 today) we had a wood cabinet encasing a black & white 10-inch screen. All this for only part of the day! Radio was still the electronic media source for news and entertainment. And the home radio was often a large piece of furniture prominently placed in the living room with space for encircling chairs. Though I did run home to watch “Howdy Doody” and “Captain Video”, most of my early media-memories are sitting with family round the Radio. (President Truman informing the nation that the two oceans no longer made us invulnerable, “The Shadow knows . . .”, etc. So the idea of the large vacuum tubes not lighting and no sound filling the Void was awful. Jack Benny excepted .]
The silence in the classroom was deafening, but our teacher finally said, “I just wanted to share my feelings with you girls and boys. Always know it’s good to share your feelings. Now let’s go back to play and have a good day.”
So we got up, resumed play, went home and told our Mommies & Daddies.
And it came to pass, that our parents, mainly our Mommies, got back on their phones and got together. Again.
And it came to pass, the week before the Xmas Holidays, we entered our classroom to see a very large box wrapped in gift paper with a bright red bow atop. Our teacher was standing next to it. Her hands were resting on, almost caressing, the box. She was smiling. We put our jackets in the clothes closet, and without instruction gathered
round.
“I wonder what’s in the box? Shall I open it?”
“Yes!”
And she did, slowly, carefully. First she pulled out a card. Then she read it. Of course, it was from our parents, thanking her and wishing her a Merry Xmas. Then, with some difficulty, she pulled out a lovely large gift-wrapped object. She unwrapped it..
“Oh!”
“Oh!!!
Miss Rosenthal had a brand new radio.
* * *
I sometimes wonder what happened to Miss Rosenthal. I suspect she did very well.
________________________________________________________________________________________
I Feel The Draft
1966. The Vietnam War was heating up. Amerika wasn’t doing well. We were inexorably/inevitably losing. President Johnson (LBJ), who had become President after the assassination of President Kennedy (JFK), had done a wonder-filled job creating profound society-changing social justice programs. But then he had been successfully manipulated by the Military-Industrial Alliance and persuaded to wage an inane/insane war. I was an undergraduate English student at Brooklyn College. I remember going to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and the friendly orthopedist asking me what I thought about the Situation. I was embarrassed. I knew next to nothing. I stammered & mumbled. However, I began to pay attention when the body bags started to come back in increasing numbers, including Bernie, a great guy who had been in my after-school Hebrew class. Also: I was nearing the end of my undergraduate life. Also: I had become engaged and the wedding date was set, 5/7/66.
Things were coming to a head. I was twenty-one. I didn’t know what or where I wanted to be, but I knew enough to know that I didn’t want to be in Vietnam. I didn’t want, at 21, to be dead.
My options? Canada? No. Marriage? Not good for a draft-deferral anymore. School? I needed to get a job, graduate school would come later ( and English majors weren’t considered essential). Work? I got a job as a Caseworker for the NYC Welfare Department. Again, not considered essential. Favoritism? My fiance’s family had a remote connection to a Colonel In charge of the Draft in the New York area. I called him and asked about enlisting in a program that would guarantee I would stay in Europe. He gruffly informed me to forgetaboutit! It was a ruse. The Army would honor its enlistment promise for a year; so I would very likely be in Europe for about a year, then be shipped off to Vietnam. The proverbial Clock was ticking. So I called up my local Draft Board, nervously explained about my upcoming marriage and asked if, in the likely event of my induction, I could get a postponement until after my wedding. The woman I spoke to was pleasant/understanding, but could not make promises. Oy. Shortly after, I received the dreaded notice to report for my Induction physical at the infamous Army examination center at Whitehall Street.
I was under a lot - a lot - of Stress. Perhaps this was the cause of an ugly rash on my right arm - from wrist to shoulder. Yech! I went to my dermatologist. He said it was a severe case of infectious eczema and prescribed cortisone and a tranquilizer. I told him about the notice. He smiled and said, “Don’t worry. This will take quite a while to clear up. The Army will not take you until it does.” He wrote a note on the same white small white slip of paper he had written his prescriptions.” I heartily thanked him.
I left smiling. Finally, some good news!
Yay!
The dreaded day came. I came armed with a note. We were told (ordered) to doff all our clothes. I found myself among a group of naked guys. We had been strangers a few minutes before. Now we were temporary buddies bonded by angst and fear. Standing naked in line we reported from station to station. At each table there was a doctor with a standing soldier -assistant holding a clipboard. Quickly/efficiently we were asked a few questions, instructed, to assume various positions, perfunctorily examined, and passed on to the next station (eye, chest, heart, ear-nose ‘n throat, feet, etc. Etc.) At every stop, I attempted to bring my little note to the doctor’s attention. They didn’t pay attention. They didn’t give a look. They could care less. Huh/oy?!
Finally, I came to the end. A great table was at the end of the great hall. Several doctors were seated along its length. I approached one. The soldier read my name, stapled my papers, placed them in front of the doctor and announced, “ Deemed fit for servIce.” The Goode Doktor took a huge curved stamp that looked like it had come out of a Dickens” story. The lettering was visible - very. “”INDUCTEE” I watched in resignation & despair as he raised the stamp high. Vietnam, here I come!
But: By this time, though I had continued to hold the note, I had essentially given up on it, forgotten it. On the mechanical downward swing, the stamp stopped abruptly in mid-air. Standing directly in front of him, my right arm at his eye-level, he had noticed the note.
“What’s that?”
All I could manage to say was, “Note. Note.”
He motioned me to pass it to him across the table. He didn’t have to ask twice. Reading it quickly he exclaimed, “ You can’t be inducted with this!” I did not argue. He put the monster-stamp down, picked up another, smaller, stamp, and used it. “1-Y” ( a 6 month physical deferment). Life vs Death!?!
Yay!
After donning my clothes, I walked out of Whitehall Street with my buddies. We ate at a nearby Greek coffee shop. I was hungry- happy. So were some others, but not all. We continued to swap autobiographical stories. I remember some of them to this day, fifty-seven (57!) years later. Then we got up, divided the check, bade each other goodbye and good luck. Never saw them again.
Postscript: Months later, I had changed jobs. Knowing that my skin condition would eventually disappear, I changed “careers”, but not neighborhoods. I had been a caseworker in Brownsville, an impoverished Brooklyn neighborhood. I had taken some worthless education courses while at Brooklyn College, some more at night during the Summer of ‘66 , met the minimum teaching requirements, and in September I resigned as an ineffective caseworker and became an unprepared NYC JHS English teacher. My changed job status came with some promise of draft-deferral, but no guarantees. The War got hotter, my rash better, my job-protection less certain. My high Angst returned! Then a national draft lottery was announced and conducted. It was published in the Daily News. During lunch, I ran with colleagues to the corner candy store. (The place had a “reputation”. Years before, it had been the hangout for the notorious Jewish gang Murder Incorporated.) Each of us got his paper, and like Talmudic students began to study the Lottery lists. There were sounds! Next to the calendar dates were numbers. When a guy saw a low number next to his birthdate, he groaned. If a guy saw a high number, he’d shout with joy.
One by one, they would locate their birthdates and their possible fates. Eventually, I found myself alone. Alone! June 8-was-not- listed. What was my draft-number? I knew I would be late back to school and my classes, but I couldn’t get up. Finally, after about fifteen minutes, I found my birthdate. June 8 was at the bottom, the very bottom - the last number listed. The last!
JUNE 8 - #366
I never received a draft-notice. I came to love Teaching, became an enthusiastic teacher. Actually, in all this Mishegoss, I had unknowingly been following a family tradition. My Grandfather, of Blessed Memory, Joseph Moskowitz, had fled Romania to avoid its Draft. Seems that when a Jew was drafted in Romania, he could be made to serve 25 years! Oy.)