Fall of '54 I was a junior beginning classes at 8am. I was excited because I could take some college level chemistry courses; the first being Qualitative Analysis. My hobby at the time was pyrotechnics, making rockets, flares and some minor explosives. It was later in this year that I set my lab in the basement on fire and my father threw everything in the trash can. One year earlier I accidently blew up a test tube and got a shard of glass in my eye. I lied about the cause and after it was extracted had to wear a black patch for a month. My lab was spared that time.
I got a job after school (12:30), ate my lunch on the subway heading to mid-town Manhattan. I worked for a music service which had a small retail outlet but a large mail order business. We shared office space with an arranger who had some well known clients, including Marilyn Monroe, whom I met twice. I worked four hours a day five days a week for $1 an hour and saved every penny of it. I still worked for my father on Saturdays for $10. Riding home at the same time every day on the subway after work I met two Hispanic girls. We smiled at each other for a few days until I introduced myself. I assumed that they were Puerto Ricans; the one that I was interested in was named Mercede, which she pronounced Mer' the de, which years later I was told that this was a Castillian dialect that no Puerto Rican had. When I asked her for a date she said that I would have to meet her parents first; no problem. The next day she said that her parents absolutely forbade her to date a non-Hispanic. We still saw each other most days, kissed a few times but that was all. The next school year she was gone.
After supper I did homework; three hours every night, even on Fridays. The school assumed that we could handle this and so made us prove it. When I graduated I had an 87% average; they didn't use GPA way back then. I wanted to succeed and my parents wanted it more. I didn't date much that year but still managed to acquire a girl friend; she was after me. Her name was Kathy Clinch and she attended my church. She was 13 when I was 16, but she was tall. The age difference put me off a bit but a year later when I was 17 and she was 14 it didn't seem to matter as much; maybe because then she had breasts and sadly, bad acne. We were friends, not lovers, and we plodded along for another year. She had an older brother who was the same age as my older sister and so her parents were rather cordial; we all went to the same church. I was just waiting to grow up and Kathy was part of that. My favorite song that year was a very slow one compared to the new rockers like Bill Haley.

Fall of '53 I entered high school as a sophomore. Because Stuyvesant High School was an old school in downtown Manhattan and had twice the number of students that it could handle, they had freshmen and sophomores start at 12:30 pm and go to classes until 5:00 pm (six classes @ 45 minutes each), no lunch period; you ate before you came or after you left. This was the only year that I did my homework in the morning. I was overwhelmed by school that year. My favorite class was chem lab; also took electric wiring, mechanical drawing and my third year of French.
The afternoon schedule sucked though. When I got home every day about 6:00 pm it was time to eat. I didn't get much time to hang out. There was a dance almost every other week at the 'Y', that was the YMHA, and boys and girls danced together but never committed to anything. I envied the guys that would just go up to a girl and ask them to dance. I found a little courage now and then. After my first year in an all boys school I went on staff at the Boy Scout Camp Ranaqua for the whole summer. I don't think that there was even one female in the camp. I looked forward to the coming year; things couldn't get worse so they had to get better. Cigarette pack size transistor radios were the rage; everybody had one. That summer it was:

Fall 0f '52 I entered my senior year in Jr High. This was the year that I learned why I was so unsuccessful in gaining the attention of girls that I liked. They all liked guys that were older than them. Okay, change of tactics; where to look? I was a member of my church's youth group, something our new pastor initiated. We were all 10-14 years old; I was second oldest. There was this girl, Helen Bresnahan, who was really cute. I tried to arrange a date but she kept putting it off. I found out later that it was her brother Jimmy that sort of threatened her if she dated me. Jimmy and I were never friends. Oh well, there were plenty of Jewish girls in my school who did not know or did not care if/that I was a goy.
Jessica Paloma was one of them; she was years ahead in development over her classmates. I actually got to touch them once. We remained friends for years. Then there was Barbara, Brenda, Eleanor, Sheila and Toby. We just sorta hung together at dances but without commitment. I really liked Toby (Klein) and followed her home from school one day only to see where she lived (1600 University Ave). I sent her a 'secret Valentine' It went nowhere.
Spring of '53 we took entrance exams to go to the many special schools that NYC had established. These were based on merit, not on geography. My score was 87% when the cutoff was 83%; I had decided to go to Stuyvesant High School, an all boys school, because of its reputation for graduating top notch college material. I never thought that I had put myself into an even more hopeless situation datewise by going to this school; it was 10 miles from where I lived. I still met new girls at the skating rink near Fordham Road which we went to about twice a month. One girl (Eileen Iskowitz) which both me and my friend Bobby Weiss were interested in asked her out on a date. She accepted both offers but after our second date she asked me if I was Jewish. I think Bobby threw me under the bus. Dating then was just a means of telling your buddies that you would not always choose their company above all else; you were saying that you were growing up. Girls enjoyed receiving compliments; they would even blush occasionally. When I received one I was totally unglued. I thought I was in love every other week.
June of '53 I turned 14 and was eligible to work on staff at our church's camp. I worked there for six weeks for $4 a week digging out a tennis court, then I went to Boy Scout camp for two weeks to unwind. It was a very good year.

