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: