My Tom Hanks Moment and Other Odds and Ends

Did you see the article or hear about Tom Hanks finding in Central Park the lost student ID card of a Fordham University undergraduate and then tweeting his discovery, “Lauren! I found your Student ID in the park. If you still need it my office will get to you. Hanx.”? 

The tweet included a picture of Hanks holding the photo ID card (http://strib.mn/1Lh7Mhv) (http://www.today.com/popculture/tom-hanks-finds-fordham-students-lost-id-wants-give-it-t48601)

Though we live during a social network age largely populated by the young, believe it or not Lauren did not have a Twitter account. She was thus oblivious to her star-savior until one of her professors sent her a link to Twitter. Now she’s into her 15-minutes of fame and has appeared on television.

I bring this to your attention because of my own quest to return a picture of a comely looking college student I found as I walked across the quadrangle of Brooklyn College one day in the fall of 1969. She appeared attractive enough to ask out (this transpired just weeks before my Gilda Days began, so please don’t think I was two-timing my future wife). 

Back then not everyone could marshall the resources required to find the pictured coed, whose name was either Judy or Linda—both monikers were written on the back of the photo. I, however, was editor-in-chief of Calling Card, the newspaper of the House Plan Association. I had the means and the moxie to print the head shot on the front page of our next issue under the headline “Lost & Found.” 

Sure enough, my scheme produced the intended result. Judy-Linda showed up a few days later at the Calling Card office. Alas, I didn’t ask her out. Her picture did her more than justice. 

No word on what she thought of how I looked.

Time to catch up on some recent newsworthy events:

Our long (two years, a looooong time for Yankee fans!) national nightmare is over. We are back in the baseball playoffs. Well, by the time I got around to actually posting this brief, our time in the playoffs was mercilessly brief. We succumbed 3-zip to the Houston Astros. 

Our beloved Bronx Bombers were flawed in more ways than I care to recount. But we still won more games than 11 other teams in the American League and 10 in the National League and that is good enough for me. Twenty of those other teams failed to make the playoffs.

Did anyone else see a similarity between the head of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, when she testified before Congress recently and Claire Underwood, the wife of the fictitious Frank Underwood of House of Cards? Tall, with short blonde hair and a self assurance that refuses to fade when confronted by men of intolerance and ignorance.

As the saying goes, it is hard to put the cat back into the bag once it is out.

It doesn’t matter who arranged the meeting between Pope Francis and Kim Davis, the rogue Kentucky county clerk who has denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Plenty of ill-informed people will believe the pontiff endorsed Davis. Like corrections buried deep inside a newspaper, the story line too many people will remember is the pope greeting Davis and giving her a crucifix, not that he was duped into meeting her by his representative in Washington. 

The lesson we can all take away from this affair is that even the Vatican is not off limits to political machinations (of course we knew that already but this was a very public display of a subjective agenda meant to undermine and embarrass a popular pope while advancing rigid church dogma not sufficiently supported in public by the leader of the Catholic faith).  

Let ’em Go: Government officials have admitted it is hard to stop American zealots from traveling to ISIS-controlled regions to join the Islamic terrorists. I say, “Let ’em Go.”

But with a caveat—revoke their American citizenship so they can’t return easily to the United States, or, at the very least, incarcerate them if they show up on our shores. 

Let them go to get killed in the desert. If they find living in this country so terrible, let them discover what life in the caliphate will truly mean. Let them go inflict mayhem on other Muslims if they can, not as some sleeper terrorist on unsuspecting Americans inside the U.S. I am not anti-Muslim. It’s just that it is time for the vast majority of Muslims to stand up for their religion and exterminate the cancer from within. Outsiders cannot do it without fomenting anti-Western civilization hatred.  

Volleyball's Been Very Good to Me

Spent Friday rearranging Ellie’s bedroom furniture in anticipation of Donny and her visiting after delivering our third grandchild in the next month or so. It’s another transition mark. Last week I reluctantly accepted that a link to part of my athletic past had to be discarded to make way for solar power equipment monitors inside our garage: I threw out my volleyball net and eight foot poles.

