North Bronx, Class Of '70

Leon Takes (his own) Challenge

North Bronx, Class of '70

    —  we were coming

Putting Names To Faces Is The Easy Part
It’s Remembering What To Forget That’s Tricky


Hats off to Gary Porto for naming names. Thirty out of 36 from Mrs. Kaaber’s 5th grade class picture, to be precise. Read his comment to get them all, but first let me tackle his misses.

On the floor, fourth from the left, no, I have no idea who that guy was either. But I hope he’s still enjoying a nice life.

Second row, seated, all girls. (Did anybody notice that the class evenly divided by...gender?) That’s Valerie Salvani, second from the left, between Geraldine Santoro and the lovely Florence Cancro (the only white child from our class who lived in my neighborhood). I gotta dispute the sixth from the left (one of only two girls not wearing the white blouse as ordered). You named her Debra Brown, but my old brain flashed Miriam Williamson as soon as I saw her (again.) Until one or the other of them pipes up, only the Internet will know for sure. I also believe that’s Randy something (Feit?) next to Laurel Waldman.

Third row, standing, and I must challenge again. I’m pretty sure the first from the left was named Jerome. He was one of very few black kids in the class  (like the one I swear is Miriam) who didn’t live in my neighborhood. It put a distance between him and me that was not much different than the one between me and everyone else I never saw after school. But I know his name was Jerome.
Yes, I thought that was Peter Bonanno next to Jerome. If anyone asks (hint) I’d love to tell you the story of our competition in the Fifth Grade Science Fair, or rather un-fair as I saw it. Poor Joann Petrozola. Through no fault of her own, as far as I can remember, she was one of those kids treated like she had cooties or something. Something about her name, like “petrified” I think. No book of petty grade school cruelties could ever be definitive or even complete. I’d say my crush on Mary Maestri was terrible and hopeless, but weren’t they all? You forgot to name Isabel Gonzales (8th from left). She was another of the very few non-blacks (what we now call Hispanics) that lived in my neighborhood, though she didn’t really socialize with us and moved away sometime in Junior High School.
I’m sure your failure to name Elissa Conte next to Isabel was an oversight :)
Sorry to hear we lost Barbara Needleman young, to cancer. Didn’t she also have a cousin with the same last name in at least one of our classes?

As Tommy Skeeter reminded you on Facebook, that was Preston Jones standing between Hannah Kleiger and Ed Harper at the end of the row. To say he was my chief tormentor in Junior High, and died a drug-related death sometime while I was in college does not begin to explain the effect he had on the passionate defense of my individuality I developed in high school.

Ed Harper and I started in the sandbox next to his house, less than around the corner from mine, and over 50 years later we remain best friends in the oldest sense of the phrase. And yes, his eyes are still hazel-electric.

Top Row: Kenny Balban was kind enough to drop this comment on our challenge. That’s Eddie White fourth from left and maybe Eddie Began next to him. I can’t place his face, but his size reminds me of a wanna-be bully in the class, and we’ve named all the other “big” guys. That’s me next to Joe Mangione, who I remember as a gentle giant, and Israel Milstein, perhaps my chief academic competitor besides Hanna. I grew to be 6’7” by the time I graduated college; it’s humbling to see that in fifth grade I was no taller than Izzy Milstein.

There will be more to this challenge: do all stay tuned and feel free to comment.

The Class of '64 Challenge

Before there was a Class of '70 there was a P.S. 76 Class of '64, coming out of the school just up Bronxwood Ave from Evander. We were fresh-faced, and determined to make our mark in the world, however uncertain our aim.

First Ed Harper, then Gary Porto blessed me with copies of the following class pictures:

Class 3-3 (1961) where many of us met after some of us (me, Eddie) skipped from Mrs. Borden's first grade class to third. (The 'genius' cred from skipping is a prime suspect in messing up my life!)

Class 4-1 (1962) having proved ourselves, we went to the No. 1 rank.

