I grew up in Brooklyn in the late 1940s and into the early 1950s. In 1952, I went off to college and my life changed forever.

I had what I can only call a normal life, at least on the surface. Yet, I always felt no one understood me. Of course, I did not understand myself either. My friends felt the same. First, there was World War II. After the war, we were part of America resettling itself with the threat of what we called “the bomb” hanging over our heads. It was not easy being a child and having bomb drills in class where we hid under our desks until the principal called off the mock attack. Mushroom clouds were deep in our consciousness. Next came the Korean War and more upheaval. We lived in a rapidly changing world that we did not comprehend. Our elders decided that we did not have to understand anything as long as we obeyed their wishes. Only years later did I realize how confused they were and how they found it impossible to explain the world to us. Blind obedience was far better than clarity and understanding.

A few words about my parents are necessary and important to better appreciate, if possible where I come from. My mother and father were not overtly abusive. They were not drinkers. They were not drug or sex addicts. Not the most patient of people, at times they could be rough with me. I was a difficult child for them. Before my mother’s recent death, she admitted to me that I was a hard child to handle. She thought, though I turned out all right. My mind ran in many directions at once. Usually I concentrated on what I wanted, not what they wanted. I wanted to have fun, or at least what I understood to be fun, meaning enjoying doing what I wanted rather than what they wanted. I can define it now as having a free and open imagination, an anathema to my father. My father would not allow me the opportunity to have a mind that was open and free flowing. He made sure I understood his philosophy that fun was for people with no ambition. I had to be ambitious because, he said, that was the only way to be. Growing up Jewish in New York and his being first generation American had everything to do with his ambition for me. Their was constant skirmishing between us and I usually lost. At least then, I lost. After all, I was a kid, and he, my father who ran the family. I depended on him for food, clothing, a roof over my head, shoes, a bed to sleep in.

My father was stern and practical, so stern at times that his face rarely gave anything back to the world around him. His eyes were hazel mixed with gray, soft, not dense, a surprise in a face usually set to take on the world. His moustache was thin, just enough to cover his upper lip. Usually I recognized it was there when he bent to kiss me good night before I went to sleep. He was an insurance broker who insisted I excel in school and, mainly, that I not follow him in his work. He did not want to attach “and Son” to his letterhead. Nor did I. I could not articulate it, but I knew that trudging all over the city 12 hours each day was not the life for me. To his credit, he had other ideas for me, a profession such as medicine, and if not that, at least dentistry or law. He thought teaching, though honorable, paid little, and thus a waste for a bright youngster, me. My father sold what he called general insurance, but hardly any life insurance because, in his later years, he told me, it was hard for him to tell someone they might die someday. Instead, he concentrated on home, theft, fire and auto insurance. He spent long hours traveling by bus, trolley and subway everywhere across New York City to see his many clients. He collected his premiums and, when possible, but not often, he sold them more insurance. It was not an easy life, but, as he said many times, it beat shoveling coal.

At mid 20th Century there were as many as a dozen newspapers published in New York City. My father bought most of them and read every word as he journeyed around the five boroughs. By the time he arrived home at night, there was not much of the day left for him. That, and trips he made to clients after dinner limited his reading time and his leisure. He rarely read a book. He left that pleasure to my mother who never tired of reading best sellers and romance novels that she tried to hide from me in a bottom drawer of her dresser. I spied her secreting her books, and, being curious, when she was not home, I went to the drawer, would open the book, and read a few pages, usually enough to know I did not want to read more. Two books in particular that I recall were “Forever Amber” and “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” Even then, neither held much interest for me.

Television was in its infancy and had little affect on our lives other than when, in groups, we sat around living rooms watching wrestling or boxing on small TV sets. We listened to radio for news, music, soap operas and serials like “The Green Hornet” and “Jack Armstrong.”

My mother was petite and very pretty with a ready smile, very smart, a quick wit and a sudden temper. She was tireless and worked around the house at breakneck speed, cleaning cooking, doing laundry. I know now that my father refused to allow her to work outside the home. They did not allow it in his family growing up and he would not allow it in his family as an adult. As an outlet for her energy, she painted rooms, stained doors, moved furniture, sewed buttons, turned the collars of our worn shirts, cuffed trousers, hemmed skirts, ironed our shirts and hers and my sisters clothing. We changed our outfits every day in our family. It was a great source of pride for my mother to have us all look just so when we went out to face the world.

Both parents had a temper for reasons I did not understand then and to this day, I do not fully grasp. They were quick to anger and I was usually on the short end. Sometimes I suffered a ready and sudden slap with their hands or in my father’s case, a few lashes from his belt, and the threat of the buckle, rather than just the leather, against my flesh. Beating were infrequent. The threat of a slap or punch, however, hovered over me like a sword ready to strike. Mostly I avoided that kind of suffering by limiting what they considered my bad conduct away from his and my mother’s eyes. I believe their quick tempers had to do with their frustration of not realizing their potential because of the Crash, the Depression that followed, and World War II.

As I said there was some physical abuse. I expected that as surely as I awoke each day. Parents hitting children was normal. It was part of life and expected. We compared notes and it was a source of pride, to show each other the nastiest marks on our bodies. But there was abuse of another kind. It was far worse.