February 27, 2019--Nuked

I don't know how I feel about the list of targets in the U.S. that the Russians just announced could be nuked if we deploy new intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe.

Expecting that these targets for their "hypersonic" missiles would include Washington and New York, I was surprised (pleasantly?) that the targets include the Pentagon, various military bases, and Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains.

I am oriented to think this way as a former Cold War kid who grew up in Brooklyn, which at the time was threatened with nuking if, as it was feared, the Cold War turned hot. 

In fact, the Brooklyn Navy Yard (only a few miles from where I lived) was ground zero. Or was it Times Square? Either way, in spite of take-cover drills in which I participated at PS 244 and then Brooklyn Tech High School (walking distance to the Navy Yard), I would still be vaporized if one landed in Brooklyn or incinerated in a firestorm or rendered radioactive if a missile struck Times Square. 

None of these fates were very attractive.

So, Camp David, featured on the new list, felt relatively benign. Though it would be better, I perversely thought, if the Russians want to get under Trump's skin to leave Camp David off the target list (Trump doesn't much like it there--too primitive and no golf course) and switch the target to Mar-a-Lago.

Of course, I'm just being silly. About Mar-a-Lago, not the Trump-Putin threat. They are scary.

January 31, 2018--Mr. Ludwig

For decades I have been attempting unsuccessfully to locate my 7th grade teacher, Mr. Ludwig. I was a student in his English class at PS 244 in Brooklyn in 1950, nearly 70 years ago.

More than any other teacher, in fact more than almost any other person, he changed the course of my life.

From time to time I googled him but to no avail.

But then on Friday there was his obituary in the New York Times. 

I knew more about Mr. Ludwig than was usual (it was rare in that era to know even a teacher's' first name) as he shared stories from his life, which I soaked up, seeking models of adulthood to emulate. 

Obituary from the New York Times-- 

Bert R. Ludwig was born July 25, 1920, passed away January 25, 2018. He was predeceased by his adored wife Phyllis of 60 years and his brother Bob. He is survived by his sister-in-law Claire and brother-in-law Paul and nieces Joan and Karen and their husbands Warren and Jay and their children and grandchildren.  

Bert graduated from Columbia University where he was accepted at age 14. He was extremely bright and talented. He sang and played the violin, accompanied by his brother on the piano. They played many gigs together in the Borscht Belt.  

Bert was a lieutenant in the United States Coast Guard during World War II. He was the Chief Communications Officer on a flotilla of LC1 Landing Craft during the invasion of Normandy, Omaha Beach and Utah Beach on June 6, 1944. He was also in the North African Campaign and the invasion of Sicily and Salerno.  

After the war Bert was honorably discharged and he worked for the FBI; but finally decided that education was his first love. He became a teacher, Assistant Principal and principal for the New York City school system. Bert and Phyllis enjoyed 40 wonderful summers in their home in Montauk, Long Island where they entertained their many friends and relatives. 

They loved living in Manhattan and were true New Yorkers enjoying all that Manhattan had to offer. They will be missed by those of us who knew and loved them. 

Part of Mr. Ludwig's appeal was that he was so culturally different from my father that it is fair to say he became a surrogate for me. 

He was the kind of man I was wanting to become--adventurous; worldly; heroic; well read; emotionally expressive; playful; though soft, a "real man" with a touch of class. And since most of my classmates and I who came under his spell had one or more immigrant parents ("old fashioned" was the way I thought about that), he was fully American and thus doubly attractive.

He not only taught English but also coached the school's basketball and softball teams. So I had academic lessons from him during the day and life lessons after school in the gym or on the baseball diamond.

He told us about his service in the Second World War and how he had been part of the D-Day landing. He shared dramatic photos of himself and his comrades storming Omaha Beach.

And he told us that before becoming a teacher he had been an FBI agent and recounted vivid stories about his training and some of the cases on which he worked. This was very different from what I heard at home from my father and uncles, which was either criticism or silence.

I entered his class as a virtual non-reader. I am embarrassed to admit I had more interest in Batman and Superman comics than Two Years Before the Mast. To motivate those of us lagging behind in our cultural education he created a chart on which our names were listed in alphabetical order--with me thus at the exposed bottom of the list--on which he would paste a star for every book we checked out of the library and read to completion.