Since my teenage years volleyball has been an important part of my life. From the ages of 14 through 22, I played in intense, invitation-only games every Saturday afternoon at summer camp. More significantly, I courted my wife playing volleyball, or rather she courted me.

Gilda and I formally met late spring 1969 at a meeting of incoming presidents of various Brooklyn College house plans. She was the next president of Russell House and one of, if not the first, female representatives on student government council. Aside from being the newly elected president of Knight House I was the editor-in-chief of Calling Card, the House Plan Association newspaper. We agreed that night she would contribute articles on the happenings of student government.

But she had her sights on more athletic happenings, as well. Russell was known for its beauty, not brawn. Gilda wanted to expand Russell’s appeal. Her goal was to hook up with Knight House during the fall co-ed volleyball season. I was part of the Knight House team that was a powerhouse in men’s intramurals and co-ed play. Gilda, on the other hand, was a gamer but not a very good player. Indeed, during one game, after she took a hard spike to the chest, I benched her, and not just for her own safety. 

Nevertheless, our mutual affection for each other grew during the season. We started dating when Gilda asked me to accompany her to a Christmas party at the Brooklyn Heights home of one of her political science professors. 

During my years on Chain Store Age I played on our company’s co-ed team in the publishing division of the corporate volleyball league at LaGuardia High School on Tenth Avenue. I was, admittedly, no longer as springy a jumper back then. I adapted from being a spiker to set-up man, mostly for Dan Bagan and John Kenlon. Together with Milford Prewitt, Roni Iszak Townson and Crystal Broomes-Deane, we won the championship once, maybe even twice. For many years I sported a two and a half foot tall trophy on top of a cabinet behind my desk. 

After our family moved to our current house in 1984, I turned our side yard into a regulation-sized volleyball court for staff parties and get-togethers with friends. Gilda’s garden and an expanded patio cut into the court size, but what really killed off playtime was … age. I could no longer jump, twist and turn. The poles and net were relegated to hang along the wall of the garage for a decade or longer. They’re gone now, but not the memories. 

Revisiting A Night in Court

The slowdown in arrests by New York City policemen has taken its toll on the proceedings of a venerable institution—night court, as related in Thursday’s New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/nyregion/quiet-in-the-court-drop-in-arrests-slows-new-yorks-busy-legal-system.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone&_r=0).  Forty-four years ago, as editor of Calling Card, a Brooklyn College newspaper, I spent time in night court. Here’s what I published back on October 15, 1970:

Room IIA of the New York City Criminal Court Building was filling up pretty quickly. By 8:25 p.m., almost all of the seats were occupied, but the stream of people seeking entrance didn’t subside. Women, some dressed up in fancy overcoats and beauty-parlor hairdos or wigs were, at time, joking with each other, but for the most part, they wore the concerned faces of mothers and friends seeking comfort in their time of hardship. The faces of the men also revealed the tense situation of the courtroom appearance. As if in an attempt to minimize their presence in court, the people talked in hushed tones about the everyday occurrences of life in our city—the men whispered about the last Jets game while the women talked quietly about the rising cost of eggs. All of them, however, were united in a common bond—they were all Black or Puerto Rican.

An appearance in court, even to an innocent bystander, evokes feeling of inconsequence and unimportance. One is overwhelmed by the austerity of the surroundings, the paneled walls of the room, the elevated seat of the judge, and, above the seat, the hallowed words, “In God We Trust.” To a Black man, the emotions seem to be even more exaggerated, for he lives in a white man’s world of equality and justice where even god is not to be wholly trusted—he, too, is probably white. Sitting there in court, one could sense their apprehension, their feelings of impending doom. Their only hope was a compassionate judge, one who wouldn’t set bail too high and force upon the accused a prolonged stay in the Tombs. 