Class 5-1 (1963) The only "girl" pretentious enough to stick a ribbon in her hair, standing at the right side of the 3rd row would be Mrs. Kaaber, the bane of my 5th grade life.

Before doing anything elaborate with them, I want to bless you with these copies, and challenge you too:

Just comment to identify as many of us as you can by row and rank. Anything you remember (keep it positive as possible), and anyone you wonder about, let us know that, too.

In addition to the satisfaction of knowing your memory's still intact, anyone who plays will also get a copy of Mrs. Borden's loving first grade class of 1960.

Here goes:

 

Cool White Folks

Forgive the gap in new posts. I'd like to drop some audio on you, a podcast (my first ever) I did a while back called "Cool White Folks".

It was inspired by the 2007 flap after shock jock Don Imus referred to members of the Rutgers Women's Basketball team as "nappy headed ho's". Instead of a (well deserved, in my opinion) rant about media racism, I thought it more interesting to reflect on the changes in our culture that made Imus feel empowered to come off like that in the first place.

I blame the mass marketing of a certain kind of self-hatred and misogyny associated with hip-hop for what Imus did, and much worse still done every day by other folks with access to mikes, especially rappers like Snoop Dog. I think this has some special meaning for us--our North Bronx '70 and our generation--because this culture sprang up in the same soil that produced us, less than half a generation after we, for the most part, turned our backs to it.

Yes, we played dozens, and talked bad about other people's mothers. But we never did it in front of our mothers, so to speak. It was a game: some of us were good at it and others were not, but it was still just a game; it wasn't who we were.

And none of us ever dreamed that the raunchy, self-hating and misogynist (we didn't have this word for it until right after college) part of all our ethnic cultures would become isolated and intensely associated with just one—the African-American— and exported as the essence of what's 'cool' in beer commercials.

This piece recalls my admittedly fuzzy memory of a different way of negotiating the land of cool, when the turf was truly shared by people of different races and ethnic groups. It wasn't perfect. And maybe, as some wise friends have suggested, our time was a historical one-shot that will never be repeated. But I still think it bears remembering, and even celebrating.

Check it out, and let me know what you think.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE PODCAST 'COOL WHITE FOLKS'

The Last of the Tigers

Jeff Varagon, the recent (one of the last?) Evander Childs Engilsh teachers I posted about earlier, is making some kind of video or documentary about the school's last days, after 95 years.

I stumbled across this video promo. Note the picture of The Bridge; he was the adviser for the very last edition.

The Evander I Can't Forget

Here's that essay I was pleased to write for the very last issue ever to The Bridge, Evander Childs' literary art magazine. As you may recall, Evander Childs closed for good in June.

As I reread (and redited) it for posting here, I realized that it's more than a ramble down memory lane; it's a confession. I'm guessing I'm not the only one who looks back sometimes and wishes for a chance to explain some part of their history, if not rewrite it in the light of present wisdom. Even if it embarrasses or shames us.
Luckily, it's mostly us writers who feel called to "open a vein and bleed" in this way.

Please check it out, and then tell me in comment: What can't you forget about high school, and what do you wish you could?

My View From The Bridge

More than my Spanish or the ugly truth about Gunboat Diplomacy, more than failing homeroom for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance, or almost winning a medal in track, once, my indelible memory of Evander Childs High School— 1967 to 1970— is of the varsity musical shows.

I know it’s true because I still remember the first note of the first song in Lil’ Abner. I should, because I sang it. Alone. Acapella. It wasn’t my voice but my ear that got me the job; no one else could pick it out from the last, crashing, dissonant chord  of the overture. To this day I can’t face a row of sinks in a corporate office washroom without hearing “Gotta stop that man…I gotta stop that man…Or he’ll stop me,” from “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” running through my head.

