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All contents of this blog are (c) copyright 2013 by Lenny Goldberg. Nothing in it may be reprinted in whole or part without the express written permission of myself or my heirs. I can be reached at: lennytone@gmail.com

If you are one of my friends or family who are mentioned in my story and you would like me to leave you out, or change your name, just let me know. It is not my intention to embarrass anyone. On the other hand, if I have overlooked you and you want to be part of my story, let me know. That is the beauty of a blog; I can add or subtract at will.

Peace, Lenny

ZERO

Confessions of a Jewish Sinner

(c)2013 by Lenny Goldberg

I’m dead. Probably. Unless G-d, blessed be He, decided to supernaturally grant me a little more time, my ashes are either sitting on the family TV set or have been flung into some large body of water. As I type these words my abdomen is stuffed to bursting with a yellow cancerous liquid known as ascites caused by a disease known as peritoneral mesothelioma. If that wasn’t enough, there’s also chronic leukemia, thyroid tumors and neurofibromatosis or ‘elephant man’s disease’. So yeah, I’ve most likely gone to meet my glorious Maker, as you read these words. Unlike righteous Job, however, I deserved all those diseases and more. In life I was a wiseguy, and people called me mean, even years after I 'got religion'. Nevertheless, G-d in His infinite capacity for loving His creatures chose to ‘save’ me as an example that He is willing to ‘save’ anyone that is interested. What do I mean by the word ‘save’? Nothing less than blissful, eternal life, undeserved and unmerited, a free gift of G-d given to a most unlikely recipient.

    This is the story about how I, a Jew, came to believe in Jesus as my Messiah. I’m stating that first thing. I do not want to be accused of tricking anyone; you might have thought this was a nice Jewish autobiography and then halfway through you saw the name Jesus and felt betrayed. Maybe you’re also Jewish, and a well-meaning friend or relative gave you this website because they want you too to believe in Jesus. I also want to save you from skimming to find the 'juicy' parts. I left them out. Yes, there was fornication, adultery, drugs, and depravity. OK, I left most of it out. Why should I embarrass anyone? No, this is a just a simple telling, Christians would call it a “testimony”, of how I was born a Jewish boy, then somehow became a follower of the Messiah who was also a Jew, and what happened after that. I’m not the first Jew to follow Jesus by any means; in fact the entire Church was completely Jewish in the beginning, until Hashem (literally “The Name”) made it clear that He also loved gentiles and started ‘letting them in’. Some might disagree when I say that while I am a 'born-again' Christian I’m also still Jewish. Others might call me a 'completed' Jew, however it’s not my favorite term as it assumes that most Jews have missing parts. Some recent polls have revealed that most Jews no longer believe in G-d. Does this make them incomplete? I don’t know. If you ask me, most Jews just haven’t met their Messiah. Yet. If you are Jewish, please allow your curiosity to cause you to read my meiseh (story). If you’re a gentile and it helps you to better enjoy this sordid tale, you can imagine me narrating it in a New York Jewish accent, bubbeleh.

The story that follows is absolutely true. That is to say, the facts presented here are to the best of my memory, and while there has been some embellishment, either to make a point or to add humor to what otherwise might be a particularly nauseating anecdote, it is (as I claim) a true story. For example, I might remark that “G-d said” or “G-d told me” something, but this is purely in the sense that most ‘believers’ would mean it, i.e. they felt a feeling that an idea that popped into their head was of spiritual origin. Actually I’m very skeptical of anyone who claims that G-d spoke to them. My story includes, as you’ll see, a demonic being speaking audibly to me and claiming that it is the Creator. That actually happened voice and all. In the town I live in, there is an organization built on the foundation that G-d has had conversations with a whole bunch of people. Unfortunately, a lot of the things that “G-d” has said to them would contradict the Bible, the word of G-d. So when I, or anyone else, tells you that G-d has said this or that, look it up for yourself in Scripture while slowly slipping backwards in the opposite direction. Who knows, they might be demon-possessed.

Which leads me to another gray area, since I’ve claimed to have been just that, demon-possessed. Here’s how I would define it as relating to my story. Demons spoke to me, although at the time I didn’t know that’s what they were. Their influence on me grew over time, until (yes I know it’s a dumb cliché) I did whatever the little voices told me to. At no time did green smegma ooze from any of my body cavities nor did my head rotate 360 degrees. I never achieved super-human strength and never ran naked through the streets (that I remember). My pastor had said that this is typically what demon-possessed people do. On the other hand, my razor blades never wore out, and I didn’t even need to put them underneath a pyramid overnight. So I was either possessed, 'demonized' (as some Christians might suggest), a total fool, or maybe all three.

Before going any further, let me please clarify the term “G-d”. It is the practice of Jewish folks to leave a letter out of certain words that are names of deity. Another example is the word “L-rd”. This is totally a matter of respect, taking literally the command to not take His name in vain. How is it taking His name in vain to include the “o”? Well, you might throw away or destroy the piece of paper or book with Hashem’s holy name on it, and this is perceived as disrespectful. Jewish holy books are buried with accompanying funereal services, never destroyed. Neither do Jewish folks write all over their Bibles as many Christians do. If you are ‘witnessing’ to a Jew, and they ask you “where in the Bible does it say what you are claiming?” you might want to carry an extra Bible with you sans scribbles in the margins so as not to offend them. Leading a Jew to Jesus, even though Jews and Christians do worship the same Heavenly Father, can be a daunting job; G-d had to take me “to Hell and back”, in a manner of speaking of course, to reach me. 

I had a particular Catholic fellow ‘rake me over the coals’ over my omission of the letter “o” in our e-mail communications, saying that it was disrespectful of me to spell that way, and anyway why respect the people that had killed Jesus in the first place. I answered him with the usual reply; if Jesus hadn’t died on the cross for his sins he’d be going to Heck, so maybe he should be thanking us Jews. But then he added that we ought to be freely using G-d’s actual name Jehovah or Yahweh; I don’t remember which name he used (pick one). So I informed him, and now you, that only the high priest knew how to pronounce the tetragrammaton, the Y-H-V-H. Jewish people do not try and pronounce the Name, instead substituting another word such as Hashem, as I’ve already mentioned. You’ll never see a Jewish-owned business with a DBA such as “Jehovah’s Plumbing Company”. I saw a truck with just that name parked at my local Safeway one day. I was dumbfounded but I realized that the Christian that picked this name did it purely out of love and respect, and that “G-d looks at the heart”. Walking down a street in my old neighborhood of Borough Park, you will see neither “Yahweh’s Dry Cleaners” nor “The L-rd’s Delicatessen”. You can take my word for that. At any rate I hope that you will suffer me the use of dashes. I doubt that many Jewish people will read or ever see this blog, but please allow me my idiosyncrasies. And when I break into a Yiddish phrase or expression, please ignore it if it offends. My main purpose is not to teach yiddishkeit to gentiles, but to counter the lies of the New Age and the occult. Of course, many Jews would be included in those categories. While I’m doubtful that Jews will read a story like this, I hope and pray that some do. If you are one of those, please hear me out; tell me what an idiot I am after you read it. If I’m still alive that is. But if I’m dead, please don’t harass my wife; none of this is her fault.

