Adventures in Reading

The day I entered first grade at Marquette School was the day I learned how to read. I don't remember being read to as a little kid,

but my parents were avid readers and my sister still is. So, by the time I took my

first Dick and Jane primer home from school, I was well on my way.

Picture a six year old me sitting on the front stoop of our home in heat of early September.

 I was so excited, I couldn't keep from yelling aloud. The letters on the page had arranged themselves into words.

Dick was running after Spot, Jane was chasing Puff and I was in heaven!  I think a neighbor lady came by to see what all  the noise was about.,

I told her, "I can read this book." ....and I did. Boy, was she impressed!

From that day on, I knew that all  I wanted to do was read. I read in the morning before school. I read when I came home for lunch. I read during class when I should have been doing math. And I read at night under the covers with a flashlight.

The old fashioned way of teaching reading was with phonics and oral reading. That absolutely bored me to death. Once I acquired a word by sight, it was mine forever. When we had "round robin" read alouds, I would be five pages ahead of the class. I absolutely loved visiting  the school library. I had a wonderful friend in Mrs. Gibbons, our librarian. She kept me supplied with all the books I wanted and encouraged me to start reading science fiction and history in fourth grade.  After awhile, Mrs. Gibbons turned me on to science fiction and fantasy magazines .They didn't have them in our library, but she let my mom know I was interested, and I soon started getting them through the mail.

Our family spent summers by Lake Michigan, but we were kept supplied with library books. I can picture my mom lugging bags of books from our car into the cottage. They were vacation loans, meant to last all summer. After a few weeks, the books went back, and more books magically appeared. The only place we couldn't read them was at the beach. That was ok, because there was a hammock strung between two trees in the front yard that made a perfect shady place to enjoy a book in the early evening.

My buddy, Danny  was just as voracious a reader as I was. We started trading books, and one week-end when I slept over at his house, he showed me his older brother, Alan's collection of science fiction books. I became hooked on Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.


In high school, I took honors English courses and was introduced to Shakespeare, Hemingway, Steinbeck and Wilder to name a few. Say what you will about the Chicago Public Schools, all my high school English teachers were outstanding.


After toying with the idea of becoming a pharmacist, I switched my major to English in college and never looked back. I have found that the joy of reading a good book is only exceeded by teaching it. Books have been my life.

Nabisco Summer

                                                                   A surprise in every box...


 In  1968, the minimum wage was $1.40 an hour, but my  friends and I found a way to  make three times that amount.  The Nabisco Bakery on 73rd and Kedzie was hiring college kids that summer.
Once we joined the  American Bakers and Confectioners Union , passed an informal interview were given  our white uniforms, we were assigned our shifts. Dan and Paul lucked out with the 8 AM to 3PM shift, while I was given  3PM to 11:00 PM . Each shift had its advantages, but it meant I only got to see my friends on weekends. We decided it was worth the money we would make.

My first day on the job, I reported to the Mr. Salty pretzel line. Yes, there actually was a Mr. Salty sign on the door. Imagine a large, white room with rows of pretzel tying machines topped with huge metal hoppers. Men scurried around the room and fed big balls of dough into the hoppers, which were quickly converted into bow shaped pretzels by rotating arms. The tied pretzels were shoved out onto a conveyor belt and whisked into an oven, where they were baked, coated with oil, salted, and spun onto a large waterfall-like machine for cooling. What, I wondered, did I have to do with all of this?
 
It turned out that my job was to  tend the tying machines. I carried large dough balls and dumped them into the hoppers. I did this over and over again until I could barely move my arms. A cheerful young guy about my age named Jose noticed me struggling, and showed me how to lift correctly. For a while, he helped me until I got the hang of it. As we worked together, he filled me in on where he lived, where he had gone  to high school, and that he was a member of the Insane Latin Kings Southside Crew. He pulled up his uniform shirt and proudly displayed the first ever gang tattoo I'd ever seen. At a loss, for words, I complimented him on the artwork.

Jose's job was to tend the dough hoppers and clean the bakery floor. No scraps of dough escaped his big push broom. After a while, we switched jobs, and I made the rounds with Jose's broom and pan.
The foreman didn't seem to mind, so we kept alternating back and forth, talking all the while.