“How To Succeed…” was 10th grade, my first year. I still remember the leads. Bill Sadin, a mature, handsome in a Clark Kent way senior starred as J. Pierrepont Finch. Gail Fraiser, who played Finch’s romantic interest, Rosemary Pilkington, was thin brown, pretty and plain, until you took off her glasses. George Christian, who I believe was Latino, played the big boss, J.B. (what else?) Bigley, but most of the cast, virtually everyone else with a speaking part, were what we now call non-Hispanic whites.

Degrees of Separation

So I'm trying to build this blog, right? I've been blessed to be in touch with Lisa Nazarenko. She graduated from Evander with me in 1970; 38 years later she’s some kind of professor… in Switzerland.
I’m hoping she’ll share how she got from here to there soon.

She wrote to ask me if she could share the blog with two friends she’s kept up with from Evander that I may or may not know. One was Sandra Eisenstark, who in fact I didn’t know ( or at least I think I didn’t). As for the other one, I had to reply:

…Susan Fridie? She grew up around the corner from me in the Valley. Her older brother Ronnie was a big man in our neighborhood. He was known as the boyfriend of the formidable Carol Donaldson (who graduated Evander in maybe '68?). Carol was the daughter of the famous alto sax player Lou Donaldson. She went to Eastchester Presbyterian Church where she sometimes seemed to rule over mere minors including me, Karen Cheeks (Evander 70) and Jerry Sadler who blessed me with our blog’s first comment. And Carol lived on the 3100 block of either Kingsland or Mickle Avenue, the same block (or around the corner) from Florence Cancro (Evander 70), our second commenter.

My point: among other things, this blog is all about factoring degrees of separation down to lowest common denominators. It’s amazing how time (not age, none of us are aging!) will do that.

I hope this means I’ll hear from Susan soon too. As I confessed to Lisa, I thought I had a crush on her a couple of times back then. But I could never convince her I was alive. Thank God for the perspective that middle age gives about stuff like that!

Love to hear from you all!

You Really Are From The Bronx

This was finally (after bouncing through who knows how many people's e-mails) forwarded to me by Karen Cheeks (now Cheeks-Lomax).

All I want to add is that no matter how you left the Bronx, it never really left you. It may be asleep, and dreaming in you, and sometimes that dream is a nightmare. Or it may be your "edge" the thing that makes you you, even in Lexington Ky....or Vancouver B.C.

In case you don't care to read to the bottom of the extended post, here's the piece's closing point:

And you know you're from the Bronx if this email made you a little nostalgic,
& you wish you could go back & do it all over again. but you know that it will
never be the same ever again for the rest of your life!!
You were privileged to have been there at the right time and place!!!

Though many of us North Bronxers grew up in private homes, we still know the underlying truth as it refers to apartment buildings. But do drop a comment on what makes you know your from 'Da Bronx' but you don't see on this funny, poignant list.

(I 'borrowed' these photos from the remarkable Bronx Pictures site. Do check it out sometime and be amazed!)

YOU KNOW YOU'RE FROM THE BRONX IF:

• You've played Ringaleevio & Kick the Can around your apartment building.

• You know what a Spaldeen is.

• You kept your bike underneath the stairway on the first floor hallway of your
• apartment building. 

• Your fire escape was the closest thing you had to a back yard.

• You know someone who went to Roosevelt, Taft, Morris, Columbus, Evander, Smith,Gompers, Addams, Dodge, Kennedy, Truman, Lehman, Clinton, Walton,Science,Monroe, Stevenson, All Hallows, Catherine's, Ursula, Fordham, Rice,Aquinas,Barnabas, The Mount, Stock, Preston, Helena's, Hayes, Butler,Raymond's (boys or girls), Spellman, Scanlon, Turman, Tolentine and others.

• You know that Lehman College is really Hunter College in the Bronx.

• You actually think the subway is fun and a very reliable form of transportation.

2768 Wallace Avenue

• You've taken the Bx 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 20, 31, 34 or 41 bus at least once in your life.

• You agree that the Grand Concourse has too many lights and no parking!

• When people ask you where you're from you tell them the closest train stop.

• You don't go to Manhattan. You go 'downtown.' (Yes!)

The Bridge

Here's that photo from the very last "Bridge"

 

Hardcore Tigers (Evanderites) would be interested to know that The Bridge started when Evander opened in 1913. Its purpose was to unite what had been three separate campuses that were consolidated in the massive building at 800 e. Gun Hill Road.

Of course, there are bridges within bridges. The essay I wrote for the series finale edition speaks of our class, the class of '70, as perhaps the bridge between Evander's first 54 years and its last 41, as the school's identity morphed from white to non-white. One reason for this blog is my belief that there was something special about being part of the bridge.

Or were we merely on the bridge?

In any case, here's to a sense of continuity. You'd probably be amazed at the passion writers from  the final  class of 2008 put into their poetry. I'll post my own piece soon, but here's what they looked like:

Clearly, somebody learned some Photoshop in their four years.

On Jeff Vargon's Block

Jeff Vargon, Evander Childs class of '83, lives in a building on the corner of 188th Street and Lorrilard Place in Belmont, which they still call Little Italy. That's two blocks south of the White Castle on Fordham Road, or about four blocks from Theodore Roosevelt. I was meeting Jeff there to make a connection with the past, present and prospective future of Evander Childs High School

Though hot salsa sounds filled the air behind me as I waited for Jeff to return home, the neighborhood felt quiet and peaceful as any lazy late summer afternoon I ever remembered in the Bronx. I thought I was dreaming the rhythmic "thwock...thwock...thwock" of a 'spaldeen'  bouncing on a concrete handball court. But it was real, from the big schoolyard right by Jeff's apartment window.

Jeff teaches English at what was Evander Childs. As you may have heard, the class of '08, which graduates tomorrow, will be the school's last. After 95 years. One of the organizers of a sold-out Evander reunion last month, Jeff is also an advisor to Evander's literary arts journal, the Bridge. When I told him I wrote for the Bridge when I was at Evander, he asked me to contribute a memoir piece for the very last edition.

Jeff did more than save me a few copies of the very last Bridge. While rummaging through what remained of Evander history from dusty archives in the library, he found a copy of my class (1970) yearbook and a copy of the 1970 Bridge. I lost my yearbook longer ago than I care to remember, much less my copy of the thinly bound 1970 Bridge.

I've made more than a few  'connections' south of Fordham Road in my time. But nothing like what Jeff was about to put in my hands. What he laid on me was a kind of memory drug, one I plan to take in carefully measured doses and then share my trips with you. Now I have way more names and faces, in real black and white. Now I have the lengthy manifesto for our generation, as  inscribed in the front of the Oriole '70 yearbook.Now I have evidence of my earliest literary pretensions; something for my daughter to blackmail me for decades to come, even as I will be reaching out to blackmail some others that I remain proud to have called friends.

More to follow, including a really nice picture of the building from that last issue, as soon as I can scan it.

Were they playing your song, too?

Thought you might like this interview with author Sheila Weller, on her new book "Girls Like Us" profiling Carole King, Carly Simon and Joni Mitchel, and the times that made these pioneering singer/songwriter women. Or was it the other way around?

In that same vein, do check out Michelle Kort's deep and thorough biography of the late Laura Nyro. Even if you weren't into the earth mother of all the  female singer/songwriters,  from back  in the day forward, you have to love this book. It pulls you back into her teenage Bronx of the early '60's, her growing up off the Concourse near 170th St. (right around the corner from my grandparent's house), going downtown to start growing up too fast, and channeling all that music we heard on WABC when we were in elementary school into something that changed many of us forever by 1970.

• Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro, by Michelle Kort

• Natural Women- SoundCheck piece with Sheilla Weller on new book "Girls Like Us" profiling Carole King, Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell