Forty-eight years ago today, Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder were killed on the campus of Kent State University by members of the Ohio National Guard. Two were protesting against the U.S. bombing of Cambodia, while two others were nearby walking to class. As for me, on that Monday, I was nowhere near a university campus. I was only 15, and in Brooklyn attending Isaac Bildersee Junior High School.

My memories of how my school reacted to these deaths are hazy. I do remember students leaving the school and protesting outside in the days after, but not my part in them or how the administration reacted to those walkouts. I do, however, recall that Joseph Monserrat, president of the Board of Education, gave a speech a few days later urging calm, a transcript of which was posted on a bulletin board … and which for some reason … I took.

I dug it out of my files this morning and reread that statement, which I found depressing, and for more than just the usual reasons. Because unfortunately, the sentiments it expressed are as relevant as ever.

As you’ll see on the bottom of the second page, Monserrat, speaking on behalf of the New York City Board of Education, said—

Yours has been the generation that has never known a day of peace. Your lives so far have been lived in a settling of violence and it may be that some of you have begun to accept violence as a “normal” way for men to live in our country and to resolve our differences. It is NOT!

The same thing could be said of students today. And that’s sad.

(more…)

My fascination with my Brooklyn-infused teen voice from 40 years ago (which I told you about yesterday) has me thinking that I’m surely not the only one who’d like to hear the sound of the voice he used to have. Here’s another snippet from that newly digitized 1972 episode of the Malachy McCourt radio show to give you idea of who I was back then.

Scott Edelman discusses teacher reaction to his high school newspaper

While I’ve shipped a copy of the two-hour show to my high school pal Barry Chaiken, there were five other students who appeared with us who should also get copies, but I have no idea how to reach them.

Maybe you can help with that.

They are—

Robert Weisberg, South Shore High School

Les Becker, Bronx High School of Science

Meryl Cranes and Darrell Middledorf (or Daryl Mitteldorf?), Stuyvesant High School

Bob Streeter, Hardin (or Harden?) High School

If you have any idea how to find these guys—because my Google-fu has proven useless—let me know!

If you’d known me back when I was a Brooklyn teenager, you’d have sworn I sounded like one of Welcome Back, Kotter‘s Sweathogs. And if you didn’t know me back then, you were just going to have to take my word for it.

Until now.

Because I’ve managed to get my hands on the April 2, 1972 episode of Malachy McCourt‘s radio show, where I appeared, two days after my 17th birthday, to take part in a two-hour program on high-school newspaper censorship. McCourt had invited me and my South Shore High School pal Barry Chaiken (plus a few students from other New York schools) after we’d published an interview with him that resulted in us being forced to cross out several words deemed unacceptable from thousands of copies of Shorelines, our school paper.

The two hours of audio are fascinating, not just for the picture of the student struggle for an unfettered press, but also because of the news reports on Vietnam, the presidential campaign, and the death of Gil Hodges, who’d suffered a heart attack that morning.

I’m sure that eventually, because of its historical import, I’ll upload it all. But for now, here’s a snippet from the end of the program, as I respond to McCourt’s request for a few final words.

Scott Edelman on the Malachy McCourt radio show

Be honest. If I hadn’t told you who that was … would you have recognized me?

Trying to stay as clutter-free as I can, I picked up a stack of back issues of Brooklyn Magazine, and put them to the “How many of these things do I really need?” test.

First off, let me explain that I mean the Brooklyn Magazine which started publishing in 1978, and as far as I know ended in 1979, not the Brooklyn Magazine that’s currently alive and publishing.

As you can see from the first cover of the earlier Brooklyn Magazine and the most current cover I could find for the more recent incarnation, the new publication is a far classier production than we were ever able to put out.

Saying “we” implies I had a lot to do with the mag, but I didn’t. I wrote a book review for each issue, and did an interview with Fred Pohl, since The Way the Future Was was, after all, about growing up in Brooklyn. But other than that, all I ever had to do with the publishing of the magazine was when I’d pop in to say hello while walking from my apartment off Dahill Road in Bensonhurst to my favorite Chinese restaurant on 65th Street, which is how I discovered the magazine existed in the first place.

