Growing up in the Bronx in the 1930s and '40s was a mostly happy and secure experience. We survived the Great Depresion and World War II, unscathed. High school was a challnge. My friends were bright and most applied to and were accepted by The bronx High School of Science. Burt and did also by default. Started around 1947 it was an experimental school that prepared kids for scientific and medical careers. Almost everyone went to college and most were succesful in their careers.
I lived in a six story appartment building in West Bronx and my best friend, Burton, was one story up. Burt was a loyal friend and a very funny guy. His sense of humor, often, self-deprecating, kept me laughing all through hich school. After graduation I went out of town to Cornell and he attended the City College of New York. He worked as a teacher for a while and also a writer for TV comediens. Neither occupation suited him and eventually he pursued a successful real estate career with his brother. Always introspective, he became in later years, a poet and has published three volumes of verse. The last was nominated for a national award.
Last month, afte receiving an e-mail announcing the 60th reunion of my high school graduating class, I contacted Burt and we both decided to attend. It was a nice affair, only the fouth reunion our class ever held, and my first. Although I enjoyed the event, held a an upscale catering hall in Battery Park, I found most of the attendees more motivated to boast about their own success than to learn of what anyone else had accomplished. All but Burt. He was the same jovial, caring friend I remembered. We got together the day before for lunch with my wife, and renewed our friendship,laughing, reminiscing, and vowing to see each other more often in the future.
The master of ceremonies for the event provided a short talk, providing statistics on the large proportion of the class who had become scientists, physicians, lawyers, and other pretigious professonals. Our most illustrious class member won the Nobel prize in physics. Another old friend, Rick, a retired brain surgeon, was quick to point out, "Yes, but I beat him out for the physics award." (I assured him that his prize was by far the more impressive.) Midway through the list of successful attainments Burt leaned over to me, whispering, "He hasn't gotten to my category yet...beggar." I still laugh when relating this remark. Later, as we looked over the group of infirmed septagenerians we had become, he remarked, "The next reunion will have to be a seance."
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Neighborhood
At a recent dinner party, with couples aged sixty-five, and older someone asked the question as to whether things were better when we were growing up than they are for children today. Most of us agreed that was, indeed, the case. This from people who had been witness to the aftermath of The Great Depression, World War II, and the Korean War. A recent article in Time Magazine indicated that life expectancy in 1900was about 47 years and is now 78 years. It is projected that children born today have a fifty percent chance of living to 100. Nevertheless the "good old days" aeem to us seniors to be just that.
I believe my growing up years were better than those of my children, who were born in the sixties, largely because of location--a residential area of West Bronx v. the suburbs of Philadelphia.
3280 was, and still is, a six story apartment house for perhaps forty families. There was a fenced-in roof "garden" for residents to sit and take the sun. In those days 3280 was predomimnantly Jewish. It sat behind what was then an elementary school and was a block from a large park commnecting two larger parks. Bronx Park housed a Botanical Gardens and the Bronx Zoo. Van Cortland Park had a large lake for skating in the winter. Two major shopping areas, two movie theatres, an Indepndent Subway System station and bus lines were with walking distance. The schoolyard provided recreational activities for thousands of children. Motherts congregated on summer afternoons, sitting on camp chairs and rocking baby carriages. Husbands had their oiwn area where they chatted about businbess and smiked their pipes and cigars. A large playground area surrounded the public reservoir and had football fields, playground eqipment, a wading pool, a running track and bicycle path. Public benches aorund the "Oval" provided respite for people on hot summer evenings. 3280 housed at least half a dozen families with children my age. We would wander from one apartment to the next, moving only when the parents became intolerant of the noise or horseplay and commanded, "Go play sopmewhere else." In the days before television we never lacked for friends or activities to occupy us. A Superintendent,the Super" was there to service the heating system, shovel snow, cut the hedges, and make minor repairs. Schools were free of drugs, teachers commanded respect, and the education provided was good. All of my friends went to college. Subways were safe so that, as adolescents, we were free to travel to other aras of the Broinx, to Manhattan, and, later, even Coney Island by subway. What I am describing here would be called today a "community." We called it our "neighborhood."
Aftert VJ Day post-war America entered a peiod of relative prosperty, at least for the middle class. The next step upward from The Bronx was a move to the suburbs where houses had lawns and the area was less crowded. My parents moved to Yonkers. We became lawn mowers and gardeners. No longer convenient to public transportation, my father had to drive to work in Manhattan and pay for parking.