When I first thought about writing a book I considered using a pseudonym. Some of the things that I’ve said and done in my life are embarrassing, not only to me but to my family. When I announced to my father that I now believed in Jesus Christ, his response was ‘so what’s new? Your whole life is a series of crazy things. This is just the craziest. In fact I’ve broken all Ten Commandments to some degree. Actually G-d gave Moses 613 commandments; I’m still working on breaking some of those. I haven’t yet gored my neighbor’s ox. But even keeping the Top 10 has been a formidable task for me. If I were to detail all my sins, you would not invite me to speak at your church. I’ve done things that only G-d can forgive, things that I cannot repair, of which I am eternally ashamed. Still, I decided to use my real name; otherwise how could I claim that everything in here is true? I have, however, changed the names of a few innocent bystanders who were unfortunate enough to have known me
.

When I first came to know Messiah about twenty years ago, I immediately went to work on writing a book of my experiences. About twenty or thirty pages later, however, I became so convicted of what an evil person I was, and this is no exaggeration; the truth was just sinking in. I told G-d that I didn’t think I could write this book. He said to me (not really, just in my imagining [see above]), “why don’t you write a short testimony instead”. So I did that, and over the years have given away hundreds of them, and it has been published in a couple of magazines and on the internet. Someday, I imagined I’d write the whole book, when I’d truly learned to walk and talk the way a Christian ought to.

But G-d, blessed be He, said to me (again, He said nothing of the kind) “Lazer, your story could be useful to the church as I’m rescuing those that would be rescued out of the occult. Write the book already. Are you waiting until you’re perfect? That will only come on the day I take you home; it will be too late then”. And so, here on your screen is that book. As I’ve said, every detail of my evil life is not in here, mainly the facts concerning my decline into the service of demons and G-d’s simultaneous rescue of a soul from destruction. I’d like to claim that I sought G-d earnestly with a burning desire to know truth. But I cannot; no, G-d was driving this bus.

Lazer, by the way, is my Yiddish name, like Lazer Wolf in Fiddler on the Roof. The only people that have ever actually called me Lazer were my grandmother, when she was yelling at me, and my Hebrew School teacher Mrs. Gold. She screamed “Lazer Gold, gold oif der linkeh zeit!" That’s ‘gold on the left side’ or the opposite of gold. This is what we might refer to today as 'number two'. See, I couldn’t have told that story if I used a pseudonym. Oh wait, I could have written this book under the name Lazer Gold! Duh. Another teacher threatened me, in Yiddish, that she would ‘break my hands in the wall’ and to go to Hell. I don’t know about you, but Hell is where I deserve to spend eternity. I have not confessed all my sins to you in this book dear reader, however I have confessed them all to G-d as well as to others. I have suffered in this life, and perhaps have 'paid my debt to society' as it were. But I can never repay my debt to G-d; there aren’t enough good deeds to do, beads to count, or whatever in this world to accomplish that.

    So here I am, opposite of gold, and yet when Messiah shed His blood to save sinners, that even included me. And of course you, too, if you’re willing. My life was lived in selfish rebellion against G-d but I have sought, and received, His grace, not through anything I've done, but because of what He did some 20 centuries ago. I pray that you will also seek Him while you may.

- Chapter Zero written March 2003

- Blog began 6/9/2013

ONE

    Everyone was Jewish in my neighborhood. The neighbors, the doctors, the elderly folks sitting on folding chairs near the entrance to the building, the storekeepers, the telephone guy, the seltzer delivery man, were all Jewish. There were a few exceptions, of course, like the superintendents of some of the neighborhood’s apartment buildings, who were African-American. We didn’t use that term then; it wasn’t yet invented. Then, they were schvartzes, literally 'blacks'. Nowadays, you will rarely hear this term used, but if you do hear it, it’s usually in reference to a non-religious Jew coming from the lips of a religious one.

This is not to say that there wasn’t any diversity in my neighborhood. There were the Torah-observant Jews in their black uniforms and peyes (side-burn curls); and there were “conservative”, synagogue-attending, Ten Commandments-keeping traditionalist Jews. There were also “cultural” Jews who weren’t religious, although they might attend shul once a year during the New Year holidays. In between the religious Hasidim and the compromising conservatives, you might find a few so-called 'Orthodox' Jews, who believed in the Torah but not so much the Talmud, who kept kosher homes but might eat traif (non-kosher food) in a restaurant. The latter is the group that included my family. Presumably you’ve heard of another classification of Jews, the least observant, belonging to the Reformed movement. We had none of those. The synagogues in my old ‘hood were Hasidic, Orthodox or Conservative; nowadays even the Conservative ones are gone and you’d have to travel to the old Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem to find as religious a district.

My mother envied the conservative Jews who were allowed to attend synagogue co-ed style, men and women sitting together. Perhaps for this reason, we rarely attended shul altogether. We might even have slipped down that notch and become conservative Jews except for the fact that my father’s parents were Orthodox, and that somehow extended to us as well. My zaydeh (grandfather), on my father’s side, was certainly a religious man; attending services the requisite three times daily. He davened (prayed) in Hebrew, and spoke very little English. Christians often wonder in amazement that Jews even try to keep those 613 impossible precepts of the Law of Moses. But impossible or not, my grandparents were of the school of belief that G-d would not ask them to do anything if it was impossible, and obeyed the commandments to the best of their ability.

Zaydie, as we affectionately called him, owned a butcher shop specializing in chickens that he slaughtered according to the rules of kashruth, the Jewish kosher laws. Each morning he would select the best live birds from the wholesale market and would thus eke out a living in his small shop on the lower east side of Manhattan. Eventually, a competitor opened up shop, advertising their chickens as being glatt kosher, or even more kosher than regular kosher, if that were possible. You’ve no doubt heard that if you have two Jews in a room you’ll have three different opinions, or some similarly worded adage. This is especially prevalent concerning kashruth. 

Have you ever noticed products in the supermarket marked with a letter “K” or a letter “U” in a circle? These are from two competing organizations that will certify your product to be kosher for a fee. Some Jews might not eat one or the others products. The most religious Jews might not eat from either group. The bottom line to this little story, however, is that these religiously sanctified guys ran my poor grandpa out of business with their holier-than-thou chickens, which led to a family resentment of the Hasidim (ultra-orthodox Jews) and their false asceticism. One of my Hasidic cousins and his friend once rode their bikes by my house and upon seeing me yelled out “there’s my unkosher cousin”. This was not mere name-calling. When his father died, my dad wasn’t allowed onto the cemetery grounds, which were too holy for him, although my father has kept kosher all of his life. The other repercussion of Zaydie’s poor poultry store is my dad’s life-long hatred of chicken stemming from the years of helping to flick the darn things and then having to eat the unsold birds almost every night.