Yes, that’s right—as I walked from my apartment to pick up Chinese food one day, I noticed a storefront with the Brooklyn Magazine logo, went in and introduced myself to the editor before the first issue was published, and convinced him that he really needed my book reviews to be a part of it all. (more…)

When I was in kindergarten, my teacher wanted the class to dance around the room pretending to be flowers. We were to sing while twirling colorful scarves. Extremely shy, very serious, and somewhat repressed, I refused. It seemed silly, and I didn’t intend to make a spectacle of myself, not even when the teacher threatened me by saying that if I wouldn’t dance with the others (I was the only refusenik), I wouldn’t be allowed to take part in the visit to the pet snake kept by the kids in the next classroom. I was adamant, and so I ended up sitting stubbornly alone while everybody else got to play with that snake.

Flash forward a decade or two, and my personality was quite different. I spontaneously hurled myself at Steve Gerber’s feet in Times Square in a kind of improvised guerilla theater, begging him, while tourists watched wide-eyed, to return to the family he’d supposedly abandoned. I’ve acted in plays, done hundreds of panels and readings, was toastmaster at a Nebula Awards banquet, and will pretty much do anything in public, as long as it is good and kind, that seems as if it would be entertaining to me or to others.

How did the kid who wouldn’t dance become the adult who doesn’t worry much about what other people think?

A happy accident. And a very special teacher. (more…)

To start catching up with the weekend’s World Horror Convention trip …

Since the con wasn’t going to start until late Thursday afternoon, and my flight was supposed to land in Austin around 11:00 a.m.—at least until the weather delayed my takeoff by two hours—I made plans to get together for lunch with a high school friend I hadn’t seen since 1973.

As so many high school friends have, Rita popped back into my life on Facebook, but unlike most of those other friends, she now lived in a city that was on my con circuit. Turns out she’d moved from Brooklyn to Austin many decades ago, and once we reconnected, we figured we’re try to get together during WHC. Since I live and breathe cons once I hit the hotel, Thursday lunch seemed to be the only possible time.

We met at Rudy’s, which claims it serves “the worst bar-b-q in Texas,” and proceeded to catch up on about 70 years of history. (That’s around 35 years apiece.) I’ll keep the details between Rita and me, and instead just present you with a visual aid so you can see what the years have done to us.

Here we are Thursday at Rudy’s.

And here’s how we appeared in our high school yearbook.

Still about the same, huh?

What do you think? Do I need to bring back the goatee?

I continue channeling my father by typing out the autobiography he sent to me a few years before his death. In the latest installment, he leaves the comfort of Brooklyn and heads off to boot camp.

Growing Up and Stuff: An Adventure
Part 4

It was only a few months later and there I was in the Navy, with groups of other fresh innocents straight from school and into a conflict for the love of country and the American way.

I managed to see romantic Eddy just before I left. He had gotten married and he and his wife were living in a one-room furnished apartment. They were happy and had a child on the way and were trying to scratch out a living and a life together.

I ran into Eddy years later on the streets of Manhattan. He was rushing to work in the garment district and had little time to talk, so we didn’t even exchange phone numbers.

I guess the years were taking their toll on him. He looked years older than his age and appeared stooped and of course still had a five o’clock shadow. We never did run into each other again.

I remember waking up on the day I was to report to the Navy. I wondered what I was getting into as I stood in front of a mirror combing my hair into my usual high pomp. After all, it had to be just right.

Here I was, right out of school, fresh from being one of the kids you see hanging around the local candy store or the kid that just delivered your groceries to you, all of us trying to grow up and find out what life was all about.

Next thing it’s the draft, thinking of my friends in the Army up to their crotches in mud. I went the Navy way and wound up up to my crotch in salt water.

I held the postcard in my hand, reading it slowly, making sure once again of the address of the place the Navy wanted me to report to. It was easy as pie. I go to the place, step forward, raise my hand in an oath. And follow a group of strangers onto a bus heading for a place called boot camp.

Boot camp turned out to be a very strange place. High fences and guards. As bus after bus rolled into this strange place, you stood around waiting for someone to tell you what to do.

Suddenly, my ears are filled with this loud sound. A voice is issuing a long string of commands loud enough to break the sound barrier, all of this without the aid of any electronic device … Oh, boy!

Here I am running around some sort of camp with people who all sounded funny to me when they talked. I must have sounded funny to them, since my main language was Brooklyn-ese. (more…)

In the latest installment of my father’s autobiography, which he sent to me a few years before his death, the Brooklyn boy is growing up … and war looms on the horizon.

Growing Up and Stuff: An Adventure
Part 3

Next on our hangout list was Happy’s Deli. Happy was a former professional boxer and had been a merchant seaman during World War II. He loved to sit with us and tell us stories of his fighting days as we sat eating large slices of salami.

