My Summer in Brownsville, Bklyn

by Ray Levine

In years past summer vacations provided an escape from home. In those hot and humid days (no air conditioning) I had lots of time to indulge in many physical activities. My two friends - one Polish, the other Italian – and I were always playing ball, shooting marbles, roller skating, jumping rope and picking daisies. My quiet activity, when quite young, was reading fairy tales. As I go older the libraries’ books gave me much pleasure and the library provided a quiet place to do my homework. While in high school my homework and reading were done seated at a table by myself up in the library balcony.
Betsy Head’s Boys’ Park in which I played for 21 years, had swings, a child’s swimming pool, a tennis court, tracks for running, etc.
For five cents we could go swimming for one hour. Sour-faced matrons doled out a towel, soap, and a cotton bathing suit.
We sunbathed on tar roof. An occasional nickel, bought from a vendor outside the swimming pool, a hot dog about 10 inches long!
In high school, at the age of 15, I passed the life saving test given by a member of the Women’s Swimming Association of NY. After swimming a number of laps, diving, treading water for a number of minutes, I had to rescue a fat girl from drowning and by myself pull her into the canoe. I really earned that life-saving patch for my bathing suit.
One day, sitting at the side of the big swimming pool, I saw a girl drowning. My first attempt at rescuing someone taught me to remember the rules. “First break the person’s strangle hold on your neck or you too will be pulled under.” The safety guard rescued the two of us.
I was lucky to live in a neighborhood where people came from many different countries. We all got along well. There were very few black people there though.
The above items merely touch upon a few interesting memories.

Winter Trees

by Florence Glucksman

Stripped and bare to the eye
Your majesty shorn by time
You stand versus gray sky
Naked and exposed
Hardly a look, as we pass you by
Rushing against the cold
A bird alights
only to continue, its southward flight.
Slight and lean you seem to us
Without your greens, so plush.
Obtuse, we do not grasp your strength
In the winter of your life, you stand strong not weak
Shedding the fatness of fall
Gone the charms and freshness of youth
In their place, you rise, a giant
Integrity and age, your might,
Your power, you endure
Fullness and beauty renewed
You bear the fruit of yet another cycle
G-d continues in you.
In old age
Can man wish
But to live through
his seed??

Grow Old with Grace

by Rose Smeenk

Time takes its toll
As we grow old
Can we do it gracefully?
Look to the future expectantly
Keep your youth in mind,
To yourself be kind
Try to preserve your health
Staying fit is more than wealth.
Eat right, keep busy, have friends
Don’t quarrel, make amends
In society, do your part
Face the future with brave heart’s release
Cherish it and live at peace.

My Sister Delseta

by Iris [last name excluded at author’s request]

This story about my sister Delseta starts with my brother Ken and me. Ken and I had to wake up very early every morning to help out on our family’s farm in Jamaica, and we often had to help out after school, too. Our farm had animals – chickens, pigs, goats and cows, and we grew yams, sugar cane, mangoes, cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, peas, coffee beans, and cocoa from which chocolate is made. We sold the fresh milk we got from our cows. There was always so much work to be done.

Sometimes it was cold early in the mornings, and the lower parts of our clothes got wet. We had many chores to do before we went to school. We had no choice that’s what life was about on the farm.

With Delseta, it was another story entirely. Delseta was the youngest of us six children. She was six years younger that I am. She was dark and pretty and the prize and pride of our family. I loved her very much. I used to love to bathe her and comb her hair and get her all dressed up.

When Delseta was about seven years old, a teacher in our school, fell in love with her, and asked Delseta if she would like to come and live with her. I thought the teacher was joking, but no. She came to our house and asked my parents if Delseta could live with her. Think it over, she said. After she left our father said, if she is looking for a maid, she is out of luck, but if she wants to help our family I’ll consider it.

The teacher returned soon afterwards. She and my parents had a long talk about the terms that would have to be in effect if Delseta lived with her.

Delseta would have to be treated right and not used as a maid. Finally my father agreed. He knew that if she remained with us eventually she would have to help out on the farm and there was no way he was going to let that happen. Delseta was the apple of his eye and he adored her. He loved her so much that any time she misbehaved, he had an excuse for her. With Ken and me there were never and excuses, just punishment.

Delseta lived with that teacher until she became a woman, the teacher took good care of her. Delseta went on from primary school to high school and from there to college, where she became a teacher herself. My father was always happy that Delseta fared so well, and our family benefited, too. In those days, our family’s income from the farm amounted to very little, still we made do, and we were a very happy family.

Secretly, I wished that the teacher had chosen me, but deep down I knew that that could never be because I was needed on the farm, and I loved my brother Ken and my parents too much to leave them. Being needed is gratifying, too.

About Education

by David Sussman

I can think about my education but more important is the education of my children. My daughter and my son were good students at public elementary school and high school, better than me or my wife. At college they were even better. College was good for both of them. After college there was law school for both.

My daughter is about 5 years older than my son. They both became involved with law. As adults they control their own lives and programs. Today neither of them are in law but I believe they are content anyhow.

The Widow

by Norma Crown

How can I avoid sounding maudlin with such a title? But the scenario I am going to describe occurred because I was traveling alone to Florida for the first time in twenty years. I struck up a conversation with a woman sitting next to me as we waited at LaGuardia Airport for our plane to West Palm Beach. I learned her name, her age--in her sixties--about her two daughters--the brilliant one who had not yet reached her potential and the bright one who excelled vocationally and financially. We seemed to establish a tenuous rapport especially after we realized that we had an acquaintance in common, Fedora, whom I had met at a Florida creative writing group.

I mentioned that I had recently lost my husband and had acquired a cell phone for the first time which I wasn’t exactly sure how to operate. I had bought it for the express purpose of calling Scott, the taxi driver, to notify him when I landed in Florida. Edna assured me that she would be glad to show me how to make the call.

After an uneventful trip, we deplaned. I had been sitting in a bulkhead seat and was able to get off before Edna who sat many rows behind me. An attendant with a wheel chair was waiting for me, and I “hopped” in. I attempted to make the call to Scott, but my new cell phone was not working. It needed to be recharged. Edna then appeared and made the call to Scott on her cell phone. We learned that he would be at the airport in fifteen minutes. So, I thanked Edna and bid her adieu before being wheeled to the sidewalk just outside Delta awaiting Scott’s arrival. We had exchanged telephone numbers, and I learned that she lived in Boynton Beach.
As I sat there, Edna appeared and introduced me to her husband who had come to the airport to pick her up. I bid her adieu again and sat there waiting and waiting as other cabs came and picked up their calls. It began to grow dark, and it was chilly.

Suddenly it struck me that I was alone in the world--a poor widow--sitting in a wheel chair--how pathetic. For the first time since Davie’s passing this feeling pierced my heart. My brave front had a large crack in it.

Unbelievably, once again Edna appeared beside me saying, “Norma, I could not leave you sitting here alone.” She offered to drive me home, but I knew that Scott was on his way and said that I preferred to wait for him. She stood with me for half an hour while her husband patiently sat in his car nearby. Finally Scott showed up explaining that there had been an accident on the road--not involving him--but tying up traffic--and since my phone was dead, he could not call me.

I was overwhelmed by Edna’s kindness. Fortunately I was able to find her address in the phone book, and I shall send her this story in place of a simple thank-you note.
Edna you performed a mitzvah for this newly bereaved widow. Many, many thanks.

In the Marines

by David Sussman


I’m shocked about the subject but I’ll try. It’s past 67 years ago, when I was 20 years old. I’m certain my mind is different than it was then, in 1942. I had the outlook and mind that I don’t have now, that I haven’t had for many years. I worked in Manhattan, and went to City College at night. I knew I was about to be drafted into the military.

One night, around that time, I saw a movie about a heroic American Marine. A few weeks later I was in North Carolina as a Marine volunteer with the rank of private. I survived the next 3 months of military training; some did not.

Six to 8 months of military instruction were followed by 3 years of working in Marine Fighter Aircraft maintenance. Much of the aircraft action was in the Pacific. I’m pleased to note that none of the pilots or any of the aircraft that I worked directly with were lost.

When I try to remember my four years as a volunteer in the U.S. Marines, I’m shocked that I survived to the present existence in a senior center writing class in the Bronx. I have never written about this or ever talked about this in 65 years.

My Father

My father was a merchant marine,
He traveled the seven seas,
Saw countries all over the world,
Italy, Spain, France, Israel, England,
Egypt and more.

My father was a chef,
Cooked meals that were extraordinary,
The aroma of the food
Made our palettes moist,
Until we sat for the meal.

When I think of my father
I think of special occasions,
He was our hero for serving us
meals that were beautiful and sumptuous.

My father was gentle and kind,
And mainly spared the rod,
Instead he would lecture us for an hour,
a fate worse than the hand.

The papers he read were many
Every morning while drinking his coffee,
The stories he told were amazing
From the cultures and lands he traveled.

My father was a reflective man,
Absorbing the environ around him,
He mastered five languages
And he availed himself of them at his command.