My family also had a very successful cousin named Schmulka Bernstein with a butcher shop on the lower east side. He sold his own hot dogs (in New York we called them frankfurters, franks, or frankies, however), and other kosher meats. I only remember being in his shop once; we bought some whitefish. He was also the originator of kosher Chinese food. Out here in the Oregon diaspora one can buy Hebrew National, Sinai 48 and Nathan’s hot dogs, but in New York Schmulka Bernstein is every bit as famous a brand name as any of those. I had a couple of other relatives that owned stores of one sort or another, and this was going to be my destiny as well.

I imagine that a Jew or two may get hold of this blog and read my little summation of the variety of Jewish belief and say that I’m worse than any of them, believing in Jesus Christ as my Messiah. In fact, as I said my own father has offered words to this effect. And so we come to another group of Yid’n (Jews), the meshumed, traitors that worship Yeshua (Jesus). We are universally shunned by most other Jews, who may even believe that it is a mitzvah (good deed) to do so. They refer to Him as “Yeshu”, actually a contraction of Hebrew words that mean “may his name be blotted out”. Nor do they believe that such as myself is indeed any longer a Jew, having converted to the religion of their historic enemy, the Church. In all fairness, the Church has persecuted and killed Jews during much of its existence, and its seeming belief in three G-d’s along with its panoply of popes and priests is bewildering to Jews, to say the least. 

But there is a point of open ground where the Messianic (Christian) Jew and at least the Hasidic Jew can meet and sometimes even dialogue. We each agree with the command to love G-d with all of our heart, mind and strength. The modern day hasid ('pious one') or haredi ('fearful one'), as in fear of the L-rd) may have the ‘detested’ Pharisee as his spiritual ancestor, but nevertheless here is a person that loves G-d, the very same G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that the Church worships. Jews believe that modern anti-Semitism began with the apparent New Testament accusation that the Pharisees killed Jesus. But had Yeshua not gone to Calvary to die no one would be saved, neither Jew nor gentile. Jesus, of course, died a Roman style death as prophesied in Hebrew Scripture. But if it should turn out that 'the Jews' indeed killed Jesus, then every Christian surely owes a debt of thanks to this most persecuted minority. I’ll talk a little more about 'who killed Jesus' later, but if you’re a Christian you probably already know that it isn’t 'the Jews', or the Romans. So who killed Him? Later, I’ll tell you later; and it’ll be the truth.

From my youth I have been intrigued by cultures other than my own, and even in grade school went out of my way to befriend those whom my parents or society may have proclaimed 'not our people'. My home turf of Borough Park may have been a Jewish island, but it was surrounded on all sides by gentiles, mainly Roman Catholics of Italian descent. Both my grade school, P.S. 164, and my high school, New Utrecht (the one pictured on the “Welcome Back Kotter” TV show) were located in Italian neighborhoods, and it was by school chums that I was first matter-of-factly asked why I had killed G-d. Like the makeup of my school, my early friends were about half Italian and half Jewish. I think I enjoyed going to the neighborhood church bazaar’s more than attending synagogue. Who am I kidding, going to shul was boring. I didn’t understand much Hebrew, and the services were long and tedious. How many pages left to go, I’d ask? The prayer book was heavy and contained hundreds of pages.

My favorite part of growing up Jewish was the holidays, especially Passover. The pastries at Purim were fantastic, and the Chanukah gifts equally fantastic, but Passover or pesach was the time that the whole family got together, one night at my paternal grandparents and one night at my maternal grandparents. The latter was an intimate affair; with Rabbi Shlomo and family being “too religious” to attend there was just my parents, Grandma Rose doing all the cooking and Grandpa Shaya reading the haggadah in English with no qualms about skipping things here and there, myself and Rochelle while she was still alive. There was never any doubt that I would find the hidden afikoman (matzoh) and get a reward.

On the other hand, Zaydie and Grandma Minnie’s seder was a boisterous affair. My dad’s three sisters and their husbands and my numerous cousins were all there, laughing, yelling, fighting, and eating. This was the not-to-be-missed event of the year. Minnie did all the cooking for this crowd, including her “famous” kosher for Passover cupcakes. Many have tried to duplicate these amazing treats, but I guess she never told anyone exactly how to prepare them. There was the potatonik, the egg soup, and of course, chicken. Zaydie chanted the entire hagaddah in Hebrew, leaving nothing out. When it came time for the youngest male child to chant the feir kashes, the Four Questions (actually one question, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” with four answers) every unmarried kid present had to do it in turn. Most of us couldn’t understand Hebrew and were constantly asking what page he was on. And most years, no one could get the afikomen, the hidden half of the center matzoh which represented the sacrificed Passover lamb, because he protected it in the folds of his clothing. While this seder may have seemed long to some of us, it was shorter than the gala affairs the Chasidim throw, which can last in the wee hours. And occasionally ours was cut short by Zaydie if boxing was on TV.

I suppose that the highlight of Passover for me though was the wine. Not only were we allowed to drink it, we were commanded to drink four cups. If the rules are followed exactly, no one will get very intoxicated. Each glass must be drank at a particular time during the reading of the haggadah, the 'telling' of the story of our redemption from slavery in Egypt. The amount of wine need only be the volume of the size of an olive. Four of those wouldn’t even cause a buzz. Plus the special Passover wine was 30% sugar to make sure kids did not get high. In our family, however, there was a tradition to also have on the seder table, 100 proof fire-water known as Slivovitz. Why? Because we could. All grain alcohol was forbidden on Pesach, but brandy, made from fruit, was allowed. Before the midway point of the seder, when the meal was served, and some years even before the seder began, certain relatives already had red noses. It was as fun to watch them as to drink the wine ourselves. I still try to host or attend a seder every year, trying to recreate the atmosphere of those early ones. Of course most of our attendees are Christians so we try to reach a balance of temperance and freedom. One year, though, while leading a seder at church, someone substituted real wine for my cup of grape juice. I don’t think anyone found out. Except you just did.

An important component of the Passover seder, although it’s delicious all year so why have it only once a year, is gefilte fish. It’s basically just chopped fish, usually whitefish and carp but any fish can be used, shaped into balls or oblongs. We always ate it with beet red colored horseradish. The hottest horseradish is the freshly shredded variety, available at Pesach time in Jewish neighborhoods. At first I wondered why the seller had a fan on his counter aimed away from him, but as we got closer to him it was obvious that he was blowing the fumes away. Everyone waiting their turn on line was crying. You can’t find horseradish like that out here. One year folks in New Jersey tried to change the state fish to the Gefilte Fish. It didn’t make it to the ballot box, unfortunately, after the gentiles found out it wasn’t an actual fish. This past Passover, my daughter shredded a raw horseradish root, and while she may have cried tears of joy, by the time it reached the seder plate it was no longer strong enough to my abused taste buds, so she quickly whipped up some wasabi and that did the trick. This has become the great Japanese contribution to the seder meal, at least at our house.