When I married we started out in a garden-type apartment in the Germantown area of Philadelphia. The tenants were young families, like ours, with babies and toddlers. As soon as I was able to afford the downpayment we, too, moved to the suburbs. My children had few friends on the block. Pople largely kept to themselves.
Shortly before my mother died, my sister and I took her to visit the old neighborhood in the Bronx. 3280 was now occupied by Hispanic people. The old school yard was a parking lot for teachers or others. The area may still be a neighborhood but no longer middle class. We rode the old elevator to the fifth floor but I was reluctant to ring the bell of our old apartment. Thomas Wolf was right. "You can't go home again."
I believe my growing up years were better than those of my children, who were born in the sixties, largely because of location--a residential area of West Bronx v. the suburbs of Philadelphia.
3280 was, and still is, a six story apartment house for perhaps forty families. There was a fenced-in roof "garden" for residents to sit and take the sun. In those days 3280 was predomimnantly Jewish. It sat behind what was then an elementary school and was a block from a large park commnecting two larger parks. Bronx Park housed a Botanical Gardens and the Bronx Zoo. Van Cortland Park had a large lake for skating in the winter. Two major shopping areas, two movie theatres, an Indepndent Subway System station and bus lines were with walking distance. The schoolyard provided recreational activities for thousands of children. Motherts congregated on summer afternoons, sitting on camp chairs and rocking baby carriages. Husbands had their oiwn area where they chatted about businbess and smiked their pipes and cigars. A large playground area surrounded the public reservoir and had football fields, playground eqipment, a wading pool, a running track and bicycle path. Public benches aorund the "Oval" provided respite for people on hot summer evenings. 3280 housed at least half a dozen families with children my age. We would wander from one apartment to the next, moving only when the parents became intolerant of the noise or horseplay and commanded, "Go play sopmewhere else." In the days before television we never lacked for friends or activities to occupy us. A Superintendent,the Super" was there to service the heating system, shovel snow, cut the hedges, and make minor repairs. Schools were free of drugs, teachers commanded respect, and the education provided was good. All of my friends went to college. Subways were safe so that, as adolescents, we were free to travel to other aras of the Broinx, to Manhattan, and, later, even Coney Island by subway. What I am describing here would be called today a "community." We called it our "neighborhood."
Aftert VJ Day post-war America entered a peiod of relative prosperty, at least for the middle class. The next step upward from The Bronx was a move to the suburbs where houses had lawns and the area was less crowded. My parents moved to Yonkers. We became lawn mowers and gardeners. No longer convenient to public transportation, my father had to drive to work in Manhattan and pay for parking.
When I married we started out in a garden-type apartment in the Germantown area of Philadelphia. The tenants were young families, like ours, with babies and toddlers. As soon as I was able to afford the downpayment we, too, moved to the suburbs. My children had few friends on the block. Pople largely kept to themselves.
Shortly before my mother died, my sister and I took her to visit the old neighborhood in the Bronx. 3280 was now occupied by Hispanic people. The old school yard was a parking lot for teachers or others. The area may still be a neighborhood but no longer middle class. We rode the old elevator to the fifth floor but I was reluctant to ring the bell of our old apartment. Thomas Wolf was right. "You can't go home again."
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Cloakie
I am not dissatisfied with my profession as a psychologist. I believe I have helped people with emotional problems and I continue to do so now. Yet I often wonder about the road not taken.
My father, Sam, manufactured women's coats and suits in the grament district of New York City. They were called "cloakies." His business was housed in a ninth floor loft on West 38th Street.
Sam made a high priced garment and sold to the better department stores in the city. Summers I helped out, assisting the packing and delivery man. I pushed the carts loaded with fur trimmed broadclothes to middle men or stores within walking distance, took packages to the post office, swept up around the operators and Louie the pressor.
Sam made a good living, especially during the war years, but he never wanted me to take over his business. My parents' plans for me were to become a doctor--an aspiration which represented high status and was worry free in their eyes and which I never completely fulfilled. Yet it might have worked out differently.