While many of my classmates quickly filled the chart with enough stars to rival those in the Hayden Planetarium, I was the only one who remained starless.  Then one morning, when I arrived at his classroom and slid into my chair, on top of my desk was a new, non-library book of Sherlock Holmes stories. Puzzled, I looked toward Mr. Ludwig, who with nods and winks gestured that there was no mistake, the book was for me. Not just to read but to read and then keep.

I slipped it surreptitiously (a word he taught us) into my schoolbag and once back home put it on the shelf above the table on which I did my homework. It sat there untouched for more than two weeks until, feeling guilty and pressured, I finally picked it up and read the first story, "The Hound of the Baskervilles," and then, swept along by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's narrative magic, I read a second and after that a third. 

I stayed up all night reading the book, hiding excitedly under my blanket with the pages illuminated by my Boy Scout flashlight. 

I hid beneath the covers because to my father, reading books led to men becoming effeminate and after that . . . they would turn into men like his brother Ben, who lived a closeted life surrounded by stacks of magazines and books.

In school the next day, with Mr. Ludwig standing by the chart with his box of stars at the ready, when he asked if any of us had completed a new book, after the usual two girls waved their raised hands to report that they had finished Little Women, avoiding eye contact, in a whisper I revealed that I had finally read something other than a comic book.

Without fuss or comment, Mr. Ludwig affixed a star next to my name. And after that, through the rest of the school year I not only filled my space but my personal firmament of stars spilled over to occupy the unallocated space below my name.

I devoured anything by O'Henry or Robert Louis Stevenson or Richard Henry Dana, Mark Twain, and of course more, always more Sherlock Holmes. 

To this day,  I am an voracious reader with a personal library of read books numbering in the thousands, filling every available shelf I can fit on our crowded walls.

In 1950 I also was a non-writer. As a poor speller I was inhibited when I needed to complete written assignments. Noting this, early in the term, Mr. Ludwig asked me to remain in class after the bell.  Knowing how I admired him, he told me that Winston Churchill, when he was a young student, also could not write because of spelling problems. "And," he said, "look how well he now writes. What you need to do is just to write, to let the words flow and worry about the spelling later. That's what editors are for--to correct your grammer and speling."

He continued, "And don't forget that Einstein also had problems as a boy with both reading and writing. Not that you're a Churchill or an Einstein," he winked with a smile--he wanted to make sure I wouldn't become too full of myself, "But you can do better."

And I did: Later in life I wrote and published widely. I am the author of dozens of articles and stories and five books. All traceable to the affect Mr. Ludwig had on me at that delicate time.

Then there was what to do about my graceless, overgrown body. At the tender age of 12, I was already six-feet-five inches tall. I had fears I would grow until the only hope for me would be to join the bearded lady in the circus.

But as PS 244's basketball coach, Mr. Ludwig saw past my slumping posture and awkwardness, instead sensing the makings of a potential center for the school's basketball team. 

To help me become viable as the possible pivot for the Rugby Rockets, in those days a team's tallest player would position himself directly under the basket where he would hopefully block a few shots, do some rebounding, and score some easy layups, Mr. Ludwig spent long afternoon hours encouraging me (he believed in my potential more than I) and teaching me the moves I would need to excel in inter-school competition.

Somehow, after a few months in the gym I literally stood taller, had filled out a bit, and became one of the team's most reliable scorers. The Rockets then, with a team made up of players more talented than I, became perennial challengers for the Brooklyn borough championship. 

And finally, there was my singing. Or rather, my inability to carry a tune.

When Mr. Ludwig had the class prepare a musical "production" for PS 244's annual showcase, he had two pieces of advice, which to this day, metaphorically, have stood me in good stead--If you can't carry a tune, move your lips, lip-sync. In other words, if you are unable do something well, pretend you can. 

And, seek a role, if necessary--more metaphors--that lets you, if necessary, lay low. In this case behind a scrim lit-from-behind, as he had me do when one year's show was about tribal South Africa where I, again the overgrown me, stomped behind a suspended bed sheet so that only my attenuated shadow was projected to the audience while the rest of the class, in harmony, sang--

See him there,
The Zulu warrior.
See him there,
The Zulu chief, chief, chief, chief.

Mr Ludwig found a way to transform this frog into a prince of a chief!

For me, that is his legacy. Helping me aquire the skills and confidence to become anything my talents and hard work would permit.

