When I was very young, my parents let me know that they had big ambitions for me. I had difficulty understanding that concept at five or six when their dreams for me were boundless. I was in first grade. My mother dressed me in a white shirt, a clip-on tie, dark short pants and just shined, brown, Thom McAnn lace up shoes. My mother and I walked many blocks to a school where I would take dancing lessons. Only I did not know that was where we were going. We had no car in those days. Taxis were out of the question. Public transportation could not get us to that location. We walked and when we finally arrived, I was very tired and not in the best of spirits. The room, filled with small girls all dressed the same in white blouses and black, pleated skirts, had only a few boys dressed as I. To say I was mortified and humiliated is an understatement. I assume all the boys felt the same. At least I would hope. A woman teacher sat at a highly polished, ebony Baby Grand piano barking instructions to us students for the steps she wanted us to take. I decided quickly I wanted no part of learning how to dance, certainly not in that group. Much to my mother’s embarrassment, I refused to go onto the dance floor. I managed to find a safe haven behind the piano and behind a curtain from where, despite my mother’s pleading, I refused to emerge until the lesson ended and it was time to go.

I don’t know what my mother was thinking. I knew that I would never let that happen to me again. I vowed that my mortification for the sake of someone else’s desire was not what I wanted. I could not articulate this verbally, but by hiding I let me mother know, never again. It produced my first rebellion and it had a permanent effect on my life. The event, though seemingly minor, gave me a deep-seated sense that I would not allow anyone to take advantage of me again. This is not to say it never happened again in my life. It did because there is no escape from people who attempt to control you.

I lived in a mixed neighborhood. We were of various religions and from different ethnic backgrounds. I had many friends on my block, but few close friends in school. We got along well, except for the occasional fight, something that most boys did. I had very high grades in school but I considered it a place between the games we played on the streets where we lived. Busing did not exist. I walked to whatever school I attended. When I lived on Avenue H, I walked each morning to my grade school, P.S 152. I crossed Ocean Avenue and then moved steadily to the right around Brooklyn College until I reached one of the oldest schools in the city. It looked like a castle and was very forbidding for a young child. For a short time when I lived in Brighton Beach, I walked down Ocean View Avenue to P.S. 100. Later, from my house on Argyle Road, I walked to P.S. 217, a brick and concrete pile with no beauty or charm that sat at Coney Island Avenue and Newkirk Avenues like a colorless lump. Inside the school, the classrooms were devoid of anything that would make it a pleasant experience. I did well in school with very little studying. I concentrated in class, and remembered what I needed for tests. School was there, and unavoidable. I went everyday and never complained.

My father wanted me to be a doctor, a typical ambition of many Jewish families that survived the Depression. I accepted his wish without thinking about it. Call it blind compliance, but it is what a dutiful Jewish son did. Because of my father’s desire, I thought, yes, I would be a doctor, or, to be precise, a surgeon. He thought I had the long fingers required of a surgeon. My father said surgeons needed long fingers with which to operate, so I was partly there already. Though I had big hands, thinking of cutting into someone made me ill. I once broke the middle finger on my left hand while playing catcher in a softball game and my father let me know loudly that my career was at its end. I was twelve years old. I never thought much about tomorrow, but as with all kids, what lay ahead of me in life was infinite. Only I didn’t realize it then.

I never played hooky, was a decent athlete, a fair cartoonist, and I could copy maps as if I was making photocopies. I even tried to paint with oils. I failed. Like many kids, I owned boxes of baseball cards and lead toy soldiers. Both collections disappeared when I went to college, a victim of my mother’s penchant for neatness. Along with my monthly supply of books from Max in Chicago, I read everything in sight, not only some of the many newspapers my father brought home each day, but even read the labels on cans and jars of food. Reading consumed me and brought me to places I never knew existed.

Despite my excellent grades, my conduct in school was poor, a problem for my parents and teachers. I became class president in the 6th grade because I was the most popular and maybe the cleanest kid in class. This made my parents happy. It confused my teachers who had difficulty equating my popularity, my conduct and my intelligence. Many people predicted I would have a great future despite the streak in me that made me stand up against authority. I tried to control myself to please the adults but I was not always successful.

When school was out, and before homework or Hebrew school, I hung out with my friends in the schoolyard and on the streets near where I lived. On weekends at P.S 217, we tore a hole in the heavy, mesh, wire fence that surrounded the schoolyard so we could get inside to play without teacher, that is, adult supervision. Monday morning, the school custodians repaired the fence as best they could knowing we would tear open it again come Friday afternoon.