Our neighborhood in the West Bronx was one of the nicer sections of the city. We overlooked the public school and were within walking distance of parks, shopping areas, playgrounds and public transportation. Most of us were second or third generation children of immigrants who had succeeeded economically. My father was unemployed during the Great Depresion but bounced back and was able to start his own business. The children of our neigborhood became physicians, dentists, lawyers, teachers, scientists, and successful businessmen. A block from our apartment house teens gathered alomng Mosholu Parkway and socialized on warm summer evenings. Among the group were two boys who later made it big. Calvin Klein and Ralph Lipshitz, now known as Ralph Lauren. I didn't know either of them but would have recognized them at thew time along the park fence. I've read that Lipschitz returns to the neighborwood frequently to visit his old apartment.
When I need to get a rise out of friends who know me well I point out that I, too, might have gone into the garment business and become a "cloakie." I, too, might have become a Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren. "You can't properly match a shirt and a tie," I am reminded "and if you dress well today it's because your wife picks out your clothes."
My mother, let her rest in peace, would say, "It was nicht bershert." It was not destined. So be it.
My father, Sam, manufactured women's coats and suits in the grament district of New York City. They were called "cloakies." His business was housed in a ninth floor loft on West 38th Street.
Sam made a high priced garment and sold to the better department stores in the city. Summers I helped out, assisting the packing and delivery man. I pushed the carts loaded with fur trimmed broadclothes to middle men or stores within walking distance, took packages to the post office, swept up around the operators and Louie the pressor.
Sam made a good living, especially during the war years, but he never wanted me to take over his business. My parents' plans for me were to become a doctor--an aspiration which represented high status and was worry free in their eyes and which I never completely fulfilled. Yet it might have worked out differently.
Our neighborhood in the West Bronx was one of the nicer sections of the city. We overlooked the public school and were within walking distance of parks, shopping areas, playgrounds and public transportation. Most of us were second or third generation children of immigrants who had succeeeded economically. My father was unemployed during the Great Depresion but bounced back and was able to start his own business. The children of our neigborhood became physicians, dentists, lawyers, teachers, scientists, and successful businessmen. A block from our apartment house teens gathered alomng Mosholu Parkway and socialized on warm summer evenings. Among the group were two boys who later made it big. Calvin Klein and Ralph Lipshitz, now known as Ralph Lauren. I didn't know either of them but would have recognized them at thew time along the park fence. I've read that Lipschitz returns to the neighborwood frequently to visit his old apartment.
When I need to get a rise out of friends who know me well I point out that I, too, might have gone into the garment business and become a "cloakie." I, too, might have become a Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren. "You can't properly match a shirt and a tie," I am reminded "and if you dress well today it's because your wife picks out your clothes."
My mother, let her rest in peace, would say, "It was nicht bershert." It was not destined. So be it.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Fact or fantasy
Inserting autobiographical material is a hazardous business. Of course, every author projects some of himself into whatever he expresses. That is the assumption behind projective testing, a lost art. (It never was a science.) But using actual incidents or real people as the basis of your characters invites trouble.
In Shrink: Odyssey of a therapist I used myself as the hero. A large section of the book is taken from my own experiences. I did grow up in the Bronx in a Jrewish family, I attended Cornell and The University of Pennsylvania, and served in the army. I became a psychologist, worked for many years at a residential facility for handicpaped persons, and maintain a private practice. At some pont in the novel fact ends and fiction begins. Even in the autobioographical material, however, I made some changes to fit the personality of Morrie. Friends who know me, who have read Shrink draw their own conclusions, sometimes accurate, often erroeous. Both my wife and a female friend see the friend as the model for Morrie's wife--flattering to my friend, not so good for my wife. I have been asked whether I was ever attacked by a client in my office. I have not. I co-worker assumes that the hero of the sequel, Finding Jackson, also Morrie, is based on a mutual co-worker. (It is not. Still me.) I have never treated a multiple personality. I have never treated anyone who believed themselves to be reincarnated. If someday I do perhaps I'll know how to provide an intervention.
The locale that served as the birthplace for the villain in Shrink is based on the town of Thompson in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. To my knowledge there has never been a murderer who came from Thompson. Seven miles to the north on Route 171 is the town of Susquenhanna. A suburb called Great Bend, is
the spot where the Susqehanna River, originating in New York State, turns around on itself and heads back up to New York, only to turn back, merge with its western branch and empty further south into the Chesapeake Bay. James Michener in his novel Chesapeake, describes a fictious Native American, expelled from his tribe, who comes down the river and settles along the bay. A later chapter describes two explorers who go up the river, searching for its origin. They must choose at what is now the town of Sunburry, where the two branches merge, as to which branch to follow. Susquehanna is the birthplace of B. F. Skinner, who was during his life the foremost Anmerican psychologist, known for his studies of operant behavior in rats. Though Skinner did not treat patients, many of his students became clinicians and applied operant conditioning techniques in their work.