When I finished my shift, I changed out of my uniform, tossed it into a basket, and hurried outside where
Dad was waiting to drive me home. He was curious about my first day. I told him everything, leaving out Jose's tattoos and gang stories. Walking into my house, Mom met me.
  "Take a shower, you smell like pretzels" she said.  Good nose, Mom.

For the next four days, I carried dough balls, swept the floor, and Jose added a few dozen helpful   swear words to my college Spanish vocabulary.  Every night, in my dreams, I was carrying dough and sweeping the floor, over and over again. If this was going to be my summer's work, I would slowly go crazy.

The next week, I was transferred to sandwich cookies. Not, Oreos, mind you, just sandwich cookies. Hundreds and hundreds of cookies that ran down a wide conveyer built and were sorted and scooped into large square trays by a dozen or so women. Once a tray was full, it was my job to hoist it onto a wheeled cart. When the cart was piled ten trays high, I hauled it away, brought an empty cart and the process repeated itself.  What seemed like an easy job soon became difficult. Each tray full of cookies weighed nearly fifteen pounds . Lifting the last five or so trays over my head for was no treat. The foreman showed me how to safely lift, but my arms and shoulders started aching. When quitting time came, I was ready to leave Nabisco for good.

I arrived at work the next day stiff and sore. The union steward met me and told me that I wouldn't have to lift cookie trays any more. He asked me if I was ready for my real job. "Sure,"I said,expecting a trick.
As it turned, out, the college kids were hired for a reason. In the next few weeks, we would learn how to perform a number of different jobs, so that we could relieve workers when they took their lunch and coffee breaks.

For the rest of the summer, I made the rounds of the factory.
At any time, you could find me:

    Packing Saltine crackers into moisture proof tins for shipment overseas.
    Operating a machine that made boxes for Ritz crackers.
    Shoveling  peanut butter icing  for Nutter Butters.
    Inspecting Oreos for structural continuity. (Really!)
    Piling  pallets of Chips Ahoy cookies onto wheeled containers for shipping to stores.
    Eating countless snacks of crackers and "spray cheese" while I rode up and down a freight elevator.

Not knowing what I'd be doing from one hour to the next made the days fly by. The best
part was that I met dozens of really frendly, interesting people, each with their own story to tell.
The absolute best tale came from the man who was in charge of the Fig Newton filling line.
     When he first started at Nabisco, he was a relief guy like me. One day, he took over
     at the Fig Newton line. The  filling was mixed in a huge vat with a motorized
     blade that slowly ground figs, starch and sugar into a gooey, fragrant mess. There was
     a catwalk overlooking the vat, so the operator could start and stop the process.
     Stopping the line, however, meant time and money lost, so the instructions were
      "Don't stop unless there is an emergency."
       One day a worker began talking to the Fig Newton man on the catwalk while bending
       down to tie his work shoe. Don't ask me how, but the shoe slipped off his foot and
       fell into the mixing jam below.  The line was stopped and a foreman came rushing over.
       "What the hell is the problem?" he yelled.
         Looking down, he saw the remains of the shoe disappearing into the figgy filling.
       
        The foreman  scratched his chin and said," Let nature take its course, we're already behind schedule."

      I can't vouch for the truth of this story, but I stopped eating Nabisco Fig Newtons.
           
     
     

All the Trimmings

Classic dress pinstripe- $5.99 (circa 1960)

                                                        

.

Lawn Menswear,. like many other shops of its day, depended on the display in the front windows for advertisement. Our store was on a busy street corner, and frequently customers came in after being attracted to  the windows.

Every few months, late on a Saturday afternoon before closing, the  two window displays  that held boots shoes, work uniforms, casual clothing and other assorted merchandise were systematically emptied, swept, washed and prepared for the man who came on Sundays to trim the windows.

As a stock boy, I needed to get this job quckly, with little help from my parents who were busy on the sales floor. This was a fairly complicated task that took me at least a few months to learn without toppling fixtures, mixing up merchandise , breaking glass or dirtying the white floor display floor.