As if in answer to their hopes the judge entered. The bailiff bid everyone to rise, and in stepped a man wearing a conservative grey suit. Immediately his most obvious characteristic was noted by all—the judge was just as black as the rest of the people in court. The honorable Dennis Edwards, Jr. seated himself and reluctantly, it appeared, ordered the proceedings to start. Tonight, the only business at hand was the arraignment of prisoners, setting their trial dates and the amount of money needed to post bail. Boredom traced its way along the lines of the judge’s face as he sat, head resting in the palm of his hand, listening to the steady drone of the bailiff. As each prisoner approached the bench, the only voice to be heard was the full rich baritone voice of the bailiff apprising the gallery of the crime allegedly committed by the accused. The monologue would continue at a steady rate for about fifteen seconds, during which time the prisoner was told his constitutional rights. How he was expected to understand this mumbo-jumbo was not the court’s concern. If the prisoner was Puerto Rican, all the better—no translator was present.

The sequence of events, the policeman bringing the accused to the bench where the charge was read and bail and trial date were set, was repeated for half an hour. There was little talking in the room, everyone straining their ears to hear what was taking place. One defendant, a Puerto Rican, when told his bail was $1,000, asked for a reduction. His wife, through the aid of a court appointed lawyer, said she could raise, maybe $500. Leniency by the court was requested. An indifferent denial was received.

And so it continued for thirty minutes, followed by a short recess and a resumption of more of the same. Justice wasn’t being served, only delayed, and the boredom of the proceedings could be seen all around the courtroom—the judge staring blankly at the walls, a court lawyer, waiting for assignment, biting his fingernails, and, in the last pew of the room, a drunk sleeping off his latest binge. His grey hair was strewn all over his head and unshaven face, and he wore his socks in the typical style of the Bowery bum—rolled down to the ankles. How he was able to stay undetected in court wasn’t hard to figure out—the guards were all too bored to notice him. As long as he didn’t snore, he fit in with the rest of the scenery just as if he were part of the woodwork. Perhaps he was dreaming about better times, when courts of law will be obsolete and only rarely used. For his sake, I hope he wasn’t dreaming about that, for when he would wake up and see where he was and what was taking place around him, the stark realization of our court system would be enough to drive the man to drink.

I'm Not Ready to Applaud Ukraine

Have you been following the extraordinary, tingling news from Ukraine? Sounds like the good guys won, at least for now. Yet I am ambivalent. You see, the Ukrainians who have seemingly toppled a government are from the western portion of the country, the descendants of anti-Semitic beasts who aided the Nazi extermination of Jews, including my father’s family in Ottynia in the Galicia region, once considered a central concentration of Jewish life and culture in Eastern Europe.

According to Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, 1,200 Jews were killed by Ukrainians in the nearby Szeparowce Forest on July 7, 1941, just days after Germany occupied Ottynia on July 1. On August 3, Wiesenthal reported, 45 Jews were shot by Ukrainians in the town. 

Ingmar Oldberg, an associate researcher in the Russia program at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, wrote in August 2011, “According to Jewish scholars and organizations, the Ukrainian Nachtigall battalion, together with German troops and local Ukrainians, massacred Jews in the first days of July before continuing their march. At the end of the month a new pogrom was carried out in the city (of Lviv), known as the “Petliura Days”, named for the Ukrainian leader who instigated pogroms during the 1919 struggle for independence. Even after Nazi troops retreated toward the end of the war, incidents of persecution by the Ukrainians against the remaining Jews occurred throughout Galicia.”

He concluded his essay thusly: “The Holocaust of the Jews and Ukrainian complicity are still rarely addressed ... The world is still waiting for Ukrainian historians in general to admit that Ukrainians were not only victims, but also executioners. The Jews are waiting for their rightful place in Ukraine’s history and contemporary life” (http://balticworlds.com/ukraine%25E2%2580%2599s-problematic-relationship-to-the-holocaust/).

