Entries from December 2007 ↓

The Korean Conflict of 1950-1953, cost the U.S. a toll of over 36,000 dead, more than 90,000 wounded, and 8,000 missing in action.  Many WWII veterans were recalled to serve in this arena, but every family in America was not affected as before.  For the most part, the “conflict” was marginalized by the American public, eager to get on with living after WWII.  

In addition, there was another distraction to the action on the Korean peninsula, a far greater threat to mankind.  There existed a force so long-reaching and powerful that nothing on earth could defend against it.  A danger so great no military force could offer protection against it.

I had only just learned that I had escaped extermination by the Nazis because I lived in America.  Now, I faced extinction, because I lived in America.  Logically, there would never be another conventional war, no more trenched battlefields.  Two atomic bombs wiped out two cities in Japan in an instant, ending World War II.  And, it could happen here, in New York.

Our enemy was Communist Russia.  There was no point in attacking each other, as both countries were stockpiling more than enough atomic weapons to destroy each other a thousand times over.  The stand-off was called the “cold war”, because it simply could not become “hot”, or the world would end.

In the autumn of 1952, the school district initiated A-Bomb drills.  I was taught to respond to the Civil Defense sirens by crouching under my desk, covering my head with my arms, and not looking out the window at the blast.  I remember thinking it absurd, knowing I would be incinerated in an instant.  Nuclear shelters were designated in subway tunnels and church basements all over New York City.   People across the country were constructing and equipping underground bomb shelters.  There were television shows, Hollywood films and countless works of fiction describing the nuclear holocaust,  the subsequent radiation death of all living things, and the barren planet, Earth.     

The geopolitical scene provoked a sense of dread, but since there was no hot war option….the “enemy within” became the paranoid focus of America. 

Alleging that Communist sympathizers were everywhere, Senator Joseph McCarthy, chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities conducted televised public hearings, and I remember watching some of them.  Suspicion and hysteria were not the only mood of America.  People were uncomfortable and shocked at the spectacle of coercion brought into their living rooms. 

In spite of the threat of global destruction, or Communist take over, I did not feel personally threatened.  I was confident that there would be a future, one in which the world would come to its senses. 

Life in New York City was magical, and would survive long after the nuclear threat subsided.  

In spring and fall, Dickie and I were lured to Manhattan, to the center of the civilized world, as we knew it.  Mama would give us 2 or 3 Dollars, and we were free to explore the city. The subway was cheap, clean and safe, and students paid about $1.00 to enter the Zoo, Planetarium, or Museums and they were educational wonders.  Student discounts applied to the Opera, Ballet, Concerts, Movies, Broadway Shows, and the Skating Rink at Rockefeller Center.  The New York Public Library, Central Park, Central Park, Chinatown, Department stores, and New York City “people watching” were free, and easily occupied an entire day.  As usual, the rule was that we were to be home at dark, for dinner.    

One Saturday in springtime, Barbara Orans and Cousin Louise came with us to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a walk through Central Park.  At the end of the day, we realized we were a dollar short for our carfare home.  After a brief discussion, it was decided we had only one sure option to produce the dollar. “It’s not possible to say ‘no’ to Diana…we can’t miss”, Dickie said.  A few minutes later, Dickie pointed out a likely prospect.  A well-dressed man sat on a park bench near the “Tavern on the Green” restaurant.  Smiling, I approached and introduced myself.  After relating our problem, I asked the question, “Will you help us get home?”  He laughed and reached for his wallet.  He gave me $5.00, and told us to buy a bag of peanuts from a park vendor for the ride home. Dickie congratulated me on a job well done.  The trip home was happy; we thought we were all so clever. We munched on peanuts, and played Jacks on the floor of the train until we reached Stillwell Avenue, Coney Island, the end of the line.   We even had carfare for the bus ride from the subway station to Sea Gate.  Dickie told me it wasn’t really necessary to tell Mama about what happened, and I never did. 