What could possibly be so hard about taking stuff out of a window and storing it?
 The trimmer had carefully balanced shoes, shirts and slacks on specially designed  adjustable fixtures made of wood, glass and steel. Heavy work boots and rubber overshoes hung on invisible hooks. Sport shirts and sweaters were layered on male mannequins. Fancy fedoras were displayed on tilted shelves.  During the  holiday season, tinsel and snowflakes had been generously applied to to the walls and windows.

All this had to be systematically removed .The merchandise was sorted and placed back into stock or in storage. Each trimming fixture was carefully removed and cleaned with lots of Windex and elbow grease. These fixtures were then lined up at the back of the store in order of height for easy selection the next day. Done, you say? Not nearly.  After that my work really began.

With the display windows bare, came the job of deep cleaning them. Mom's formula for sparkling windows did not include Windex. She mixed  good old fashioned liquid soap and vinegar into a gallon bucket, gave me a brush, a  squeegee and a large supply of old newspapers.. This may sound  antiquated, but it really got the job done. The windows were  washed and all of the sale posters  and holiday glitter was removed in one fell swoop. If any posters remained, I used a single edge razor to take them off. So, you might say I learned to shave before I had whiskers. If the weather cooperated , the same process was repeated on the outside of the windows, with the aid of a stepladder. I had the added benefit of seeing who was passing by on the street, and getting comments like, "You missed a spot" or "How's the weather up there, kid?" Over and over...


Old newspaper had been spread on the display floor to eliminate spillage from the windows and dirt from my shoes. When everything passed  mom's inspection, she looked at the time. If it was close to 6:00 PM, the store would close and I would race  to finish as quickly as possible. However, sometimes  I was slow, and my dad drove my mom home  to start supper.
I would set the alarm and lock myself in.
Putting on heavy wool stockings, I would remove the  paper and use a mop and bucket to carefully wash the floor. While the floor was drying, I would sit just outside the display case and read or listen to the radio. When  I was finished, I called my dad and he would drive back the short distance from our house to pick me up.

One winter evening, I watched steam rise from the manholes on the street as I waited for my ride. From around the corner, a man dressed in a long overcoat walked up to the store window. He seemed confused by the fact that it was empty and the store was dark. After a few moments, he started banging on the door to get my attention. I pointed to the closed sign and gestured to my watch. He ignored me and began banging on the windows ,shouting , "I need that shirt, damnit, let me in."

To say the least, I was scared. What I probably should have done was to call the police. Instead, I pulled out a small key from my pocket  and set off the burglar alarm. Instantly a  monster bell began clanging.  The man looked at me in suprise and  dismay. Two seconds later, he was halfway down the block. I switched off the alarm and called my dad.  After that incident, I was never left to finish the windows alone.

The next morning, Dad would return to the store and  help trim the window. The trimmer was a really interesting character. He smoked expensive cigars that he shared with my father. Also, he brought a small FM radio  always tuned to classical music or opera. As he worked, he puffed his cigar, and conducted the music with a wave of his arm. The windows always turned out beautifully. Invariably, a customer
would  ask for something out of the window. The answer was always no.No one wanted the risk of  upsetting that careful balance our trimmer had created.

Chewing gum and spit..

                                                            
 Music has always played a big part in my life. Growing up, I heard music everywhere in my house. My sister, Judi, had  a large record collection, my father listened to classical music on our big console record player/FM radio, and my mom always had a radio going in the morning in the kitchen. When I got a bit  older, I built a radio kit so I could listen to music at night in bed. That little crystal set was the beginning of my life long interest in all things electronic.

My grandparents had a small record player in their apartment which eventually made its way into our home. I quickly claimed it for my own, and started looking for ways to improve it. First, I wired my little transistor radio to the the record player's speaker, and had rock and roll blasting out of my bedroom.  That wasn't enough for me. My next step was a connection to the console in our dining room. Now there were two speakers going at once. Even though it wasn't really stereo,
it sounded amazing!

When I caught a bad cold and could stay home from school for a day or two, I would lie on the couch in our living room all day. My my grandmother was home,  so I got away  with watching a lot of television.
When mom would come home from work, she first checked me for fever, then would go over to the t.v. set, put her hand on it and say "You've been watching way too much t.v."
How did she always know?

The next time I stayed home, I noticed that the tubes in the t..v were putting out a fair amount of heat. Craftily, I aimed a fan at the back of the set, and mom never found out.  (This actually increased the life of most of the tubes, as well). A stroke of engineering genius!