I was more a child of 1950s culture than of the synagogue. Yes, I believed in, and feared G-d. And I feared my dad, too. Mostly he was the liberal product of Dr. Spock’s book, but when it came to ‘religious’ matters, he was to be feared. One time when I was hanging out with friends on Yom Kippur eve on the steps of the shul across the street from our apartment building (O.K. you know now that shul and synagogue are the same thing, so let’s consider it an English term, like bagel, I wouldn’t italicize bagel, and I’ll save the italics for more unfamiliar words), and I was dressed inappropriately in my usual street garb; he came over there and dragged me all the way home by my ear in front of the other kids. If I put on my suit, could I go back downstairs? No, he said, it was too late. I argued that I did have my sneakers on (observant Jews don’t wear leather on this day), but he said I wasn’t wearing sneakers out of piety, which was of course true.

And eating unkosher food was something that had to be done in secret. And if it was done outside the home, it could certainly not be done inside. Oy, that day my mom and I were “busted” was a day to remember; she was caught with shrimp cocktails, and I with sliced ham in our otherwise kosher refrigerator. I was actually not home when the said bust occurred, but I understand the wrath of Dad was poured out. I was a very poor eater; I’d take white bread and jam sandwiches for school lunch because I didn’t like much else. Add some potato chips and soda and it was a meal. But during a school field trip to the Brooklyn Museum, I discovered ham. It was so pink and pretty, and I’d never seen it before. I asked my teacher, “what is it?”. What is this heretofore unseen yet delectable appearing sandwich meat? She told me it was similar to bologna, a meat I was familiar with the kosher variety of. Once I’d tasted it, I couldn’t wait to get home and tell my mom about my exciting discovery; I’d found a new food that I liked! And that’s how ham wound up in the fridge. I don’t know about the shrimp cocktails; I guess mom & I forgave the hapless pig for not chewing his cud, and the scavenger who’d eat anything found on the ocean floor, kosher or not. All we knew was that they tasted good. Later on, my dad did allow me to eat the pork in Chinese restaurants. He wouldn’t eat it, but he confessed to perhaps not-so-fond memories of having consumed Spam while in the army.

                          Mom & Pop

    Please don’t get the impression that either of my parents were strict or undesirable in any way; they were fantastic, loving parents. Within reason, they gave me my heart’s desire. Yes, they spoiled me due to my having a heart murmur. They didn’t know if I would live to puberty or not. Whether it was toys, games, records, comic books, or hip clothing; they were very generous, although we were barely middle class. Our apartment rented for $50. a month, under New York’s rent control program, and our furniture was old. After my sister was born, we shared the only bedroom. Are you picturing The Honeymooners? No, we almost lived in luxury compared to Ralph and Alice, but I’m sure my parents could totally relate to that sitcom. I guess we fell somewhere in between the Kramden’s and the Norton’s. 

We did have a washing machine and a black & white TV. I remember when the first color show was broadcast; I waited with rapt anticipation while the network switched to color, but it didn’t change on our TV! My dad gave me the bad news; we would need a separate color TV, and he swore never to get one. Between the cost of it and the dangerous rays coming from it, it’d be literally decades before he’d give in. By then the color sets were purported to be safer than the monochromatic ones, dangerous ray-wise, and I was long out of the house. Another modern invention we did without was the air-conditioner. We had an electric fan. Many were the nights I suffered with hay fever, enduring the brutal New York summer humidity. Oh those difficult days before the invention of Claritin (r).

I’ll bet that apartment is a desirable one today, if it’s been kept up at all. It had high ceilings with crown molding and large rooms other than the kitchen. I loved the closet in the bedroom with its many shelves and would climb up to the tallest shelf if I needed to hide for any reason, for instance if the doctor made a house call to give me a shot. Once I heard the doctor say as he left, “if he can hide that well he’s probably not really too sick”. Most of the shelves held my collection of games and my clothing, but the highest ones had miscellaneous old stuff. One time I found my dad’s old pay stubs from after he got out of the army. I was shocked to see that he only made thirty-five cents an hour then and began to fear that he really couldn’t afford to spoil me in the accustomed way. I suppose they really couldn’t afford it, but they were great parents and felt sorry for me.

           At Nelly Bly Kiddie Land, Coney Island

    
I was on the sickly side, in general. Having been born blue-faced and feet first, I visited the doctor often in my early years. My heart murmur was exaggerated by our physician as being life-threatening, and so I was subjected to endless blood work, x-rays and barium-swallowing. My parents were told to discourage physical exercise on my part. Eventually a heart operation was suggested, so finally at the age of 13 a second opinion was sought. My new doctor revealed the minimalism of my condition, and told me, “Lenny, you will die someday but it won’t be anytime soon, and not caused by anything wrong with your heart”. He noted my condition as “A-1”, which years later worried me when I brought my doctor’s note to the army physical; “A-1” sounded too close to “1-A”, the classification for receiving the famous “Greetings” letter from the draft board. The night before the physical, my girlfriend and I were beginning a game of Scrabble. The first seven letters I drew from the bag spelled out V-I-E-T-N-A-M! I spent the rest of that evening worrying about my impending death. I didn’t think of myself as combat material, and neither did the armed forces, sending me home after the physical with a “1-Y” classification. At 111 pounds, I turned out to be too sickly for them even with my “A-1” heart. Of course, these days, as a church-going, conservative-voting, talk-radio listening guy, I’m ashamed at not having served my country. But in those ancient times, the fear of death consumed me, like a character in a Woody Allen film. But I’m getting way ahead of myself.

TWO

    I was born February 26, 1948 at Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan, just over the bridge from our flat in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When I turned 50 years old, the hospital mailed me a certificate to proclaim that fact; how they found me, with my unlisted number 3000 miles west of there, is a mystery. As I remember my mother telling the story, it was a very snowy winter, but what really worried her was not whether she could get to the hospital, but whether I’d be born on the 29^th of the month and then only have a birthday every four years. At the hospital I was presented with my very first toy, a rubber Bugs Bunny bought by Grandma Rose. I slept with Bugs, along with many more rubber toys, until I was at least 12, and maybe beyond that! My parents bought a combination radio and phonograph which I destroyed at the tender age of one or two. They never fixed it or replaced it. You can see it in the upper right of the photograph.