Graduating from PS 188, I was accepted into the “special progress” class at Mark Twain Junior High, with seventh, eighth and ninth grades accelerated into two school years. I loved being a teenager, moving in a world with older girls and boys from different neighborhoods.  I spent little time on schoolwork and my grades were not outstanding, but my social life was. I wore make-up and smoked cigarettes. In 1954, I joined the Glee Club (choral group), and sang alto.  At the winter concert, I was seated next to a petite, blonde soprano, Brenda Gersh.  She and I harmonized perfectly together, and we did so for the rest of our lives. We were two kindred spirits in circle skirts with crinolines.   My new friend, Brenda (also a Sea Gate girl) introduced me to a new, wider circle of people, one which included the crowd at the Coney Island Community Center. 

The new music was Rock and Roll!  Brenda and I knew every tune, every vocal group, and bought every record.  My father hated the sound of it, and said it would be responsible for the death of American culture. 

Engaged in the social scene, disengaged in academia, I was a typical teenager.  My parents did not interfere, leaving me alone to wander through this period, confident I would make good decisions without their input, and emerge stronger on the adult  end. 

The teen hangout in Sea Gate was at the “Chapel” at the Surf Avenue Gate.  The community hired Lou Stallman to provide leadership, and the atmosphere rocked.  Lou was a songwriter, and we all sang his tunes, and danced.  In the winter of 1954, my new friends were 16, but I was two years younger.  I was really too young for the crowd at the Chapel, and since most of the kids knew me all my life, I was still a little girl. 

But, at the Coney Island Community Center, I was accepted as part of the crowd, and acceptance is what that age is all about.

In 1955, I pledged a high school sorority, Sigma Delta Chi, and dated the handsome quarterback of the Lincoln High varsity football team.  Once I had achieved these important goals, I found them not worth the effort.  I never was one for group movements.  But, I can say I was there, doing the expected thing for the era.   

In 1956, I met my first, “puppy”, love, Allan.  Home from college in the upper peninsula of Michigan for spring break, he and his friends came to the Community Center, and that was where we met.  He was intelligent and funny, and we clicked instantly.  It was a relationship filled with teen angst, as we negotiated the emotional terrain of radical hormone production in the repressive sexual atmosphere of the 1950’s.  In addition to the stress of declaring ourselves a “couple” at this tender age, he attended college very far from Brooklyn. It was both romantic and frustrating to be separated for months at a time.

We made life plans, and were completely committed to each other, a dress rehearsal for some future relationship, one with other people.  It was exactly what was expected of teenagers at that time.  Pair off, go “steady”, and marry young.

 Summer, 1956  

During the war years, Vera Zuckerman had been one of the wives living in Sandy Wexler’s house waiting for her husband’s return.  She and my mother had become friends, and, in 1953, I started baby-sitting for her two little boys, Michael and Danny.  I loved Vera.  She was clever and streetsmart, and talented, and she treated me as a daughter.  Before she married, she had been a recording studio singer, and worked in the music industry.  She returned to work soon after Danny was born.  In the summer of 1955, I was hired as her sidekick at the Patricia-Kahl Music Publishing Company, with offices in the famous Brill Building, known as “Tin Pan Alley”, at 47^th Street and Broadway.  It was my first real job, the office “gofer”.  I typed, answered the phone, and worked as a receptionist.  The summer was exciting, and I was the darling of the building.  Another, more dynamic, company was added to the office, Roulette Records.  This was the center of the Music universe!  Rock and Roll concerts began at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater, and I attended with the vocalists managed by our office, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Buddy Knox, Jimmie Bowen.  It was a teenager’s dream job, and it was difficult to return to the mundane world of high school in September. 

I continued working at the Brill Building for the remainder of my high school years.  As soon as my classes ended, I hopped the train at Brighton Beach, and headed for Manhattan, and Broadway.  I was still “the kid”, wearing my gym sneakers in to the office.  I ran errands for all the business niches, from Birdland, the famous jazz club on Broadway, to the disc-jockeys at the New York radio stations.  I watched the Count Basie Orchestra and Joe Williams rehearse.  I dropped off “payola” envelopes to the DJ’s, tribute paid for airing our artists and songs.   Yes, I was getting a real education in the business world. 

Again, my father voiced his opinion about the industry being the reason for the destruction of the modern world.