For decades I have been searching for him to thank him with words that I, as an adult, finally acquired.

I failed to find him until now when I read he had died and that his funeral service last Sunday would be in New York City.

I went, hoping I would be welcome at what I suspected would be an intimate family affair. Though I was the only former student able to attend, I felt I was there representing the many others upon whom Mr. Ludwig had had such a profound effect.

I also realized I had been searching for him in all the wrong places. 

He was closer to me than I had imagined. I didn't need the Internet or Google to locate him. He had always been close at hand. Right here, within me, where has has been since 1950 and will be until I finally join him.

May 11, 2017--Reading to Rona

In elementary school, at PS 244 in East Flatbush, reading flawlessly out loud was highly valued.

At this, I was a total failure.

So much so that after being traumatized in second grade because, from anxiety, I stammered and mispronounced many words when reading out loud while standing in front of the class, facing my quivering fellow students--their turn will come--I didn't read another book, to myself much less out loud, until 6th grade. Somehow I resumed reading then and ever since books have been my most dependable companion. Actually, Rona has been my most dependable companion. (See below)

So much that went on at PS 244 they claimed was preparation for "real life," and reading in public was high on that list. Not that one would be called on to do much of this as an adult, but to withstand pressure and perform under a version of fire was what was valued and, if like me one wasn't good at it, having one's inabilities exposed in public and to be mocked and ridiculed by our so-called friends was thought to be essential preparation for those of us with middling talents who were destined to have many bosses during our lifetimes, bosses who would relish calling us to task for our foulups, often in the presence of work colleagues. Second grade, in other words, was not about the 3-Rs and nurturing creativity--it was a form of basic training where only a few would emerge to become achievers. The rest of us were destined to be barked at for the rest of our lives.

Then there was spelling. I begin to tremble as I approach this memory.

It was further preparation for the future. In this case not because any of us were being encouraged to become writers--more likely accountants--but since most of us were to be mired in authoritarian work situations where we would be forced to be competent in the world-of-following-orders that didn't make sense, all the while under pressure to carry out tasks that lacked necessity or logic.

English language spelling, then, with its arbitrary rules and idiosyncratic requirements was thought to be a good introduction to living unquestioningly with the irrational. Memorizing odd spellings trained us to not raise questions but simply surrender to things that otherwise should have raised questions. Parroting spellings such as foreigner and parallel and thought and through and gauge helped us learn how to handling tasks and follow, without resisting or objecting, work assignments and put up with civic requirements that didn't make much sense.

But later, with the help of Spell Check I became a writer and by reading to Rona I am overcoming my fear of mispronunciations--a liberating psychological metaphor.

Recently, over seven evenings, I read to her, Jonathan Allen's and Amie Parnes' Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign. We hung in more for the gossip than the insight or the vivid portraits of the key players. Both were missing and thus they rendered an intrinsically interesting story mundane. Still it was worth reading. Including just for the reading.

But then this week we have been reading out loud the newest novel by Lidia Yuknavitch, The Book of Joan. It is exceptional.

Neither Rona nor I are drawn to post-apocalyptic literature--usually the opposite--but this novel feels as if the imagined future (it is set in 2049) is actually an apt vision of the pre-apocalyptic present.

World wars and environmental catastrophes have transformed earth into an uninhabitable cinder. To regroup, a few thousand wealthy earthlings have retreated to an orbiting platform in space known as CIEL. There, as the result of widespread devastation, evolution has been reversed. The survivors have become hairless, blanched-white, sexless creatures floating aimlessly in space and in isolation. At the heart of the matter, these escapees have come under the domination of a bloodthirsty cult leader, Jen de Men, who turns CIEL into a quasi-corporate police state.

Enough said. No more spoilers. Pick up a copy and get lost in the dystopic world Yuknavitch invents. Or perceives.

Better yet, find someone to read it to you. Perhaps a refuge from PS 244.

PS 244

January 28, 2016--Shooting Hoops With Bernie

I knew there was something familiar about him. More than the Brooklyn accent and all the shrugging and Yiddish hand gestures.

And then it struck me.

Toward the end of Monday's Democratic town meeting, Bernie Sanders, egged on by moderator Chris Cuomo, spoke about his athletic days. How when at Madison High School he was on the track team and earlier, at PS 197, he was the center on their basketball team.