I owned eighteen acres along Route 171, north of Thompson and know the area well. I had a cabin built, doing some of the work myself, and used it for about fifteen years as a recreational property. I spent many happy hours exploring the countryside and meeting the people who live there. My favorite activity was to sit at the couter of one of the local diners and engage the person next to me in coversation. They were wary of talking with strangers but once I revealed that I owned land nearby they were comfortable talking to me. None of the people in my story a re mopdeled after anyone in Susquehanna County. One of these days I will donate a copy of my book to the library in Montrose, the County seat, where some of my story takes place. I also used the town of Honesdale, alomg Route 6 in Shrink. Thompson is between Montrose to the west and Honesdale to the east. I went to camp in the town of Lake Como, Pennsylvania,across the river on the New York side. not far from Hancock or Honesdale. A children's camp in the area also figures in my story.
I don't know if I will ever be sufficiently masochistic to write another novel. It's not the writing that deters me but the marketing. If I do become tempted my characters will be totally fictional.
In Shrink: Odyssey of a therapist I used myself as the hero. A large section of the book is taken from my own experiences. I did grow up in the Bronx in a Jrewish family, I attended Cornell and The University of Pennsylvania, and served in the army. I became a psychologist, worked for many years at a residential facility for handicpaped persons, and maintain a private practice. At some pont in the novel fact ends and fiction begins. Even in the autobioographical material, however, I made some changes to fit the personality of Morrie. Friends who know me, who have read Shrink draw their own conclusions, sometimes accurate, often erroeous. Both my wife and a female friend see the friend as the model for Morrie's wife--flattering to my friend, not so good for my wife. I have been asked whether I was ever attacked by a client in my office. I have not. I co-worker assumes that the hero of the sequel, Finding Jackson, also Morrie, is based on a mutual co-worker. (It is not. Still me.) I have never treated a multiple personality. I have never treated anyone who believed themselves to be reincarnated. If someday I do perhaps I'll know how to provide an intervention.
The locale that served as the birthplace for the villain in Shrink is based on the town of Thompson in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. To my knowledge there has never been a murderer who came from Thompson. Seven miles to the north on Route 171 is the town of Susquenhanna. A suburb called Great Bend, is
the spot where the Susqehanna River, originating in New York State, turns around on itself and heads back up to New York, only to turn back, merge with its western branch and empty further south into the Chesapeake Bay. James Michener in his novel Chesapeake, describes a fictious Native American, expelled from his tribe, who comes down the river and settles along the bay. A later chapter describes two explorers who go up the river, searching for its origin. They must choose at what is now the town of Sunburry, where the two branches merge, as to which branch to follow. Susquehanna is the birthplace of B. F. Skinner, who was during his life the foremost Anmerican psychologist, known for his studies of operant behavior in rats. Though Skinner did not treat patients, many of his students became clinicians and applied operant conditioning techniques in their work.
I owned eighteen acres along Route 171, north of Thompson and know the area well. I had a cabin built, doing some of the work myself, and used it for about fifteen years as a recreational property. I spent many happy hours exploring the countryside and meeting the people who live there. My favorite activity was to sit at the couter of one of the local diners and engage the person next to me in coversation. They were wary of talking with strangers but once I revealed that I owned land nearby they were comfortable talking to me. None of the people in my story a re mopdeled after anyone in Susquehanna County. One of these days I will donate a copy of my book to the library in Montrose, the County seat, where some of my story takes place. I also used the town of Honesdale, alomg Route 6 in Shrink. Thompson is between Montrose to the west and Honesdale to the east. I went to camp in the town of Lake Como, Pennsylvania,across the river on the New York side. not far from Hancock or Honesdale. A children's camp in the area also figures in my story.