I think that the years in Jr High were so crammed full of activity that I will never forget them. My 7-8th teacher was Mrs. Walker, a very tall and good looking woman. She rode to school with the gym teacher, Mr. Stafford. We made up stories about them. During a softball game a pop fly hit right to me got lost in the sun; it landed on my foot. I was never forgiven. After school we played Box Ball and Captain. In the evening we played Hide and Seek and Ring-a-lievio. Saturdays I worked for my father mopping floors, sweeping the sidewalk and backyard and polishing brass in the apartment house that he managed; I got $10 a week for my labor, no allowance. I ate lunch with my buddies at the Deli; always ordering a Hot Pastrami sandwich with a pickle and a hot cherry pepper, all for $1.75. In the afternoon we would play stickball in the street or street hockey on roller skates that clamped on to street shoes with a skate key.
Two girls were in my life that year. Miriam Havre (Mimi) who lead me to believe that I could actually get somewhere with her - NOT!!! And then there was Ellen Harvey with whom I had my first real date at the movies. After three dates my mother found out about her and prevented me from ever seeing her again. The summer of '52 I went to Boy Scout Camp at Narrowsburg, NY. The application asked if I required kosher food; I check 'no' not knowing that the rest of my troop checked 'yes.' I spent 2 weeks with a bunch of Irish Catholics who liked me well enough until the next Sunday when we all had to go to Mass. When it was obvious that I didn't know what to do or say, I explained that I was Lutheran. Freeeeeeze out! What a miserable time. However strange, I got to like one of the songs my parents listened to. I think I liked it because there were so many words that I did not understand.

In 1951 when I was in the 6th grade all the students were given an IQ test. The top 25% were give the opportunity to participate in a new program that the NYC School Board thought would help advance smarter kids by challenging them to absorb more material sooner (and get them out of the public school system one year earlier). My IQ was 138. So, in the fall of 1951 I was enrolled in 7SP3 which was one of three 'Special Progress' classes, (they were populated by alphabetic order, not by IQ scores). We completed the 7th, 8th and 9th grades in two years. It did not appear to me to be intense which was why they started the program. This was back in PS82 which was right next to our house. I could walk out of my door and be in the schoolyard in 30 feet. I was late a lot.
I began to pay more attention to music at this time because it was something that boys and girls could share without committing to anything. Our parents were listening to Hank Williams and his ilk but we were listening to Fats Domino, Lloyd Price and Les Paul and Mary Ford (he's the guy who invented the electric guitar). Hormones were just starting to kick in. The most beautiful girl in the world was my classmate named Susan Schlessinger. I admired her from afar for two years; I never thought that I would have a chance with her, so I never asked. I guess that I learned a lesson the year before when I was pursuing Betty Eisner who was cordial but not interested.
I could not find a decent recording of Les Paul and Mary Ford singing their greatest hit "How High the Moon" but this is just as classy.