Circumcised on the Eighth Day

    In those days, Williamsburg was still a Jewish neighborhood. We lived on the first floor of an old brownstone, my mom, dad and me, and my maternal grandparents and their young daughter. My aunt Rochelle, only eight years older than I, was more of a sister to me, and I idolized her as such. An older couple lived above us, and I don’t remember a basement apartment but there must have been one. Rochelle was no doubt responsible for my early interest in popular, and then rock music. I remember visiting her the first of 1955 and finding her sad over the death of R&B star Johnny Ace, which became the first death to impact my life. A few years later, I would mourn Chuck Willis’ demise as well. These two stars are mostly forgotten these days, while actual churches have sprung up to immortalize and grieve for others like John Coltrane and Nirvana. Johnny Ace met his end purportedly during a game of Russian roulette, a story told in great detail in label mate Bobby Bland's biography. 

    Another time I remember Rochelle & I harmonizing to the Dells’ latest hit record, “Oh What A Night”. I used to sneak in her room just to look at her school music book, a scrapbook of songs that is now in my possession. Another time, she visited me in Borough Park and we walked to Jaynel’s record store together; she bought a 45 of “This Is My Story” by Gene & Eunice, I purchased “Story Untold” by the Nutmegs on a 78 (they were out of the 45).

    But I was already singing Johnny Ray songs, and imitating his style at 2 or 3 years old, as well as listening to the Weavers’ hits. No doubt, this had been mainly Rochelle’s influence, and I’ve been involved with music ever since. My parents were musical as well; I don’t think they ever played any instruments, but they sang around the house constantly. My dad wrote two songs during the war, and later had an audition for the Amateur Hour radio program. In Kramden-esque style, however, when his name was called he completely forgot the lyrics of his song, and so his musical aspirations came to a close. There is a photo of him singing one of his tunes on my radio show on KPFA that is posted below. That hippie in the photo is, of course, myself.

    Rochelle attended Lincoln High, the school that gave us Neil Sedaka and the Tokens. When Sedaka left that group to pursue a solo career, my aunt dated one of them during the brief time when they were deciding on a new name. I remember her excitedly telling us all the funny names they’d considered before choosing Darrell and the Oxfords. Their record, “Picture In My Wallet” became a large regional hit, but they were soon back to being the Tokens and their version of an earlier Weavers song became their biggest national hit, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. But by then, my wonderful 'sister' was no more. After she passed away I dreamed she was sitting in my grandparent's house, and she comforted me by saying she was fine now and not to worry.

    My grandma Rose (they were ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa’ on my mother’s side, rather than the old world zayde and bubbe of my dad’s side) certainly had a difficult and painful life. Rochelle was only 19 when she succumbed to ileitis. My mother, like Elvis, was only 43 when she died. Rose’s father had died young as well, stoned to death by some “Christian” kids who accused him of killing G-d. Yes, stoned, just like in Bible days, back in the “really old” country. Only her youngest child Shlomo (Stanley), who decided at five years old that he would become a rabbi, outlived both his parents. Rose had plenty of her own health problems; I always remember her myriad bottles of prescription medicines, her operations and hospitalizations. But in the earlier, happier days when both my parents were working, looking forward to affording their own apartment, Grandma Rose and Grandpa Shaya were like second parents to me, and we were that close all of their lives. Whatever bitterness they felt due to their hardships was never shown to me. I knew only love, patience, forgiveness and generosity from them, as well as from my parents. Too bad I was born “in Adam”, a sinner according to New Testament theology, or born with “an evil eye” according to Judaism. But so are we all.

    I can’t say what sin, weakness or predilection any of the other characters in my story were born with. Jewish people generally believe that we are born pure, with a “clean slate” so to speak. Somehow, the concept of ‘original sin’, so clear to the Christian, does not appeal to the Jewish sensibility. Perhaps the lifelong struggle of resisting the call of Messiah is challenge enough to any Jew coming into this world, a world that hates the Jew perhaps above anyone else. Why are we so hated, judged corporately rather than individually? Why did Germany under Hitler try to totally annihilate us, and why are the other Middle Eastern nations trying to force Israel out of our G-d given homeland? As a race, surely we have left our mark on the world in medicine, entertainment, technology and education. The Ten Commandments and Jesus Christ are of Jewish origin.

    Noted Bible scholar Arnold Fruchtenbaum explains the hatred this way. Jesus said that He would return at a time when the Jewish leaders would cry out to Him, “Blessed is He that comes in the name of the L-rd”, Baruch Habah B’shaym Adonai”. While our enemy ha-satan, the adversary, was defeated by the death of Jesus in the sense that the sins of believing humankind were forgiven at the Cross, if the evil one can stop the Jews from crying out that phrase to Jesus, by killing us all, then Jesus will not come, and Satan will not be thrown into the Lake of Fire. We know from Scripture that, in fact, “all Israel shall be saved” and indeed the end times events will take place as planned. But the Devil certainly is going to give his agenda his best shot. He surely has done an excellent job so far of turning the world against the Jewish people, with this hatred even infecting the church, the “guests” of Israel so to speak, according to Romans chapter 11. From that quarter we presently endure such anti-Semitic indignities as “replacement theology”, amillennialism and preterism that teach, among other things, that G-d has utterly rejected us. Many churches wrongly teach that all the covenants to Israel are now to the church only. To be fair, most Christians are still great supporters of Israel and the Jews, but suffice to say there are other world religions that feel less kindly towards us. But whatever misunderstandings we might share concerning the lofty truths of G-d, we know that Satan, G-d’s most powerful created being, understands theology all too well, and is happy to pit us all at each other’s throats to serve his purpose.

    Now, I’m not a preacher, nor do I hold any office in G-d’s economy. I’m only one depraved sinner from birth who has found grace at the Throne of mercy. I can attest that unlike perhaps some others, I was clearly born in sin, not so much because of my saintly parents’ sin, but because of Adam’s, as the Word declares. To be as polite as possible, I’ll just say that according to my earliest memories (and they go way back) as well as the recollections of the adults in the house, my most particular weakness was an obsession with sex. I imagine that there are those who are liars from birth or gossipers from birth. My problem was lust; the “lust of the eyes” says Scripture, but mainly the lust of the libido. When I hear someone say, “I was born that way” or even “G-d made me that way”, I agree and identify, until they add “so it’s not a sin”. I’ve learned that everything the Bible calls sin, is. From your ox goring your neighbor’s ox, to sleeping with your father’s wife, with cheating, lying, jealousy, pride, (especially pride) and all the rest along the way. The Bible tells us that anyone who says he doesn’t sin (and she, as well), is a liar. That’s so we’re all included; we all sin and all need a savior. Oh, we can change our behavior somewhat; we can change our programming. But we can’t stop sinning, and I’ve done them all (goring excluded), and I’ve specialized in lust. If the weakness you’ve been born with is merely gossiping, I’m jealous; because lust is worse. There I go, the sins of covetousness and pride in the same sentence! I’m only on chapter two and sinning up a storm! A Jew might say to all this, ‘G-d, blessed be He, only expects us to try our best’, to which Rabbi Sha’ul (the apostle Paul) might reply, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of G-d”. If we’ve fallen short, we won’t make it without the Messiah. By the way, “Saul” didn’t change his name to “Paul”. There is no “sh” letter in the Greek alphabet, so they couldn’t write Sha’ul. Either way, he was a Jew that wrote about a third of the New Testament.

