"...one man in his time plays many parts" (AYLI-Jaques)

.....Getting to be 90 years old is quite an accomplishment, I believe, what with diseases around and all the bumps and hills in one's life. I've been doing a lot of introspection these days and I've come to the conviction that I have led a very awesome life. I'm not so sure that anyone around can quite equal it. Life for me began when I lived one block from the Atlantic ocean and learned to swim like a fish. That early life lasted nine years and now when I think about it, it's like a dream.

 

.....Life really began when we moved to Kelly Street in the south Bronx after my father died. Living there I learned survival skills starting with all the roaches in the apartment which disgusted me. I hated it, as I did living with my mother's parents. Living in the area required joining a gang, and so I did--to the Apaches.  We were all Jewish on the block, and right across the back of the house could be seen the Black area.

Of course there were Italian gangs around as well.  The main school occupation was not to be caught after school by a rival gang who would hang your pants to the top of the nearest lamp post. I decided that I would shoot myself if a girl would see me in my underwear. I hung around the poolroom until I was 17 and I decided to escape the Bronx by joining the Navy to fight for my country in WWII.  This was 100 times worse than the Bronx as I discovered by flying 60 combat missions--and survived once more.

 

.....Thus far my life was not much different from others.  It was only when I returned from the war that life began to change.  I spent six months in a VA Hospital with "Battle Fatigue" which is now PTSD.  I like Battle Fatigue much better...more descriptive. About this time it was a social worker who changed my life.  She was able to get me into Columbia University.  I had only commercial courses in high school--typing and stenography, etc. So after I took the entrance exam to Columbia I got a letter stating that my score was the worst ever in the whole world and that it was obvious that I could not do college work. I was told I could matriculate for a degree but must keep my average above a C.  I graduated Magna Cum Laude and went on to get a PhD. So much for not being able to do college level work...This experience helped me to become a better teacher and not to make predictions about what a student could do...So now I wonder how many others could live by the ocean, survive the Bronx and WWII and come home to get a PhD from a school like Columbia?   (to be continued)