Monthly Archives: February 2011

It would be an untruth to say that life in the jungle was miserable all the time, especially after I acquired jungle boots.  There were times when things were unexpectedly lovely.  The problem was that there weren’t enough of these … Continue reading →

The sense of being in a movie at Fort Davis was based in part on the large quadrangle of perfectly maintained lawn, on which some soldiers usually drilled, to the sound of their noncoms’ commands.  On three sides of the … Continue reading →

Basic training, which normally took three months, in my case, lasted six months because it was infantry basic.  Some of us were assigned to specialized schools which lasted three months, but as I didn’t have any of the skills the … Continue reading →

Basic training at Fort Dix was an interesting experience.  I didn’t hate it as much as the other men did, I guess because I was more used to institutional living than other men there.  The discipline didn’t bother me, and … Continue reading →

While life as a bias cutter was unappealing, I may not have been as ready for college as I thought.  It is possible I was just too young (I was only 16 when I started), that Brooklyn College was academically … Continue reading →

I was still in high school, and now came the problem of what to do next.  Not being a stellar student hadn’t bothered me, particularly as I had never expended much effort on being such.  On the other hand, I … Continue reading →

Before Washington Square had become a military parade field, it had been a potter’s field, where indigents and criminals (often one and the same) were buried.  For New York this was a neat arrangement as criminals were also hanged there, … Continue reading →

The square dance wasn’t all square dancing.  Mr. T. needed a break every now-and-then, but during those breaks there was folk dancing, dances such as Korobushka, Schotishes, and Road to the Isles, which I sat out because I didn’t know … Continue reading →

Senior year at Seward led quite naturally into the next stage of my life, the tolerant Greenwich Village of bohemian painters, poets, coffee shops, parties, gays (who weren’t called gays in those days), Jazz, folk musicians, and chess players . … Continue reading →

It was now 1953, and I was seventeen, a senior at Seward Park.  I had a crush on Eleanor Atlas, but I doubted she knew I existed, although we were in the same English class.  Naturally, she had all the … Continue reading →