"War is a very high price to pay for maturity"

"I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying."

 

.....Yes. I agree. And I did a lot of nine-year old crying and yearning for the seashore that I was used to in Long Branch.  The South Bronx was an entirely new universe for me--another "error" in my life.  One cannot control an event, but one can at least control the meaning of an event.  Our little family's move was life-altering, and I knew that the Bronx was where I was to grow up.  For my mother's sake (she did not like to see me brooding), I determined to do well in school, to make friend's there, and to make friends with the kids on my block--and I succeeded.

 

 

.....I began in the sixth grade, and after a batch of tests, I was put in the Dalton program which supposedly was only for kids who got high marks on those tests.  The school was up at the corner of the block where I lived which was good, but pupils had to wear uniforms and I had to wear a white shirt with a red tie which was bad!  I had bright red hair, and I never wanted anything else on my body that was red.  James Monroe HS was about a half mile walk.  I did get some good grades and some bad grades.  Some of my teachers bored me--they had no acting ability.  I joined the soccer team, the swimming team, and the track team.  I became sports editor of the Monroe Mirror, the school paper.  That brought me a modicum of fame. On Kelly St., I made many friends--male and female, largely because I was a three sewer hitter in stickball.  Now that I'm in Florida, they are all dead, and that part of my long ago life is also dead.  It was an event I could not control, but I embraced its meaning; it made me stronger. 

.....I was 21 when WII ended.  It was another error or event, if you will, that could not be controlled.  But three years in a war had to have some meaning besides giving something to your country, and in combat facing a time every day with running out of time to a time when your family did not get to hold you, but did embrace a folded flag.  The fact that the flag is folded has an axiomatic meaning in itself.  They called it "battle fatigue" when I was in the VA hospital for six months, and I spent some time writing poetry (which eventually got me into Columbia).  I heard that the male nurses had a softball team and their games were played on the hospital grounds.  My competitive spirit took over my mental spirit, and I got together a patient softball team. We played the nurses about twice a week, and we even won some games.  I settled for nothing less.  I didn't have to work and I was in a leadership role where I generally flourished.  My girlfriend, Thelma, came to visit twice a week, as did my mother--and the social worker, Lucille Cusick, took a great interest in my poetry.


.....Mrs. Cusick changed my life.  She insisted that I go to college, and urged me to register at Columbia University.  I laughed at her, said she was crazy, told her I had only commercial courses in high school.  Nevertheless, she insisted that I take the entrance exam.  I thought she was only trying to urge me to get dressed, wear a tie, and get away from the hospital. So, I thought it might be an interesting adventure.  I took the entrance exam and broke the record for the lowest score ever recorded.  It didn't bother me a bit.  I enjoy breaking records. But one day, I had one of my poems printed in a very prestigious magazine, "The Saturday Review" edited by Stephen Rose Benet.  It wasn't I who submitted it.  However, the front cover happened to have a picture of Lenora Speyer, a poet, and professor at Columbia.  Lucille schlepped me back to Admissions at Columbia, showed the poem to the admitting officer and the rest is history.  I fixed the WWII error.