Until I turned 13, most of my summers were spent with my mom and brother on the shores of Lake Michigan. By that time, I was totally hooked on rock and roll music and made sure  that mom bring at least one radio with us. One fateful morning, I tuned into WLS to hear the latest tunes and only got static. None of the other stations were working either. Was this the end of the world? Luckily, my trusty transistor radio proved that all was well.

I was determined  to find a way to fix our radio. I unscrewed the back and looked at the tubes. They were all glowing. Next, I checked for loose connections. Aha! The internal antenna wire was dangling. How to connect it without a soldering gun?  The answer was in the Dentyne gum I was chewing. I spit it out into my hand, rolled it into a tight little wad, and stuck the antenna wire back on. When my mom came into the kitchen, the radio was working, but in several pieces. She shook her head and said, "I don't even want to know."

   

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Mmm- french toast!

                                                              


Hefting our 20 pound duffel bags over our heads, we ran the full mile to our new home, a compound of gleaming silver aluminum huts on a street of gravel.
Dying of thirst and totally exhausted, we stumbled inside our assigned barracks, where twenty  men would live for eight weeks within a few feet of each other.

Our bunk beds or "racks" had rolled up mattresses balanced on metal springs.
Overhead there were two large ceiling fans, but the air was noticeably hot and sticky Did you think the Army would provide air conditioning  in the Missouri heat?  Down the center aisle ran a floor of shiny concrete which had to be swept, mopped and waxed every single day. At the front of the hut was a small private room for the lucky person who would be chosen as squad leader. It came with a single bed, a desk and its own fan. Hanging from pillars every ten feet were red fire buckets. Finally, at the back of the barracks was an iron cage where our M-14 rifles and bayonets would be secured each night.

Before we knew what hit us, a drill sergeant came bursting into the room Seconds later,  we hit the floor for pushups.  . Sergeant Cheek chose one guy as squad leader, since he had ROTC training and ordered us outside. On the  hot gravel street, a half dozen soldiers  with starched faded fatigues and a private stripe pinned to their collars attached themselves to us and literally screamed themselves hoarse getting us into formation..  They yelled directly into our ears for a while, then got us to go back inside and bring out our duffel bags.

We were ordered  to dump out the contents of their bags onto the gravel. Every single item that wasn't deemed  Army issue was confiscated. Candy, cookies, prescription and non-prescription  drugs, electric razors, magazines, small radios ....everything was taken away to be stored for when we finished training.  We were told that there would be unpleasant consequences for anyone caught with "contraband" after that. I saw one of the privates munching on a Hershey bar a few minutes later. Let the games begin, I thought.

Once we settled into our barracks again, they  kept us busy making our beds, organizing our foot and wall lockers, and then  sweeping, washing ,waxing and buffing the immaculate floor. There were a few minutes of comic relief when one of the privates said he would demonstrate how to use the electric floor buffer.
He confidently turned it on. It dragged him halfway around the room and dumped him on his starched ass. One of the taller recruits who had worked as a janitor showed him how to buff the floor the right way. He was rewarded with the soft job of "buffer orderly". I gotta learn how to do that, I thought.

Then our new squad leader, Jimmy, sneered  thatwe all were all soft and out of shape. Since the first PT test was next week,we were going to practice running around the mile track. We ignored him. Nobody moved.

"That's an  order, you dummies" he screamed. Over his shoulder we could see our drill sergeant watching us. He smiled and started over to Jimmy.
"Let me show you how to handle this,"he said mildly.
"If all you worms are out by the time I count to three, you're gonna
run until you drop. that I guar-an-tee 1, 2..."
The doorway was crowded with green uniforms, all straining to get outside.

Needless to say, our little afternoon run was an adventure. After running once around the track in full uniform and heavy boots, the hot sun began to take its toll. All around me, guys were falling over and puking up their breakfast. I noticed that there were conveniently located culverts next to the track for just that purpose. Not to be outdone, I heaved up scrambled eggs and french toast.
What did I learn from that? Never, ever eat a full breakfast in Basic, because you're gonna lose it a half hour later.  That I guar-an-tee.

You're in the Army now...