    My earliest actual real memory of my life was sitting in my highchair being fed some mush at around a year or so of age. My grandma is saying, “open the hangar, the plane is coming through” and I’m clamping my lips as tight as I can to avoid the sinister ‘banana-ry’ cargo. I could only speak gibberish at that point, but I remember understanding the English language clearly. But the greatest event of those years for me was the arrival, in 1953 if memory serves, of our first television set. I lived for Uncle Fred Sayles “Junior Frolics” program, with its ancient black & white cartoons, Popeye, Felix, Farmer Gray, Koko the Clown and the rest. I suffered through the grown-ups shows like “I Remember Mama” (my cue to find some toys to play with), but I was intrigued by “The Goldberg’s”; I wondered how we got our own TV show, and would we ever be on it? (Once again I’m glad I didn’t use a pseudonym!)

    I was two years old when my parents were swayed to have my tonsils removed, at the recommendation of a doctor. In those days the government was supposedly looking for peacetime uses of nuclear radiation and was experimenting with our armed forces by exposing them to radium. Yes, radium was all the rage, and for several years children were unnecessarily dosed with it after tonsil operations, even those with healthy tonsils. It was said that these were vestigial organs of no use. The doctors and nurses that administered the radium, without proper protection, are long dead. I first heard about all this when one of the editors of an underground comic book died. That was about twenty years ago. I imagine that this was the cause of most of my medical problems; why G-d chose to allow me to live two decades longer than this other fellow I cannot imagine. I was subjected to a lot more radiation in the future, including about 20 CT-scans or PT-scans. I'm amazed that I don't glow in the dark. I can't blame my parents for those scans; perhaps I'm a masochist for placing so much trust in the medical industry.

    The following year my folks got their own apartment at Shore Haven in a new section of Bensonhurst that Jews were moving into. I don’t remember my room there, but I had one, nor do I remember much of our apartment at all, except for the large patio that we shared with our next-door neighbors, the Zimmerman’s. I do remember their apartment somewhat though, as their pretty daughter and I were allowed to take baths together. Whether this is more advice from Dr. Spock or not, I don’t know, but this practice was my best memory of the place, next to the wonderful gift I received for my 5^th birthday, a shiny new, red 20” bicycle. I didn’t learn to ride the thing until eight years later, when amazingly enough, growth spurt be darned I still fit into it. I clearly remember the day my dad took it out of the box and painstakingly (accent on pain) assembled it. At 13, when I rode it into a hedge for the first time, I understood the great gift of freedom and mobility my father had given me. I also got my first stamp album at that 5^th birthday party, and soon afterwards my worst memory of our short dalliance there, the Mumps. I also spent a term at kindergarten; wooden blocks, clay, small containers of milk with cookies and story time. That was the life!

    The next year, we wandering Jews wandered to an old but attractive and well-built, rent-controlled apartment in one of America’s most Jewish neighborhoods of all (and it remains so to this day), Borough Park. We would spend the next ten years there, until my dad would once again venture forth to a new building and a new neighborhood. The building, at the corner of 15^th Avenue and 47^th Street, had the vestiges of a faded glory. The outside was covered in vines, and there was a large empty lobby with a bricked up fireplace. Other buildings in the neighborhood with smaller lobbies still contained some furniture, and we often wondered what exquisite furnishings might have once graced that room. Its front doors were massive things such as those of a palace; the apartment ceilings were high, the walls dressed in fancy moldings. There were electric lamps built into the walls in the shape of candles. The ones in our apartment were painted over in many coats, but we heard that some still worked in other apartments. The walls were thick, and the only outside noise came from the clothesline bedecked courtyard, if your windows were open.

    All of the apartment entrances had mezuzot fastened to the right doorposts, small torah-shaped containers with the Sh’ma Yisroel prayer hidden inside. This would typically be surrounded with stickers denoting a yearly donation to a charity, the Heart Fund, March of Dimes, or more typically Hadassah, (the Hebrew name of Queen Esther) the women’s Zionist organization. Similar to today’s bumper stickers advertising political campaigns of year’s past, but for some reason never removed from car bumpers, these Hadassah stickers, each year a different color, but with the same picture, would remain on the doorposts.

    Another interesting feature of the common hallways were the incinerator rooms where we’d dump our garbage. Occasionally, the fire would be burning, and I loved to watch the flames while the trash door was open. The night deposit drop at our bank reminds me so much of it, but I hope never to see any flames in that thing. Teddy and I, I’ll introduce him shortly, never tired of running around the hallways and roof of the building looking for fun, finding it in the endless task of picking the old peeling lead paint from the walls. “Good pickings over here!” one of us might exclaim.

    On the ground floor with a separate outside entrance was a doctor’s office, in this case an eye doctor. I was an especially shmutzy kid, loving to dig in the dirt, hating to wash my hands. I received a “U” in health at school each quarter for dirty fingernails. Once a teacher asked me “who died”, although I didn’t understand the connection; the black bands on my nails signifying death. This dirt inevitably found its way into my eyes from hay-fever itching, and so visits to the eye doctor to treat the resulting sties were inevitable as well. Once, a sty had grown so large that an entire eye was glued shut with mucous, and had to be pried open by the good doctor. There was a whole lot of crying, and candy bribery, going on that day.

    To the right of our building was the private residence of an esteemed rabbi who’d been rescued from Germany by his followers during the war. On the corner of 48^th Street was another doctor’s office, in a private brick home, well almost every building was brick, where my mother was treated for boils. I recall singing the popular Jerry Vale tune “You Don’t Know Me” in the waiting room, while impatient with the long wait with mom. Some of the patients applauded at the end of the song, I suppose because my whiny arrangement was finally over. The entrance to the building had an inviting “stoop”, and kids would often hang out on it and even play stoop ball in between the coming and going of the building’s clients.

    A “stoop”, incidentally, is a row of usually concrete stairs at the entrance to a building. There might be a store or apartment in the basement, and the number of stairs could vary. On the sides of the stairs there might be concrete lions, flower boxes, flat slabs for sitting, or nothing. Stoop-Ball consisted of throwing a pink Spalding ball against the stairs causing it to pop up in the air and then someone would catch it. If there were more rules than that, I don’t remember them.

                                                        Rochelle at Sam's Bungalows

                                                       Charles 'Yeshayahu' Eisenblatt

                                           Pop singing "Try And Remember" on KPFA

                                                         The beautiful Rochelle

                                                                 Rochelle at 16

                                                 Grandma Rose Eisenblatt in Williamsburg

                      Lenny Fifth Birthday

    Borough Park was an easy hop on the BMT train to Coney Island. My first memory of the place was at a year or two of age. The fireworks scared the life out of me and I cried all through it. But once I realized that they were actually fun, albeit loud, I relished my time on the beach. I loved the peddlers that maneuvered around the tightly packed sun worshipers selling their wares: Shatzkin's knishes (best ever)and orangeade, one hot bag and one cold bag in hand. Connoisseur's argue over which knishes were tastiest in those days, but Shatzkin's, greasy fried on the outside, pillowy inside had no competition as far as I knew. Mrs. Stahl's were a distant second.