"Oh my God," I said to Rona, "Now I know where I know him."

"This should be good." She rolled her eyes.

"No, really, I went to PS 244 in East Flatbush and he went to PS 197 in Midwood, just down Kings Highway. They were our arch rivals. In fact, in the mid-50s we played against them for the PSAL Brooklyn Basketball Championship."

"Really?" I nodded, "And?"

"And, we lost. We came in second."

"You really remember him?"

"Not all that specifically, to tell you the truth. But before the championship game, our coach, Burt Ludwig, told us what to expect. He said, the main threat was their center." Looking over at me, he continued, "He's very tall. Like you. And moves well. He's also very aggressive so expect to get pounded a lot. Especially when fighting for rebounds."

"I can handle him," I said, more reflexively than from genuine self-confidence.

In truth, my main asset was that I was so tall. An overgrown 14-year-old. Already six-four. Though I was underweight and poorly coordinated. But I was scrappy. I didn't mind exchanging elbows under the backboards.

I grew up hearing the calumny that though Jews might be smart, we were not street-tough. That's why so many of us perversely admired the remnants of the Murder Incorporated gang, a gang of more-than-tough Jews who operated out of a candy store in Brownsville. Walking distance from where I grew up.

So, I was committed to the mantra, Never Again. Never again would Jews submit to violent antisemitism and this got played out in sports.

There were a number of Jewish boxing champions, including Max Baer and Jake LaMatta, and footballers such as Sid Luckman. Also baseball stars including Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax; as well as more than a few basketball heroes. Dolph Schayes, Red Auerbach, and Nat Holman come to mind.

And then there were Bernie Sanders of PS 197 and not-so-little Stevie Zwerling of PS 244.

The rest is Brooklyn legend.

Though we won the semifinal game fairly easily, with Bernie pushing me around while fighting for rebounds, they killed us and then went on to win the city and state championships.

(See the team picture below from the Brooklyn Eagle of, as they put it, the borough's "second best" team.)

So, Hillary, if you think you're running against mister-nice-guy, think again and watch out for those elbows.

October 21, 2015--Teakettle Game

In Mrs. Peterson's 6th garde class at my elementary school, PS 244, to get us interested in vocabulary and spelling (not an easy matter), every few days she let us play the Teakettle Game. More technically, the Homonym Game.

When it was your turn you would try to challenge and frustrate your classmates (more the latter) by posing the following kind of question--

He teakettled down the canal rather than driving on the teakettle.

The other kids, from the context, were supposed to come up with the two words for which the teakettles stood. If they couldn't, you'd give them another sentence--

She parked the car on the teakettle and then teakettled in the lake.

That was usually enough for the smartest girl in the class, waving her raised hand frantically, to shout out and spell--"road" and "rowed."

It would then be her turn to come up with a stumper.

I later learned that some homonyms were of a different sort--they were pronounced the same, as road and rowed, but unlike these that are spelled differently, others are spelled the same but pronounced differently. Technically, they are homographic homonyms.

For example, lead (as in the metal) and lead (when it means being at the head of a line) are homographic homonyms.

Got it?

To see if you do, here are a couple of more Teakettle posers, homonyms of different sorts--

I will teakettle a letter with my teakettle hand.

In my hotel teakettle I bought a teakettle from the minibar and then listened to a Bach cello teakettle on the stereo.

Three or more in a sentence makes it easier to solve but is fun to construct.

There are so many of these various kinds of teakettles, sorry, homonyms, that for some time there has been a movement to simplify the spelling of some English words to limit confusion and make it easier for both native born and second-language people to learn and perfect English.

(Perfect itself, of course being a homographic homonym.)

In fact, playwright and over-all curmudgeon, George Bernard Shaw called for the development of an alternative to our 26-letter alphabet, contending that a phonetic one of at least 40 letters and orthographic symbols would make it easier to spell tens of thousands of English words. In the 1930s he sponsored a contest to attract interest in this project.

There are as a result quite a few examples of Shavian Alphabets but none caught on any more than attempts to get Britain and the United States to switch to the much more rational metric system.

Wouldn't tawt work better than taught? But then tawt would be a homonym for . . .

Here it is in one last teakettle example using tawt--

He was teakettleed to be certain the sheets were teakettle when making the bed.