 

86th ARCOM U.S Army Reserves

                                                            

In  early 1969,  my last year of college,, I had a tough decision to make. My draft status was 2-S,but that would end if I wanted go on to grad school. My choices were limited to being drafted or enlisting for three years. My father, bless him, had a friend who was a sergeant in the Army Reserves, and through him, I was able to join his medical unit on the southeast side of Chicago. I took a physical and traded in my draft card for a uniform. I was assigned to the 374th Convalescent Center, 86th ARCOM, U.S. Army Reserves.

My commitment to the Reserves was four months of basic and advanced training, six years of monthly drills, and two weeks every summer of active duty. The trade off was that it didn't appear likely that Reservists would serve in Viet Nam.

From February until June of that year, I traveled in from DeKalb one weekend a month. I was classified as a new recruit  and given informal training on a number of boring subjects. Most of the time, I sat and listened to an older guy tell war stories about Viet Nam and Korea. Nothing was really relevant to me. I thought that if basic training was going to be anything like this, I would easily survive.

And of course , I was so, so wrong. In May, right before I was to graduate college, I received orders to report to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for the next four months. There was the little matter of final exams I had to figure out. My professors were really great. I took my exams early, in some cases a few were waived. Without a chance to attend graduation, I took my first plane ride ever from Midway Airport to St. Louis. My brother-in law, Al, met me and we spent a few hours together before I boarded a bus to Fort Leonard Wood.

     When the chartered bus pulled into the stark military compound, I had the sick feeling that I wasn't going to be happy until this whole thing was over. We were
marched into the Replacement Depot and the next few days was a blur of haircuts, fatigue uniforms, stiff new combat boots, and close to 20 pounds of equipment, including a steel helmet, shelter half and a heavy winter field jacket.
We were housed in old wooden barracks and awoke every day at 6:00 to a loudspeaker somewhere in the compound. For the next week, called "Zero Week", we essentially did nothing but busy work. We pulled weeds, cleaned toilets, raked gravel paths and wondered endlessly what the next week would bring. Instead of drill sergeants, there were corporals in charge of our groups. They were fairly benign, and we began to believe that maybe things weren't going to be so bad.

Bright and early the following week, we packed up our gear into duffel bags stencilled with our name and serial number. Our civilian clothing had been stored. Even our underwear was Army issue baggy boxers. We formed up under a merciless Missouri summer sun and waited for the buses that would take us to Basic Training. Three hours later, we were still waiting. Thirsty, hungry and badly sunburned.

Finally, we were herded aboard  buses and a short ten minutes later, arrived at our new home for the next 8 weeks. As soon as  we shouldered our duffel bags and climbed down, we were told to line up in front of what looked like a large loading dock. For a few minutes nothing happened, and then a door opened and out strode a larger than life drill sergeant. He wore a Smokey Bear hat, stripes on his sleeves, a Combat Infantry patch over one pocket  and a gleaming metal drill instructor badge over the other that marked him as a man to be reckoned with. Covering his eyes were the darkest sunglasses I had ever seen.
    After telling us in no uncertain terms that we were the lowest of the low, he started singling out recruits for individual attention. Some were asked questions for which there no possible right answers. When the wrong answer was given, the inevitable penalty was a large number of push-ups. If they weren't done correctly, then they were done all over again.

One recruit who was sweating heavily was asked if he was thirsty. When he said, "Yes, Drill Sergeant," he was told to run across the street and buy a Coke from the vending machine. When he returned, he was given a swallow and the rest was poured on his head.  Eventually, this nonsense ended and we began the mile long trip to our barracks.
   
 

Musical Roots

The album that started it all.

As far back as I can remember, music has always played a big part in my life.
My dad had played the violin and had a great voice. He loved classical music and Hebrew liturgy. My sister, Judi, sang in the high school chorus, loved opera and worked for a while as a record promoter and as a producer for a jazz radio show.  My brother, Bob, played the clarinet in the high school band. My mom had a sweet, clear voice and was my biggest fan.

When I was eight,  my parents decided that I would take accordion lessons, which were popular in those days. Mom took me over to the Carnivali School of Music on West 63rd Street , I was strapped into a small accordion and my first lesson began. My teacher showed me how to work the bellows to get a sound, and had me count to 4 while I pressed a key.
"This kid's got rhythm," he said. And for the next 4 years I learned to play the accordion.

