A LEVI AND A BENJAMIN

I am a direct descendant of the 12 tribes of Israel: my great grandfather was Abraham Levine and my great grandmother was Goldie Benjamin.

ESSEN

 

DON'T SLIP ON THE BANANA PEEL

 

THE WALL AND OTHER PARTS OF BROOKLYN

 I stood with my mother at this wall as the sirens blared and we had to wait for the "all clear" signal.

And this was why:

It all happened in Brooklyn... and the memories keep flooding back.

This was at one time my father's factory:

This is where I waited with my father for some nefarious men to show up with some dubious intent:

This is where my mother and Toni went for a coffee run:

This was my grandmother's house and the house in which my mother grew up:

That house on the left once belonged to Dr. Feldman. It has been torn down. 

This is where we dropped off my grandmother one day so she could vote and then go to a psychic for a "reading."

THE LONELINESS AND DESPAIR OF FOUR HOT SUMMERS ON MARTHA'S VINEYARD

"Every time I turn around, I am always here." -- Gail C., during the summer of 1960

And so it was for me, during the summers of 1959, 1960, 1961, and 1962. I was sent off to a summer camp on Martha's Vineyard that was owned and managed by the dance instructor of The Chapin School in NYC. Her name was Kathleen Hinni and she was well admired and a force to be reckoned with. She was formidable. 

Margaret Bourke-White spent a few summers with us in her own cabin by the cliff. But KT, as we called her, had a dark side and she managed the camp in strict ways and the result was that many of the girls there longed to go home. Some took drastic measures to find alternate ways to get out. I have never known a time when I was surrounded by so many others and felt such loneliness. 

I can still feel the hot air as I stood by the long staircase that led down to the water. I can still hear that sound of nothing as the breeze passed and made me feel so hopeless. I looked up to the blue sky and saw a plane high above and that sight created in me a desperation and a longing to go home. 

My parents visited one summer and I have a picture of me with my mother at the Martha's Vineyard airport that was taken so long ago. It is displayed above.

I wrote this poem in 2009 and it appears in my book. The photo above does not. 

I BASK, I EAT, I REST, AND I SCHMOOZE

THE LAST DAY

 I retired soon after 9/11. We always had a perfect view of the Twin Towers from right in front of the school, and today there is One World Trade Center that is now visible in the far distance. Here are some images that still stick with me from the time I was a teacher at the end of my career on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.. 

And this is where I waited for the bus so long ago on my last day as a teacher in that LES school. I was retired! I would not have changed anything (except the learning model) or missed it for anything. 

BY THE CREEKS WHERE I LIVED

This is Valley Stream, and not much has changed since that day so long ago when I left that town and drove off into Manhattan and into my future.