    Once I was of age and could travel to the beach with my friends, food took a back seat to the rides. Although a trip to Coney Island was incomplete without Nathan's famous greasy french fries, Steeplechase and the other attractions became the reason for going. Steeplechase had an ancient metal horse race ride; at the exit two clowns were posted and shocked us with cattle prods! George C. Tilyou's amusement park also featured  the mildest of three roller coasters. One of my favorite rides in Coney was the Virginia Reel, another antique that had spinning cars in a roller coaster like setting. I came home with my back bleeding from that one. There were many others that no longer exist and others that have survived, but the rides ruled for sure.

THREE

                                     Teddy, on 16th Avenue in Borough Park, late 1970's

                       Ted, me, Kelly & Diana pose in front of my old apartment building, late 1970's

    Borough Park, Brooklyn, also known as Boro Park, the latter spelling an acceptable one but the former one preferred, was a Jewish “ghetto” in the best sense. Here, Jews ruled as kings and queens over their destinies, a wonderful amalgam of religious and secular people completely in their comfortable element. Indeed, you would have to wander several blocks away at least, to gaze curiously at the seemingly out-of-place Catholic Church. On 13^th Avenue, BP’s main shopping strip, our “adopted” people, the Chinese, waited to serve us their exotic food. Hey, we loved America and always will, taking and adopting from each culture the best it has to offer. From the Chinese-Americans, not only eggrolls but Mah Jongg, from the Latin-Americans cha-cha-cha and other 'dirty' dancing (clean as a Jewish kitchen on Passover morning compared with now-a-days), and from the Italians, well let me just say (and I say this with pride, however misplaced) that many of our lads served with them in America’s underground economy. Bugsy Siegel’s monetary contributions, for example, towards the eventual liberation of our motherland are well-known (speaking of Israel, here, not Borough Park).

    People of color were admittedly scarce in BP (note: I’m being lazy here, BP is not an acceptable name for Borough Park) as I’ve already mentioned. The superintendents of the apartment buildings on the three corners of our block were all Caucasian to a point, until our building hired a black 'super'. He and his family, in fact, were the first African-Americans (still referred to as “Negroes” then, and worse) I met up close. If it weren’t for Amos & Andy being part of my TV addiction, along with Buckwheat on the Little Rascals and Rochester on the Jack Benny show, I might have been oblivious to the varieties of pigmentations common to human life forms on this planet. Cantonese cuisine will always ‘reign supreme’ with us. And then there was the Alan Freed radio & TV show and Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand”, the cultural icons that truly first taught me the incredible contributions to the entertainment industry made by Black America. Surely, Rock and Roll has been a, if not the, major force in the war against bigotry and prejudice. It was Rock & Roll, not Borough Park or my family that helped me to grow up “color-blind”. Although I can credit Borough Park in one sense; what little Bible I was willing to learn at the Chaim N. Bialik Yiddish Folk School on 16^th Avenue, showed me that G-d created us “perfect”, the Hebrew says, out of the red dirt of the earth. Even Adam & Eve were not 'white'. Our division over such an immutable fact of birth as skin color is a hideous anomaly. The Bible taught me that much, even back then; G-d created a single race of humans.

    But my concern at six years of age, beyond squeezing my parents for money to buy the latest rock & roll 45, was that most of the girls I was interested in were Italian. Besides the very real problems that couples made up of different religions face, Jewish people believe that intermarrying can eventually decimate Judaism as much or more than Hitler did, if allowed to go unchecked. Religious Jews have such large families for that reason, our survival as a people. And as I’ve said, if there are no Jewish leaders to cry out that phrase to G-d at the opportune moment, Messiah won’t come. But G-d’s promises must come to pass or He is a liar. The Jewish people will never disappear from this Earth. None of this mattered to me, however, while I was lusting after these six-year-old Italian Catholic sweeties.

    The first “real” object of my lust was my first grade school chum ‘Mary’ (OK, her name I’ll change; she’s probably still alive, why embarrass her). Previously my flame had been Vera-Ellen in the movie “White Christmas” but my dad assured me that when I became marriageable age she’d be too old for me. But he took a little more seriously my desire for Mary, who I announced to him my desire to marry. Italian girls were treif (unkosher), forbidden, ‘not for us’. Not that Mary ever returned my glances; still my fantasy life changed that year. I mainly fantasized that I was a teenage gang leader named “Lee”, but now I had a fantasy “moll” at my side. In the second grade I had my eye on the slimmer of two Italian sisters and invited them both to a party at my place. I remember one of them bringing along a little book, a catechism to study while at my house or perhaps it was more a charm to protect her against Lenny the ‘G-d killer’? I was a cute little kid back then, but no Romeo. While handsome, I was short, weak and puny.

Plus I had an embarrassing (although not to me) bad habit, of grabbing myself in the crotch. I don’t know where I’d picked this up from; had I seen an older kid do this? Or was it just an outgrowth of my earlier habit of sleeping with my covers tightly between my legs? I’ve heard that Jewish boys become sexually stimulated at an earlier age than most due to their circumcision at eight days old. Dear reader, I would have left this out of my book if it were not integral to my story of ‘sex, drugs and rock & roll’. I am picturing many of you returning this book to the Christian bookstore at this point and angrily demanding a refund. Please feel free; I can only clean my story up so much. Actually I can remember seeing Jewish doo-wop street singers with one hand raised toward Heaven, and the other ‘copping their groin’. Yes, even in Borough Park.

I’ll never forget my first day of school at P.S. 164, and it is easily understandable why the six-year-old girls in my class were not interested in me, aside from the fact that they were six and not perverts like myself. When my mother delivered me to class that day, I still had my baby bottle with me and was still drinking from it. The class exploded in laughter! I had my mom stay with me the entire day which turned out to finally be the day I was weaned. I had never been breast-fed; my mother’s doctors had advised her against it because of her heart condition. Stupid doctors.

There were attractive girls in my ‘micro-neighborhood’ as well, being the apartment buildings on three of the four corners of 47^th Street and 15^th Avenue. Most of the kids I hung out with lived in these three six-story buildings. Mine had no girls our age, but my best friends lived there, Teddy, Pete & Jules. Les and Bob lived across 47^th, along with Julie (notice: name change) and Penny (real name retained to illustrate the fact that it rhymed with mine, but also so that you can imagine how we ribbed her about being worth one cent and other mean things that kids said back then).