Davey’s house was a great hangout for us. His father liked the company and enjoyed our laughter. Davey’s mother had passed away years before, and he always blamed a local doctor for it. We all avoided that doctor, through a combination of loyalty to Davey and just plain fear.

Davey had an older sister who would teach us the latest dance steps. Eddy was always hitting on her. He never got anywhere, no matter how hard he tried.

Another of our hangouts was Mendy’s house. His mother had also passed away, so that he and Davey had a sort of close understanding between themselves. Mendy’s father was a character. He was an avid gin rummy player and he could read the cards, memorizing what was out. He could almost tell you what cards you had in your hand. His local bootlegger supplied him with some great alcohol, which we sampled now and then.

Tuesday nights became almost sacred. It was Uncle Miltie night on television, and in those days the streets would be empty, because he was on. Televisions were expensive and not everyone could afford one. And so, on Tuesday nights, we’d drop into Jerry’s house and crowd in with his folks, sisters, brothers and all the neighbors and anyone else who showed up. We’d all sit in a darkened living room in front of a 12″ television set. (more…)

It felt good to commune with my father yesterday as I typed the opening of his autobiographical manuscript here. So good, in fact, that I’d like to commune some more. Here’s the second installment of what he sent me a few years before his death at 76 on January 27, 2009.

I’m not entirely sure that anyone out there is interested, but feeling him looking over my shoulders (or am I looking over his shoulders?) is doing wonders for ME.

Growing Up and Stuff: An Adventure
Part 2

A few things expanded my universe—clip-on roller skates and bicycles. We started to grow up, discovering ourselves and girls. The games changed to Post Office and Spin the Bottle, and some of this girl stuff without playing any games at all.

Then there would be guy talk. When I got older, I found that gal talk was twice as vivid and left very little to the imagination. So much for the guys who thought they knew it all.

Then, of course, came time to break from those guys on the block and seek another group that was a little more interested in girls and less in a good game of stickball.

I was standing in line in Gym at Seth Low Junior High School when I first met Eddy. He already shaved and had a five o’clock shadow. With these few words we started a long friendship: “I’ve got a date and need a few more guys for her girlfriends.”

Eddy was always the romantic and could find girls anywhere. It led to many adventures and helped mold my teenage experience, and also gave me a group of guys to hang out with.

So I became part of a group that ventured out of my world of the block. We went off chasing Eddy’s love interests and having a great time. We expended this to other boroughs after we got into High School.

We discovered Boro Park, a short ride on a bus for us. It became the place to be for the next few years.

In the summer, it was Boro Park at night and Coney Island or Brighton Beach during the day. How could a guy go wrong? We were on this happy trip and growing into our upper teens. (more…)

A few years before my father died on January 27, 2009 at age 76, he sent me a manuscript he’d written about his life growing up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. I’m missing him, and since I’m in the mood to feel his presence for awhile, I pulled out those pages and started to read. But because I’d like to feel him flowing through me for a bit, I’m going to retype some of it here. I could simply scan it to share—that would certainly be much quicker—but it wouldn’t bring him back quite as strong.

So here is what my father thought important enough to want to tell us. On the front of the yellow folder he sent me was written, “My Long Story,” but inside, he titled what he’d written:

Growing Up and Stuff: An Adventure

I grew up in Brooklyn. You have to understand the sound of the way we talked in Brooklyn. It was rough to the ear, and had its own unique sound. You’ve probably heard someone try to talk the talk of a kid from Brooklyn. They either come close or miss by a mile.

To me, it was a sweet sound, and never having been away from Brooklyn at the time, I had no idea that we sounded different. That is, until I began to travel and heard some very distinctive accents. Have you ever heard someone in Scotland try to imitate a Brooklyn accent?

All over the world, kids play in parks, playgrounds, backyards, and schoolyards. But for us at that time in Brooklyn, it was the streets, close by our houses. Our block was our playground. It was our own safe little universe.

Getting up a game on our block was easy. You’d meet up out on the street and in no time, you could get up a game of touch football. You have to understand that this was all before any formal leagues of any sort had been formed, in our area anyway, long before anything like Little League or anything like it.

It didn’t matter if it was winter or summer. If you were a young, adventurous kid growing up in Brooklyn, the streets were your playground.

The cold winters held the thoughts of snowball fights and ice-skating, maybe a sled ride down a driveway. Or if you were lucky, you could make it over to one of the parks.

The warm summer and long daylight hours helped when you were exploring your youthful needs on the streets of Brooklyn. (more…)