My Uncle Willy, a survivor of the extermination in Ottynia who hid from the Nazis for several years before being enlisted by the Russian army, related his own story of fear of Ukrainian anti-Semitism. When assigned to a battalion to be shipped out to fight the Germans, he asked for a transfer to a different unit. Why? Because, he told his commandant, his original unit was composed of Ukrainian soldiers. He feared being shot by them because he was Jewish. He asked for a transfer to a Russian battalion. His request was granted.

So no, I am not ready to stand up and cheer just now.

Speaking of Nazis: How’s that for a segue into my next topic, taking a small round of applause for correctly predicting Downtown Abbey’s Lady Edith’s lost-in-Munich-lover had a run-in with Brown Shirted bullies in the Bavarian capital. 

Okay, I suggested he embedded himself with the Nazis to get a scoop for his paper, instead of being assaulted or worse by them, as Lady Edith told her family, but let’s not quibble about small details, nor about my prediction he’d return in time for the birth of their love-child. 

More Kudos: For those who watch CBS Sunday Morning, yesterday’s edition featured a profile of an old-fashioned Colorado newspaper produced by Linotype machine, just as I explained to you the other day how my college newspaper, Calling Card, made it into print. 

Junior's, Brooklyn's Original Cheesecake Factory

News broke earlier this week that the iconic Junior’s restaurant in downtown Brooklyn will sell its location on Flatbush Avenue so a high rise condominium could be built. Junior’s hopes to lease back ground floor space in the building but in the interim also hopes to open a nearby restaurant for its signature cheesecake and other delectables (http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/junior-selling-flagship-location-brooklyn-article-1.1620413).

Junior’s opened in 1950, a year after I was born, but my experience with the restaurant didn't deepen until 20 years later when I was editor of Calling Card, a Brooklyn College newspaper published by the House Plan Association.

Calling Card came out every two weeks or so. We produced Calling Card the old fashioned way, through a hot lead process. Copy would be retyped by Linotype operators sitting in front of enormous clanking machines reminiscent of a Middle Ages torture chamber device complete with an arm suspending shiny lead bars slowly melting into a well that in turn were transformed into individual lines of words printed in reverse and then lined up on a page form based on a layout designed by one of our editors. 

Ink would be rolled over the hot lead to imprint a true version of a story or advertisement. But as anyone who worked in these pre-computer printing days could tell you, we didn't wait for the inked version to check copy. We all learned to read upside down in reverse, a skill that proved quite invaluable in the real world of reporting when one found oneself seated across from someone who was reluctant to talk, confident incriminating evidence on his or her desk was incomprehensible to prying eyes.

But I digress from Junior’s. The printer we used was located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. About half a dozen editors would drive to the printer. We'd arrive around 6 pm, not finish until well past midnight. We didn't get paid for this work, but we did get a communal dinner allowance— $40, which worked out to a princely per person sum back then. Often we'd go to Junior’s around 11 pm before returning to the printing plant to put the paper to bed.

We'd order strip steaks or hamburgers and always dessert. I wasn't a big fan of cheesecake at the time, so I usually opted for a wedge of banana cream pie or nesselrode pie. Believe me when I say a “wedge.” Junior’s’ portions were gigantic.

Heading back to the printer one misty night I got my first traffic ticket. I made what I thought was a legal left turn from Flatbush Avenue onto Lafayette Avenue. A few blocks later I pulled over to let a police car with its rooftop bubble gum machine ablaze in rotating blue and red lights pass me. Only the cop car stopped right behind me. “No, officer, I did not see the ‘No Left Turn’ sign.”

A few months later our printer moved to Great Neck, just barely inside Nassau County. It was too far away to eat in Junior’s. We discovered the Scobee Diner on Northern Boulevard in Little Neck, Queens, another landmark eatery that no longer exists (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/nyregion/04metjournal.html?_r=1&).

When my kids were young they'd ask if I believed in god. I'd tell them about a ride home to Brooklyn from the printer in Great Neck one winter night when I experienced the invisible hand of good fortune or god, depending on your outlook. 