I don't know if I will ever be sufficiently masochistic to write another novel. It's not the writing that deters me but the marketing. If I do become tempted my characters will be totally fictional.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Paying Peggy
My wife and I are enjoying the Winter Olympics. They bring to mind my experience over twenty years ago when I was responsible for a fund raising ice show for Elwyn, Inc. We had arranged for several top ranked ice skating amateurs to skate, including Scott Hamilton, the Crothers, and others. But the real draw was Peggy Fleming, whom we paid to skate for three performances. It was my responsibility to chauffer Peggy to each performance and ensure that she was treated well. Peggy was a huge hit amd she filled the arena each time. I found her to be a gracious and personable lady but I tested her patience with me.
In addition to ticket sales we had develed a program book which we sold at the event for two dollars. I collected the money, stuffing my pockets with singles and depositing them after the performance at a night drop at a local bank. The last performance was a Saturday evening. I was to provide Peggy and her husband, a dermatologist who served as her business manager, with a check. After the matinee I had no time to make the money drop-off. My friend Al invited me back to his house for a quick supper, offering to let me leave the cash with him and to drive me back for the last show. Al indicated that when he leaves money in the house he wraps it in wax paper, marks it FISH and places it in the freezer. So we did just that.
After Peggy's last performance Al suggested we pay Peggy and say good-bye.
I reached into my pocket and found no check.
"Where is it?" he demanded.
"I think it must be wrapped up in your freezer, marked FISH."
"You tell that to Peggy, I'm not going to." Apologetically, I explained the situation to Peggy.
"Just send me the check," she replied. No one could make up a story like that."
The following year Peggy could not make the event. The stands were empty.
In addition to ticket sales we had develed a program book which we sold at the event for two dollars. I collected the money, stuffing my pockets with singles and depositing them after the performance at a night drop at a local bank. The last performance was a Saturday evening. I was to provide Peggy and her husband, a dermatologist who served as her business manager, with a check. After the matinee I had no time to make the money drop-off. My friend Al invited me back to his house for a quick supper, offering to let me leave the cash with him and to drive me back for the last show. Al indicated that when he leaves money in the house he wraps it in wax paper, marks it FISH and places it in the freezer. So we did just that.
After Peggy's last performance Al suggested we pay Peggy and say good-bye.
I reached into my pocket and found no check.
"Where is it?" he demanded.
"I think it must be wrapped up in your freezer, marked FISH."
"You tell that to Peggy, I'm not going to." Apologetically, I explained the situation to Peggy.
"Just send me the check," she replied. No one could make up a story like that."
The following year Peggy could not make the event. The stands were empty.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Adolescence re-visited
Announcemt of the 60th reunion of my high school graduating class prompted me to call my old friend Burt, with who I had not communicated in several years. We agreed to attend the evnt and to meet afterward, along with our wives, and catch up. THe "Rose" and "the Wass" were how we referred to each other in those innocent
Bronx Science days. Burt, now retired and living mostly in Florida, is the author of three books of poetry. He sent me his latest work, which has been nominated for a national honor. I sent him a meager effort of my own, Bronx Lyric, reminmiscing about those coming of age experiences. Howver, he is the pro, I the dilettante.
As such I wrote:
Sea Chantey
The Rose and the Wass went out to sea
In a leaky pea green boat.
A storm came up, windward and lee
Their vessel would not float.
And one swam south, the other north,
Their lives were torn asunder.
No longer would they venture forth
In lightning and in thunder.
And each took heed to spread their seed
And conquer demons separately.
Yet each maintained a silent need
To re-connect irreparably.
A line was thrown, a line was caught
A flame was re-ignited.
And two old salts who never fought
Once more were re-united.
Bronx Science days. Burt, now retired and living mostly in Florida, is the author of three books of poetry. He sent me his latest work, which has been nominated for a national honor. I sent him a meager effort of my own, Bronx Lyric, reminmiscing about those coming of age experiences. Howver, he is the pro, I the dilettante.
As such I wrote:
Sea Chantey
The Rose and the Wass went out to sea
In a leaky pea green boat.
A storm came up, windward and lee
Their vessel would not float.
And one swam south, the other north,
Their lives were torn asunder.
No longer would they venture forth
In lightning and in thunder.
And each took heed to spread their seed
And conquer demons separately.
Yet each maintained a silent need
To re-connect irreparably.
A line was thrown, a line was caught
A flame was re-ignited.
And two old salts who never fought
Once more were re-united.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Auld lang syne
My dark month is over and with the passing of the winter solstice and the lengtheniing of daylight hours my mood improves. Yet I find myself returning to memories of happier days gone by.
