My Brooklyn (364)

Larry

My Brooklyn is the Brooklyn of today. Discovered quite by accident (my son and I were exploring NYC by bus and subway) I have come to love the place. I have been to Brooklyn every two or three months for the past two years. I love being on the streets, talking to the people, eating the pizza, riding the buses and trains--in short everything Brooklyn. I only wish I could have grown up there. I spend very little time in the other boroughs, Brooklyn is the place for me. I am even seriously considering moving there when I retire from my present job. People here (Chicago) think I'm nuts, but to me Brooklyn is the BEST.

11 July 2001

Dan Grunberg

A lady, who also went to our high school in Brooklyn during the early 1950s, emailed me last week. She asked if I'd known George. I began to remember him.

George was a very bright, short, light-haired guy. He was a year behind me at our high school. George and I met when we were both part of the Drama Club's production of Cheaper by the Dozen. I had a small speaking role, and I was half of the sound effects and music crew. George was one of the Dozen children. What most people don't know about George is that he wrote a prize-winning essay, he was awarded the prize, and then he was robbed of the prize.

In a many thousand girl and many thousand boy, big city high school everybody didn't know everybody else. Most people really didn't have much to base their Student Government election votes on. Hall posters and assembly speeches didn't really tell whether the candidate stood for anything except getting elected, so another extra-curricular activity could be reported on a college application. Too often, who to vote for was determined by examining the candidates' last names. You know what I mean. There were almost subliminal, whisper campaigns, "Vote for him, his religion is the same as ours." That was part of school elections.

George heard the whispers. He wrote an English assignment essay, condemning what he knew was happening. Our school had a literary magazine. My English teacher, who in another class was George's English teacher, submitted George's essay to the magazine for publication. George's essay was accepted. Just before the magazine was "put to bed," George was awarded the prize for the best essay in the issue. It was our principal's custom to put his imprimatur on every school publication, before it was sent to the printer. George's essay was pulled out of the printer's package. George's prize went to someone else.

The next morning, my English teacher made a brief announcement at the start of our class. She told the class that George, one of her students in another class, had won a prize for a literary magazine essay, that ultimately the prize had been withdrawn, and why the essay wouldn't be published. Our high school was so big that it was unlikely that any members of my class even knew who George was. Nevertheless, forty-six years later, I realize just how chagrined my English teacher must have been, and how principled and brave she was.

Backstage, during a rehearsal that week, I remember that I asked George what his essay was about. George told me. George didn't appear to feel cheated. He said it was all right. He understood why what happened to him had to happen. I thought, and still think, that George's essay, which I never got to read, was the most significant essay that ever might have been published by our high school. George was robbed in the name of non-controversy. We all were robbed.

I was graduated from our high school that June. I never saw George again. I think it was the September right after I was graduated that our high school's principal moved on to a plum assignment as principal of a larger and arguably more distinguished high school than our high school. I don't remember thinking about George's essay again until last week, when I got an email from a lady who went to our high school in Brooklyn.

13 July 2001