Bernie Sanders Came Home to Brooklyn I Knew

In the quadrangle where Gilda and I walked (not always together) more than a thousand times between classes at Brooklyn College, Bernie Sanders kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign Saturday. 

For Bernie it was a return, somewhat, to his roots. He grew up about a mile away, in a three-and-a-half room, rent-controlled apartment at the intersection of Kings Highway and East 26th Street. I passed that corner twice every day on my bus ride to and from my elementary school. Bernie attended Brooklyn College for one year, 1960, before transferring to the University of Chicago (

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/02/bernie-sanders-gets-personal-2020-presidential-campaign-rollout/3040149002/).

BC was and still is a commuter school. Students go home for the night, generally to their parents’ residence, not to a dormitory or fraternity/sorority house. When Gilda and I attended in the late 1960s BC had some 30,000 students. After our marriage and move to Seymour, Conn., outside New Haven, Gilda had to explain to Jewish women, amazed at our good fortune to have found a fellow Jew among the student body to wed, that it was nearly impossible to escape dating a member of the tribe back then as Jews comprised an overwhelming majority of those enrolled.

Sanders is considered a radical by some because of his label as a Social Democrat and his advocacy of progressive programs including universal health care, free tuition at all public universities and a $15  hourly minimum wage.

Truth is, BC was a hotbed of radicalism from the time it opened its doors in 1930. Leftists and Communists were plentiful on campus (http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/bc/index.html). Extremism gave way to more mainstream liberalism by the 1950s. Until the mid 1960s male students were required to wear ties with sports jackets or suits; women could not wear slacks. 

By the time my freshman year started in September 1966, BC had become a rather folksy place. You could wear jeans and hang out in the cafeteria all day, if you’d like (as I did). The campus did close down during the Vietnam War protests as the decade came to a close, but the atmosphere as I recall it was nothing like the student revolt at Columbia University in Manhattan. 

Though a part of the City University of New York system, Brooklyn College nationally was considered a top liberal arts institution. Only students with an above average combined SAT and high school grade point score could attend. All at a cost of $50 per semester, equivalent today to $391.33. Books were extra. 

The year I graduated Brooklyn adopted an open admissions policy to anyone with a high school degree. The campus quickly changed. No longer could it be cast as a “white bread” campus. Academic standards deteriorated. It took several years before the open admissions policy was reversed.

The campus Bernie Sanders visited Saturday has been greatly transformed by new buildings on both sides of Bedford Avenue. Guarded gates now surround entrances from the neighborhood of single family homes and moderate height apartment houses. A few years ago, during a nostalgic tour of the Brooklyn of our youth, Gilda and I talked our way past a security guard to gain entry to the campus. Memories overwhelmed us. Good memories. 

Predictions Come True and Some Corrections

As I predicted, Black Friday madness turned violent. Reports of gunfire in South Carolina from a possible robbery in a parking lot and pepper-spraying by one shopper trying to diffuse the competition seeking an X-Box player in a California store vied for headlines with another pepper-spraying incident, this time by a security guard in North Carolina trying to retrieve a cell phone that had fallen from a display.

Rome had its Circus Maximus and then the Coliseum where the public was entertained for days on end by games, gladiator contests and pageantry. We have Black Friday and subsequent sales days from now till Christmas, and then the post-holiday clearance sales period. For some lighter fare, we have the continuing series of Republican Party presidential debates.

It’s hard to believe we’ve matured as a society from those ancient times.


Corrections: In my last blog on Cooper Union and Brooklyn College, I made several mistakes when writing about Open Admissions. So here’s a cleaned up version, thanks to Gilda’s keen editing eye and better memory:

Gilda and I attended Brooklyn College, the closest entity to free higher education. Back in the late 1960s, Brooklyn College and City College accepted only the best students, basically anyone with an A average. B students went to one of the other City University of New York schools, such as Hunter College or Queens College. Tuition at Brooklyn College each semester was $50 ($332 in current inflation adjusted dollars) plus the cost of books. Today, tuition is $2,565 per semester for matriculated full-time students. Since it was a commuter school, few if any students incurred housing costs.