Recently I re-read novelist Irwin Shaw's (1948) The Young Lions, a story of four young people enmeshed in the battles in Europe during WWII. Players change from decade to decade but the horrors of war anmd their impact upon us remain the same.
Last night while search for a TV movie I noticed the 1960 film "Never on Sunday" being shown. I re-watched the delightful fantasy of an intellectual and Greek tragedy scholar, played by Jules Dessin, trying unsuccessfully to reform a fun loving and free-living Greek prostitute (Melina Mercouri). My aunt, now deceased, traveled to Greece with her husband and learned to do the dance featured in the film
An e-mail from the alumni of my high school alma mata announces a sixtieth reunion. The first reunion was only ten years ago. I did not attend, having maintained few relationships from high school over the years. However when I read the list of those already registered, I recognized two of my friends from that time. I searched an old list of graduates and their addresses and called my closest buddy at the time, Burton, who lived in the same apartment house as I and cheered me with his humor all through my adolescent years. There were five of us from the old neighborhood in West Bronx. Two are now physicians--one a brain surgeon in New York City, the other a profesor of medicine at a prestigious New England university. The fourth became a lawyer attached to the State Attorney General's Office. When I searched his address I was shocked to see he had listed his office--the 45th floor of The World Trade Center. I Googled the list of 9/11 victims and was relieved when I did not find his name. The fifth, always an angry rebel, would never attend a reunion and was not listed in my directory. Burt and I lost touch except f0r an occasional phone call when I went off to Cornell and he stayed at New York's City College. He had become a writer for TV comedians after graduation but gave it up and went into the real estate business, where he prospered. He began writing poetry. His third book is about to be published and he has been nominated for a national honor. He was delighted to hear from me and we agreed to attend the meetings and re-kindle our friendship.
So, as we now enter a new decade, I continue to cling to old acquantances, not soon to be "forgot."
Recently I re-read novelist Irwin Shaw's (1948) The Young Lions, a story of four young people enmeshed in the battles in Europe during WWII. Players change from decade to decade but the horrors of war anmd their impact upon us remain the same.
Last night while search for a TV movie I noticed the 1960 film "Never on Sunday" being shown. I re-watched the delightful fantasy of an intellectual and Greek tragedy scholar, played by Jules Dessin, trying unsuccessfully to reform a fun loving and free-living Greek prostitute (Melina Mercouri). My aunt, now deceased, traveled to Greece with her husband and learned to do the dance featured in the film
An e-mail from the alumni of my high school alma mata announces a sixtieth reunion. The first reunion was only ten years ago. I did not attend, having maintained few relationships from high school over the years. However when I read the list of those already registered, I recognized two of my friends from that time. I searched an old list of graduates and their addresses and called my closest buddy at the time, Burton, who lived in the same apartment house as I and cheered me with his humor all through my adolescent years. There were five of us from the old neighborhood in West Bronx. Two are now physicians--one a brain surgeon in New York City, the other a profesor of medicine at a prestigious New England university. The fourth became a lawyer attached to the State Attorney General's Office. When I searched his address I was shocked to see he had listed his office--the 45th floor of The World Trade Center. I Googled the list of 9/11 victims and was relieved when I did not find his name. The fifth, always an angry rebel, would never attend a reunion and was not listed in my directory. Burt and I lost touch except f0r an occasional phone call when I went off to Cornell and he stayed at New York's City College. He had become a writer for TV comedians after graduation but gave it up and went into the real estate business, where he prospered. He began writing poetry. His third book is about to be published and he has been nominated for a national honor. He was delighted to hear from me and we agreed to attend the meetings and re-kindle our friendship.
So, as we now enter a new decade, I continue to cling to old acquantances, not soon to be "forgot."
Sunday, January 10, 2010
New Year
It's been several weeks since I entered a new post. I can't use the holiday excuse as I had eleven days off from work and much time to write. Chalk it up to my seasonal letdown around the holidays and the shorter days (SAD?). Nor can I attest to any new year resolutions. I don't believe in them and assume accountability for tasks on only a daily basis.