At 2 am I had the Belt Parkway all to myself. I must have been going at least 70 miles per hour, maybe closer to 80. With no one else on the road, I traveled in the middle lane. Around Pennsylvania Avenue I inexplicably switched lanes, moving to my left. No more than a few hundred yards later I passed a deep pothole in the center lane. Had I not changed lanes I surely would have hit that pothole, doing untold damage to my car and possibly to me. 

Karma or Jehovah? You tell me.

Forty Years Ago Today

Two days after the Kent State University massacre of May 4, 1970, when four students were killed protesting the Vietnam War, I reported to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn for a military physical exam (anyone who has seen Arlo Guthrie’s depiction of his physical in the film Alice’s Restaurant can immediately identify with the experience—scores of young men walking around in their underwear holding clear plastic bags with their valuables while medics poke and prod them and ask for the odd “sample”) .

Rather than conjure up my thoughts of May 6, 1970, I’ll share with you a column I wrote 40 years ago under the title “The Crack of Doom” that appeared that very same day in Calling Card, a Brooklyn College newspaper I edited for 18 months:

“While you are sitting on the grass of the quadrangle or the cafeteria reading this column, I am currently seeking an Armed Forces Physical Examination. At precisely seven o’clock in the morning, I will have presented myself in Building 116 of Fort Hamilton to be tested as to my fitness to serve in the defense of our country. This quirk of fate, an issue of Calling Card coinciding with the date of my first formal introduction to the military, offers me a unique opportunity to express my predicament while, at the same time, undergoing the experience.

“During my high school days I had a history teacher who often lectured the class on the culpability of the Vietnam War. Most of the students, including myself, were rather naïve about the situation , and therefore took a position that, at best, could be described as “our country, right or wrong.” As the years passed and my learning progressed, the wisdom and foresight of my mentor became clearer to me. The need for action on my part was required. However, again with the naivete of youth, I believed that by the time I’d finish college the conflict would be over, I’d be in graduate school, and the spectre of enlistment would pass. During my sophomore year at Brooklyn, the war kept escalating and graduate deferments were limited to medical students. The noose was beginning to tighten around my neck as the options left me became fewer in number. Since I’m not a pre-med student, I was advised by many to put my name on Reserve lists. But before I had decided to sign on the dotted lines, President Johnson made his historic speech of March 31, 1968, and new hope for my future was kindled. Why sign away my life for six years if the Peace Talks would end the cause of my troubles before I graduated?

“And so, like millions of other Americans, I was deluded into believing that the war had taken a turn for the better. Partly by saying that he had a secret plan for ending the fighting, Nixon was elected president. Yet, in his full year in office, more American boys died in Vietnam than in 1967, the year of major opposition to Johnson’s war policies. Time was running out on me, my senior year had half elapsed, when I finally came to terms with myself. I had put my name on one Reserve list in December, but the thought of becoming a soldier, even a reservist, every day grew more repulsive. I could no more be a member of the army than be a teacher in a public school. Both professions would mean a compromise of my beliefs. (now, after the recent Nixon speeches on the cessation of future occupational deferments, I find that I saved myself a good deal of time in deciding against becoming an Education major.) I had made a choice concerning my profession (journalism), but as to my future the decision was still in the air. Come graduation, where would I be—Vietnam or Canada?

“The answer to that question awaits the outcome of today. My only hope is that I flunk my physical; it’s a slim chance, but that’s what I’m basing my failure on—I’m underweight. If I flunk, I’ll be able to live my life normally until the next physical, and if I fail enough of them I’ll be free forever. But if I pass, the words “soul searching” won’t be strong enough to express the inner conflicts that I will have—Vietnam is wrong...I don’t want to learn how to kill...i don’t want to be killed...but I also don’t want to leave the country or my family...nor do I want to serve a jail sentence.

“My predicament is not unique, but by vocalizing it I have given expression to the fears, frustrations, and shattered hopes of a whole generation of young people. To them, to me, the draft is not a cold wind on the neck—it’s doom.”

(Editor’s Note: To read how the physical turned out, revisit my blog of November 11, 2009: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2009/11/veterans-day-salutes.html).