To say the least, I didn't love it My father insisted I practise every day. I thought that all the music I played sounded like a polka. I never really got good at it, but did enjoy learning how to read music. When I entered 8th grade and started preparing for my bar
mitzvah, I was allowed to stop. My beautiful ivory accordion was handed down to my nephew Paul and was never seen by me again. No great loss.

Once I got into high school, I was already singing in our synagogue choir, and  so decided to get into the band. I started  by playing clarinet in the cadet band, and soon realized that everybody and their sister played that instrument. Mr. Olsen , our band director was looking for someone to play bassoon, but I liked the idea of the easier switch to a bass clarinet. In a few months, I had learned enough  to join the concert band.
The next fall, I also learned to play tenor sax and had the time of my life marching at football games and parades. For the rest of high school, the band became my life.
With my parents encouragement, I practised hard and made first chair bass clarinet.
Mom  and Dad were proud of me. They didn't even protest when I played  noisy marches  at hom eDad was a keen critic of our concert band and let me know when it sounded good.  I earned a letter in band and  medals for playing in contests. I made some very good friends in the band, a few of whom I still correspond with today. On the very last day of school, a cute redheaded french horn player kissed me after graduation and said that she liked me. Too late!!

When I was a junior I began a love affair with the guitar that is still  very much alive today. My school friend, Don, had an inexpensive guitar that he wanted to sell. I saved up my allowance and paid him the magnificent sum of $16 for it. I bought a lesson book, and began learning how to play chords and accompany myself to the easy folk songs I heard on the radio on on record albums.
Don then told me that some of our friends were thinking of forming a folk group. That was all I needed to hear. The Kingston Trio, Bob Gibson  and The Limeliters were my idols. I started playing and singing with "Sonny and the Ramblers" and I was hooked. Sonny taught me the chords I needed to know for the songs we sang. I played guitar,he played banjo we both sang lead while Don and Bruce  harmonized. We actually got to be pretty good, playing for money at parties, and a bar mitvah or two. An added benefit was that our playing let us meet a lot of girls.

My senior year of high school, tMy first guitar had been crushed on a school trip to Washington, by a friend who was jumping on a hotel bed and landed on it. My dad wasn't  happy with me, but took me to a studio downtown where we picked up a much better instrument, with the promise that I take good care of it.

  That spring, I performed at a "hootenanny" with two high school friends. The audience packed the hall, and loved all of the acts. From that moment on, all I wanted to do was play guitar and sing. Every spare minute , I practised and got better. At the end of the year, I tried out for the high school variety show. I was chosen as MC, played both a solo and in with my two friend, Donna and Ray.

In senior speech class, I brought my guitar in for an assignment. The teacher was called away from the room for a few minutes and warned me not to play my  while she was gone. My buddy, Ray Pace, also a guitarist, grabbed the guitar from my desk and started playing loud and fast. Of course, our teacher came back in a blamed me for the noise. Never one to let a friend down, I took the blame for Ray and got my first and only detention. Ray still owes me for that one.

When I went away to college, my guitar came with me. My second year, a friend heard me playing, and asked if I would give him lessons. I did this for the rest of the year and saved the money for a new guitar. When I got my first job as a middle school teacher, I used my music in the classroom and for a few years, gave private lessons after school in the nearby neighborhood.

Since then I've had a number of guitars and have continued to play through the years. On one of the first dates with my wife, I cooked dinner for her and played.
I don't really know whether it was the chicken or my music, but it worked!One of my old guitars had gone to  my nephew, Paul. When I visited him in St. Louis, I gave him a few lessons. His playing took off in the next few years and he  now plays in blues bars and clubs.

When my daughter, Julie, was a toddler, I would sit on her bed and play folk songs until she fell asleep. Her younger brother, David, played trombone in middle school, and picked up the guitar a few years later. Now David and I will jam together when he is at our house.

In the last few years, I've been taking private lessons. I have a beautiful acoustic and an amazing Fender Stratocaster. I've gone from just playing by ear to reading  music and tabs. My chord playing has steadily improved and I'm now sight reading.
How far I'll get totally depends on me. As my teacher, Steve, says, "Rock on!"