My father treated people with dignity,
No matter their social or economic station in life,
He always said wealth or social station
Are not important,
What is important is the man.

Alicia Villafane

Embarrassing Our Children

Some thoughts from the class on embarrassing our children

Rather than writing about how I embarrassed my children, I would prefer to describe how my mother embarrassed me when I was a teenager.

The following incident describes this scenario which took place when we both attended the Barnum and Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden. My outgoing mother thought nothing of shrieking aloud as we watched those balancing above us on tightropes. She laughed too loudly at the antics of the clowns. She clapped too enthusiastically when the horses danced by. I was embarrassed and wished I had a mother who was more decorous.

Just lately, however, I was more than surprised when Daniel, my son, said, “Ma, lower your voice. Everyone is looking at you.”

How the world turns and things come around to haunt and mock us!

Norma Crown

My kids, especially my daughter Carol could not understand why I always called my mother when I got home from teaching. “Don’t you feel like a baby,” she always commented. I responded, invariably, that I did not feel like a baby but rather I appreciated my mother’s interest in my well-being.

And now, what do you think Carol does? She calls me twice a day – in the morning and in the evening -- to see how I am. Does history repeat itself?

Florence Glucksman

A Walker in the City

by Ray Levine

For most of my life, I was a walker in New York, where I have lived my whole life. Growing up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, I always walked nearly everywhere. I think that the day I had my tonsils removed was one of the only times I rode in a car. Occasionally I would take the subway to Coney Island. Much of Brownsville was still rural in those days, so if you walked far enough in any direction, you would come to a field; in the summertime you would find wildflowers and all sorts of caterpillars, hairy ones and smooth ones.

When I entered Thomas Jefferson High School, I resolved to save my nickel subway fare to buy myself a tennis racket, which cost $5. So every day I walked many, many blocks to school and back--at least four or five subway stops. What did I think about during all those long walks? I wish I could remember!

After my marriage, in 1934, my husband and I became a pair of walkers; nobody in our circle of friends owned a car. My husband and I did not own a car until the late 1950s, when we bought a 1948 Pontiac. The car had a manual shift and, of course, no power steering; with enormous effort I learned to drive, and after four tries I got my driver's license. I never drove much, though; mostly, I would move the car from one side of the street to the other, after alternate-side parking was started. I never took the car to shop.

My husband built a shopping cart for me out of wooden boxes and the frame and wheels of a baby carriage, and that's what I used for many years to haul home my groceries from our local shopping street, on Jerome Avenue, several long blocks to my building. My youngest daughter never told me until she became an adult that she always felt horribly embarrassed to walk with me when I was pushing that wagon, because she thought that every child would laugh at us behind our backs when they saw such a peculiar cart.

After my husband died, in 1961, I sold our car to a friend and never drove again. I got a job at Bronx Community College and took a bus to work when the college was near Fordham Road. At lunchtime I would walk to Alexander's, a department store. For some years I had a terrifically egotistical boss, and every lunch hour, no matter what the weather, he would send me out to buy an apple for him, so I always got some walking in at lunchtime. When the college moved to what had been New York University's Bronx campus, I had quite a long walk from the Burnside Avenue station of the #4 Woodlawn-Jerome train to the college and back again after work, and from the Woodlawn stop to my home.

By the time our senior center opened, I had retired and moved to Riverdale. For years I would walk from my apartment on 232nd Street to the senior center and back. I walked at a fast pace, too. Then, when I was about 80, an undiagnosed blood disorder caused me to have a stroke--a mild stroke, but bad enough to weaken my legs a lot, and I never walked to the center after that; I took the bus, instead. Gradually, through the years, I have walk less and less. Now, I'm happy if I can walk up and down my hallway to get a little exercise.

Succoth in Jerusalem

For the holiday of Succoth, I spent a few weeks with my son and his family in Jerusalem. Outside of the city stands a lovely olive grove, open to the public for everyone to enjoy. My beautiful, newly wed grand-daughter, Nina, invited me to join her at the to pick olives in the grove.
As an aside, Nina's beloved husband, El-Ad, said to me "I was happy to receive your wedding present, but most of all, I thank you for giving me Nina." If I didn't like him before that statement -- I most certainly loved him for that most gracious declaration of love!!! The two of them met as volunteers aiding extremely poor Israelis. This shows what kind of people they are. Now, that's enough of the aside.
Nina was ecstatic picking the olives. I collected them for her and put them in a basket. When she had her fill of olives, we went back to her apartment. She washes the olives, dries them and then m makes all sorts of olive goodies. We later went out for pizza and guess what kind she ordered? You're right -- olive pizza!

Florence Glucksman