My time in PS 26 (now Middle School 390) spanned the years 1948-1951. I was nine years old going in and twelve coming out. I had my first crush on a girl there; her name was Adrian Abromowitz, a Jewish girl. I didn't date a Christian girl until I was sixteen. Our neighborhood in the West Bronx was half Jewish and half Irish Catholic; the Catholics all went to a parochial school across the street from PS26 named Holy Spirit. On Jewish holidays our school of about 500 kids had an attendance of ten. There were no African-Americans or Hispanics. The nearest public library was two blocks from our school and most days I went there after class to borrow some books; I read a lot of books. I didn't fit in anywhere. I got beat up by Irish kids twice and by Jewish kids once. Of all the kids in the Lutheran church that I attended, none of them lived anywhere close to me. My family's social life was centered on the German-American community in the Bronx. We went to dances and picnics and built a network of friendship that lasted until we moved to Maryland. In 1951 I joined the Boy Scouts of America; our troop met at the Hebrew Institute of University Heights, (years later sold to the city for a drug rehab center) two blocks away from my home. I was the only Christian scout in the troop. I was never discriminated against in the six years that I was a member there. In fact, I was promoted to the position of Junior Assistant Scout Master; the highest position a scout can attain being sub-adult. My family did not have a TV then; we would sit in the living room listening to the radio. One of my favorite programs was The Shadow whose famous byline was 'Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of man; the Shadow knows.' Two songs of that era remain on my all time favorites list: and

My family lived in Manhatten when I was a baby but relocated during the war to the Bronx. After the war we moved again but only a few blocks away. The school that I attended kindergarten and first grade (PS 82 on Macombs Road) had only those grades; it was really a junior high school. For the second grade I went to PS 104 on Shakespeare Avenue; the only time I was ever bused to school. My K-1 teacher was Mrs. Glogal, a very nice lady; 2nd grade was Mrs. Lang whom I met on a trolley car once and was very intimidated by her. She was a good, caring teacher. We had great respect for our teachers back then; they were second only to parents on the influence they had in our lives. She asked where I was going and I truthfully answered that I was going to the library. She patted my hand and said "Good, good." Then we moved and I had to go to PS 26 on Burnside Avenue; my teacher for the 3rd grade was Mrs. Horowitz, the worst teacher that I ever had. She used to shriek at us and behind her back we called her Mrs. Horrible Witch. Around this time a song was written titled "Ghost Riders In the Sky" and was first sung by Vaughn Monroe in 1949. I never got tired of listening to it; it was the first song whose lyrics I committed to memory.

I had a relatively happy childhood. My family did things together, although not often because of the times (WWII) and a few years after that, but trips to Coney Island or Bear Mountain were really special. We visited often with my mother's fellow immigrant Hannah Smith at Greenwood Lake. My first female interest was her daughter June. My sister and I shared a radio and fought often about what music to listen to. Two of my most memorable tunes were these:
Vera Lynn singing "We'll Meet Again"



and Edith Piaf, who became a resistance fighter during the German occupation of France and was hunted by the Gestapo, singing La Vie En Rose.



It would be ten years before I understood what the words meant. The most significant event of those times was V-J Day in August 1945 when every living soul was in the streets celebrating the end of the war. I was six years old. I don't remember what day of the week it was but I will wager that not many people were in shape to go to work the next day. A few weeks after that all of us children went to our school to take home our share of veggies that we had planted there in our Victory Garden. Every school in NYC did this; it was our contribution to the war effort.
In 1946, my future Uncle John was discharged from the Army and married my dad's sister Kitty. She was living with us but after the marriage she moved to his home in Baraboo, WI. I was sad; she was my all time favorite aunt. Over the years we made a few trips to visit them; not enough. Kids get over stuff; every day there was something new; still is if you are still a kid.

One form of happiness for me is when I experience the product of a group of people that can work together and come up with something memorable. One of these experiences (maybe the first) occurred when I was still a child. This is a recording of the Glenn Miller Orchestra playing their most popular tune - In the Mood. Pay attention to the back and forth of the hard brass and the soft brass. Just imagine the youth of that day doing a Jitterbug.

I believe that I have a creative instinct. Happiness results when my product is pleasing in my eyes. Yet I have had failures and have learned hard lessons from them. Beauty, or acceptance, is in the eye of the beholder, not my eye. My work or works come from my inner being, not to be analysed or categorized. My pleasure in the things that I do is not dependent on the opinion of others but it surely is heartwarming when they agree with me.

I have been working in various aspects of carpentry since 1971 and began writing in 2001. Both require a period of apprenticeship; I am ready for my trial.

My works are at http://www.varady.org/prvsr/index.html and my work is at

http://www.varady.org/woodcraft.html