Shortly before we graduated in 1971, the City University of New York initiated Open Admissions. Mostly anyone with a high school degree could attend. Brooklyn College began accepting students with less than an A average. Quality deteriorated. The grand experiment failed. The school has reverted to a more stringent admissions policy. I’m not familiar with Brooklyn College’s current academic standing, but when Gilda and I attended, it was a top notch liberal arts institution, virtually free to all who qualified.

Thanksgiving Message on Eating Better, Hoarding and Free Tuition

With Thanksgiving upon us (mostly inside us by now), it’s hard to think about anything but food, so I’ll lead off with the thought that I eat better today than when I grew up because of TWA’s frequent flyer program.

Rarely did my mother’s dinner table exhibit any green-colored food item. The occasional broccoli head or asparagus spear showed up drooping in its limpness. My mother served no vegetable not thoroughly overcooked. I think she stayed away from serving green peas because they reminded her of my lousy eating habits. She claimed I drove her to return to full-time work in my father’s factory because I would throw back at her the peas she placed on my high chair tray.

Gilda had little success at first altering my diet. If meat and potatoes were sufficient for my father, they were good enough for me. All that changed about 10 years into our marriage. As an early member of TWA’s frequent flyer plan, I took advantage of first class upgrades when the elite section had seats available (back then just being a member of the program entitled you to free upgrades at no cost in miles).

During one transcontinental flight, the first class stewardess offered cold asparagus vinaigrette as an appetizer. Naturally, I passed, but then had second thoughts. Why not take full advantage of my first class status? It was a decision that changed my gastronomic outlook. I’d never before tasted properly prepared asparagus. Delicious. In short order I even became a delighted consumer of that most vile of childhood revulsions—Brussell sprouts. It helps that Gilda has become a gourmet cook.


The neurosis du jour is hoarding: At least three reality TV shows. Newspaper articles or columns such as the one Jane Brody wrote the other day in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/health/the-hoarder-in-you-a-book-that-can-help-cut-through-the-clutter.html?_r=1).

I'm a semi hoarder. Gilda’s always complaining I never clean out the week’s worth of newspapers from the kitchen until recycling day. Yes, Your Honor, I’m mostly guilty of that transgression. And my desk is a magnet for all sorts of papers and junk. When it gets really cluttered I spend half an hour throwing out really old papers whose reason for keeping in the first place escapes me.

My hoarding habit centers mainly around various pieces of apparel. I’m partial to pocket T-shirts, so naturally I bought a rainbow’s worth of shirts. I’ve also never come across a coat department that didn’t tempt me. Accordingly, our front hall closet is chock full of coats and jackets chosen to keep me warm in gradations of 10 degrees in temperature, but I’m clueless as to which one to wear on any given day. I have separate pairs of gloves, and scarves, for each coat.

Later, rather than sooner, I wind up donating a good portion of my excess apparel to charity. But while it’s in our closets, Gilda gives the greatest gift a hoarder can receive—patience.


Free No More? One of the last citadels of free college education, New York City’s Cooper Union, may begin charging tuition to undergraduates for the first time since 1902 (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/education/cooper-union-may-charge-tuition-to-undergraduates.html).

Gilda and I attended Brooklyn College, the closest entity to free higher education. Back in the late 1960s, Brooklyn College accepted only the best students, basically anyone with an A average. B students went to one of the other City University of New York schools, such as City College or Queens College. Tuition each semester was $50 ($332 in current inflation adjusted dollars) plus the cost of books. Today, tuition is $2,565 per semester for matriculated full-time students. Since it was a commuter school, few if any students incurred housing costs.

Shortly after we graduated in 1971, Brooklyn College initiated Open Admissions. Anyone with a high school degree could attend. Quality deteriorated. The grand experiment failed. The school has reverted to a more stringent admissions policy. I’m not familiar with Brooklyn College’s current academic standing, but when Gilda and I attended, it was a top notch liberal arts institution, virtually free to all who qualified.