Also in that building lived the great unrequited love of my life, Sue (not her name). Being a year younger than us and not in our grade at school, she was not part of our peer group. But I secretly loved her from afar, once braving Halloween night alone to lay a gift at her door. I did get 'chalked' by a group of older kids who grabbed me in the lobby of my building, but it was worth it. Once, when we were in high school, I summoned the nerve to call her and ask for a date. She was busy on both nights I’d suggested, she was beautiful after all, dark complexion and perfect features, and while I’d heard through a friend that she really did want me to call back I never did. Lucky for her. A few years ago, while reminiscing on a New Utrecht internet bulletin board about just such things, someone told me they knew Sue and could get me her address. But what would I say to her now?

I had two sweethearts in the third building, in my mind at least, Arlene & Lucille, their real names as I’ve nothing potentially embarrassing to say about them. There was that first game of “spin the bottle”, of course, that was as exciting as it was innocent but it led to nothing else. I felt a great loss when Lucille moved away, somewhere down south as I recall where I’d never see her again. My favorite memory of Arlene was the day we were searching through a closet in her apartment (for what I don’t remember) and I found some of her older brother’s 45’s. She got his permission to give me a rare Velvetones record on Aladdin (“I Found My Love”); wish I still had it. We also had a male friend in that building named Rance, but weren’t allowed to play at his place since it was full of antiques. He snuck us in one time when his parents weren’t home, and it was like visiting a museum. Rance took his role as curator and tour guide, explaining the significance of some of the pieces. 

Teddy’s cousin Jan also lived there. Before leaving this topic I must say that these three buildings yielded great booty on Halloween. We would knock on every door, even the ones we knew contained Hasidim who did not share our interest in that holiday. One year the school guilt-tripped us to “trick-or-treat for Unicef”, which was boring and we never did it again. But it gave Teddy and I a great memory when one older man listening to our plea through his door exclaimed, “but the hour is late” in his eastern-European accent. We laughed for years, literally; if either of us ever said that, we’d crack up all over again. You had to be there, I guess.

I don’t mean to suggest by that crack about Unicef that we were entirely selfish. Just like in Woody Allen’s movie “Radio Days”, we would roam the neighborhood with little blue charity boxes called pushkes to raise money for Israel, and unlike Woody’s character in that movie, we actually turned the money in, although I’d be lying if I said that stealing it never crossed our minds.

Growing up in New York City, especially in a safe neighborhood like mine, was a great blessing. In those days, while we heard rumors of crime, and even news stories that were certainly not rumors, they were always about somebody else in another neighborhood. I admit that when mob boss Albert Anastasia was killed while getting a haircut in 1957, I became afraid of barber shops and refused to get a haircut for months. My father laughed and explained that it had nothing to do with me or our neighborhood hair-cutters, but it took me awhile to get comfortable about it. When one of the kids in my class got 'nits', bugs in his hair, suddenly keeping my hair trim took on new meaning, however.

Another vague fear my friends and I had was of a gang known as the “Baldies”. We knew that they had shaved heads, so we were always on the lookout for bald people, but never saw any, at least not any that were young. In reality, they were not bald at all, nor did they scalp their victims. One gang we did actually see, from a nearby neighborhood, was an offshoot of the “Golden Guineas”; but they were really a social group, harmless greasers typical of the era. Crime was truly rare in Boro Park, with many if not most residents leaving their apartments and even cars unlocked most of the time.

A typical day in my ‘hood would begin with the sound of horse-drawn wagons bedecked with cowbells, and push-cart merchants. One vivid memory is of the fish seller pushing his small cart through the early morning street yelling: “ay-oh-ay, w-oh-oh-oh ay-oh-ay”; and then after several of those the closer, loud enough to wake anyone still asleep, “I got FISH!” You know Teddy and I loved imitating that guy! There were also fruit and vegetable sellers, and later in the day the ubiquitous Good Humor ice cream push-carts. The latter had a promotional campaign going for awhile where they would give you a numbered ticket each time you bought a frozen treat, with a comic strip character on it. Then you would check your number in the newspaper, and if you were lucky would win a cash prize. The vendors were very competitive and soon began handing out two or three tickets with a purchase, then whole handfuls of tickets. My friends and I collected huge piles of tickets with Dick Tracy or Little Orphan Annie on them, and a character known as the Schmoo, a holdover from decades earlier. But none of us ever won any money that I remember. My favorite morning vendor was the Dugan’s Bakery truck; I’d zoom downstairs to buy a box of 6 cupcakes with thick frosting, two white, two pink and two chocolate. I’d admire their beauty, especially the lovely pink color, running my finger over the tactile surface. Then I’d peel the frosting off and throw it away and only eat the delicious golden cake below.

There were push-carts at school as well, mainly the sellers of soft nickel salt-pretzels. These were eaten either plain or with a squeeze of mustard. Typically the vendors were elderly Jewish men, and each had their own corner. But one day in 1960, a guy a block away from Montauk Junior High dropped his price to 2 for a nickel, and the pretzel war began. When the price dropped to 3 for a nickel, and it was impossible to eat three of these things, we all began throwing them at each other and even at the old Jewish guys. When the bell rang at the end of lunchtime, the entire schoolyard was littered with chunks of soft pretzel inches deep in places. The candy-apple sellers did well after the pretzel war; we were sick of pretzels.

There are a few other highlights of Junior High days that still come to mind. If you live in a hurricane area of the country, it would be a commonplace thing, but the only hurricane I ever experienced caused the school’s windows and doors to be locked one day at lunch time. We could watch the wind whipping around through the windows, and the pretzels and their sellers flying by. Just kidding. At 3:00 we were allowed to leave; the sidewalks were all strewn with leaves. Another unforgettable event took place while I was yet a 'freshie' in the 7^th grade. I’d heard that the seniors routinely beat the freshmen up, but in my case a kid named John, (I say kid, but he looked at least 20 to me; must have been left back a few times) flung a metal trashcan cover from across the street, over the schoolyard fence, and hit me on the back. Ouch! John, if you’re still alive and reading this, I forgive you. It didn’t result in any lifelong back problems.

In those days if you were bright enough and had at least a 130 I.Q. you could skip eighth grade thus get through Junior High in only two years. The IQ tests were administered in sixth grade and the scores were kept secret. If you were admitted to the “SP” (special progress? stupid pest?) program you’d be alerted only at the very last minute. I became obsessed to find out my IQ score. As much as I hated school, the idea of skipping a year sounded great. And if I didn’t make it, I wouldn’t be in the same class as most of my friends who definitely had the requisite smarts. I noticed that the teacher had a folder on her desk that had a card for every student corresponding with their seats. So I began to sneak up to her desk any time I could think of an excuse to do so. One kid had only a 70 IQ; others hovered around 100, the so-called average. Eventually I saw my card; mine was 136. I would be in class 7sp1 the following year. My best friend Teddy’s score was a bit under the sacred mark, however, which caused him great distress. I’m glad they no longer give those tests, although public schools are way worse today than 50 years ago.