That said, we are past the solstice and my spirits are improving, if not my muse. My writing has ground almost to a halt. Shrink and Finding Jackson are out and I have done a book signing. I have two pieces in press--Becca in Cyberlanbd, sans illustrations, should be published shortly. I don't have high hopes for successful marketing without pictures to a children's audience. A short book of poetry, Oliver Twists in America, is also due out soon but will do no better than my first attempt, Bronx Lyric. I have written some pieces on line for Ezinearticles.com and Hubpages with no visible results in books sales or private practice referrals,so I stopped writing for them. I renewed my website (www.shrinksite.com)but I don't think I get many hits there either.
I receive occasional comments on my blog, usually from people interested in dreams and authors of their own blogs. I keep advising them that there are no universal symbols and that they need to associate to and interpret their own dreams.
My work at the high school is rewarding; I see about 20 kids regularly, some with srrious emotional and family problems. How much longer will I continue to do this? I'm not sure. I dislike the driving. Consulting is not what it is cracked up to be when school holidays come around since, unlike regular staff, I do not get paid for days off. However, I am free to manipulate my schedule and take long weekends.
We have discovered the Hudson River Valley as a great place for hiking and exploring Hyde Park and the Vanderbilt estate. From New Paltz, the Shewandunk Mountains are only about a mile or two to the west. The newly opened pedestrian bridge across the Hudson at Poughkeepsie, to the east, is a very pleasant walk on a nice day. The areas was the site of the Hudson River School of painting in the nineteenth cantury--the beginning of naturalistic art in this country. SUNU at New Paltz has an excellent art museum.
Recently we drove to Massachusetts for grandparents' day for one of my seven grandchildren. The first grade teacher asked the assembled grandparents how things were different in our day in school. I responded that desks were bolted to the floor and children were not as free to move around as they are today. The children seemed surprised at that, one claiming, to the embarrassment of the teacher, "We run around all the time." I also talked about the inkwells, blotters, and disposable pen points. We sat at our desks with our hands folded when not otherwise occupied. I did not find school to be a pleasant place but we did learn. My experience now at two high schools today suggests that it is a lot easier to graduate now without doing much work but that bright kids still are as conscientious as we were at The Bronx High School of Science in the late 1940s.
Enough for today. I'll try (but not resolve) to do better at blogging.
That said, we are past the solstice and my spirits are improving, if not my muse. My writing has ground almost to a halt. Shrink and Finding Jackson are out and I have done a book signing. I have two pieces in press--Becca in Cyberlanbd, sans illustrations, should be published shortly. I don't have high hopes for successful marketing without pictures to a children's audience. A short book of poetry, Oliver Twists in America, is also due out soon but will do no better than my first attempt, Bronx Lyric. I have written some pieces on line for Ezinearticles.com and Hubpages with no visible results in books sales or private practice referrals,so I stopped writing for them. I renewed my website (www.shrinksite.com)but I don't think I get many hits there either.
I receive occasional comments on my blog, usually from people interested in dreams and authors of their own blogs. I keep advising them that there are no universal symbols and that they need to associate to and interpret their own dreams.
My work at the high school is rewarding; I see about 20 kids regularly, some with srrious emotional and family problems. How much longer will I continue to do this? I'm not sure. I dislike the driving. Consulting is not what it is cracked up to be when school holidays come around since, unlike regular staff, I do not get paid for days off. However, I am free to manipulate my schedule and take long weekends.
We have discovered the Hudson River Valley as a great place for hiking and exploring Hyde Park and the Vanderbilt estate. From New Paltz, the Shewandunk Mountains are only about a mile or two to the west. The newly opened pedestrian bridge across the Hudson at Poughkeepsie, to the east, is a very pleasant walk on a nice day. The areas was the site of the Hudson River School of painting in the nineteenth cantury--the beginning of naturalistic art in this country. SUNU at New Paltz has an excellent art museum.
Recently we drove to Massachusetts for grandparents' day for one of my seven grandchildren. The first grade teacher asked the assembled grandparents how things were different in our day in school. I responded that desks were bolted to the floor and children were not as free to move around as they are today. The children seemed surprised at that, one claiming, to the embarrassment of the teacher, "We run around all the time." I also talked about the inkwells, blotters, and disposable pen points. We sat at our desks with our hands folded when not otherwise occupied. I did not find school to be a pleasant place but we did learn. My experience now at two high schools today suggests that it is a lot easier to graduate now without doing much work but that bright kids still are as conscientious as we were at The Bronx High School of Science in the late 1940s.
Enough for today. I'll try (but not resolve) to do better at blogging.
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