{"id":26096,"date":"2020-07-24T22:13:28","date_gmt":"2020-07-25T02:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/?p=26096"},"modified":"2020-07-25T23:45:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T03:45:12","slug":"mermories-of-my-childhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/mermories-of-my-childhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Mermories of My Childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/862950151&amp;color=%23dcecfc&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\"><\/iframe><\/figure><p><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/aeropodcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Education Revolution Podcast<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/aeropodcast\/episode-21-stories-from-jerrys-childhood\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Episode 21: Stories From Jerry&#8217;s Childhood<\/a><\/p><p>The covid era has many of us in a state of contemplation.&nbsp; And it\u2019s been very interesting to me to think about the freedom that I had as a child compared to the children of this century. But maybe covid is unwittingly changing some of that. Actually, covid is witless. I do now see more children playing outside, riding their bikes. <\/p><p>My earliest memory was sitting in a baby walker, next to a\ngigantic refrigerator. I must have been between 1 and two. My mother told me my\nfirst word was flowfer. <\/p><p>To show you how different things were in those days, I remember getting lost just a block away from my house. I must have been between two and three. A neighbor recognized me and brought me home. Apparently, nobody thought it was a big deal. Also, when I was about three. I could identify classical music, such as Prokofiev\u2019s A Love of Three Oranges and Classical Symphony. <\/p><p>About that age my parents somehow allowed me to be studied\nby psychology students at Clark University. I remember them being very\nsurprised when I made a joke about looking through their one-way window being a\n\u201cpane.\u201d <\/p><p>I also loved digging in the dirt for \u201ctreasure.\u201d The\ntreasure I found was a bunch of little green beads, probably from some\ndiscarded ten cent necklace. If you believe modern theories of biology, I\nsuppose that digging could be why I was never allergic to anything. <\/p><p>When I was 4 or five I remember that the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus came to town and they would march up my little street, Longfellow Road, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegram.com\/galleryimage\/WT\/20170412\/NEWS\/412009999\/PH\/0\/1\/PH-412009999.jpg\">with elephants and performers walking up the hill and down the other side, across Chandler Street to the open field on the other side<\/a>.<\/p><p>&nbsp;I followed them there by myself and watched them set up a giant tent in that field. The Blackstone Canal used to run through it and it was now covered over. I found out later it was a 45 mile-long canal that went from Worcester to Providence. It was a boon to Worcester merchants from 1828 when it was built to 1835 when that new technology, the train, replaced it. It closed in 1848, but the remnants of the canal were still there when I was 5, in 1948. So sad that children don\u2019t get to experience the circus anymore, animal abuse issues not-withstanding. Alternatives could have been found. <\/p><p>I remember a sad moment about that time. There used to be a trolley system in Worcester but it ended, December 31, 1945. I must have a memory of being on a trolley, because I clearly remember how sad I was, sitting on June Street as I watched them take up the trolley tracks. I suppose it was a year or two later, so I wouldn\u2019t have been more than 5 years old. The back story on this is that General Motors snuck people on the boards of city transit companies, and to promote their buses, got cities to end their trolley services. Every city used to have them. Eventually they were caught and paid a fine for doing this, but the damage was done. Trolley service in most cities was over. Even at 5 I knew this was wrong. <\/p><figure class=\"wp-block-embed-wordpress wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-worcester-ma\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"5jiqTZqdAU\"><a href=\"https:\/\/worcester.ma\/2016\/08\/free-to-read-worcestory-lesson-all-aboard-the-heydey-of-worcester-trolley-service\/\">Worcestory Lesson: All aboard! The heydey of Worcester trolley service<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Worcestory Lesson: All aboard! The heydey of Worcester trolley service&#8221; &#8212; worcester.ma\" src=\"https:\/\/worcester.ma\/2016\/08\/free-to-read-worcestory-lesson-all-aboard-the-heydey-of-worcester-trolley-service\/embed\/#?secret=5jiqTZqdAU\" data-secret=\"5jiqTZqdAU\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure><p>One of the fun things our family used to do was go to the Paxton Navy Yard, a mini-railroad. We used to go there a few times a year and I loved riding the trains. I know it is closed now but I don\u2019t know when it closed. That\u2019s probably where I got my love of trains. I\u2019ve taken most of the trains in the United States, many in England, including one from London to Loch Ness in Northern Scotland, many across Europe, including one across Europe to Moscow, Russia and then another to the Urals. <\/p><p>Sometimes my cousin Judy would baby sit for us. She was about ten years older, the daughter of my Aunt Nessie, one of my father\u2019s older sisters. Nessie was the black sheep or her family, but I really liked her, maybe because she was a rebel and very outspoken. My father was the second youngest of 9 surviving siblings. Sometimes I would visit my Bubby, my father\u2019s mother. She didn\u2019t really speak English. She and her husband has emigrated from Lithuania. But my father\u2019s father died when my father was only 7, so of course, I never know him. My father\u2019s younger sister, Janet, had a daughter, Rachel. I remember carrying her around Bubby\u2019s house as a baby. . Bubby not only raised 9 children, but she adopted Bertha, who, I think was a niece, and raised her as her own. I remember my father driving to Moodis, Connecticut to visit her and her husband Mike. When I was trying or organize a Mintz reunion I heard from Bertha\u2019s daughter, Ruth, who said, \u201cYou better hurry up if you\u2019re going to do this! I\u2019m in my 90\u2019s!\u201d<\/p><p>I remember stopping at Bubby\u2019s house on my way to Hebrew School, which I hated. It was at a conservative Synagogue, and they didn\u2019t seem to care if I understood anything, as long as I could mouth the Hebrew and sing the music. In fact, you had to wear a yarmulke or hat there. I used to wear a baseball hat with a big visor and fall asleep. Then I had to walk home when it was over, and it was already dark. <\/p><p>My father used to tell me stories about when he was a kid\nand the siblings worked to keep the house going. One story he told me was when\nhe and his friends stole some eggs from a store. The owner stopped them, went\nup, and banged on their pockets, breaking the eggs inside. That was it. <\/p><p>Another story he told was how his friends used to bet on\neverything. One day he went early to the corner where they met. He found he\ncould easily leap-frog over the mailbox. When his friends got there, he pretended\nthat he couldn\u2019t jump over it. \u201cI bet you can\u2019t jump over it,\u201d they said. Then\nhe smoothly jumped over and won the bet!<\/p><p>Just a few blocks from my house was Newton Square. On the far side of Newton Square there was an outdoor recreation area with tennis and basketball courts. I used to go down there to watch people play. A few years later I played tennis there. But when I was about five or six-years-old I wandered down there to watch a really good kid who played basketball for Holy Cross College from 1946-1949. His name was <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Bob Cousy (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/history\/legends\/profiles\/bob-cousy\" target=\"_blank\">Bob Cousy<\/a>! My father must have told me. Cousy would practice with his friends at the outdoor court at Newton Hill. I knew even then that he was very good. He went on to a career with the Boston Celtics and I would listen to Holy Cross and Celtics games religiously on the radio. I remember that when I was about 10 my father brought me to see the Celtics play the Knicks at the Worcester auditorium. The Celtics won in overtime 114-112. Some still consider Cousy one of the greatest players who ever lived. As I write this, he\u2019s still alive at age 92. <\/p><p>Sometimes I would climb to the top of Newton Hill, behind\nthe recreation area, one of the seven hills Worcester was built on, like Rome.\nIt was a little scary because of the stories I had heard, like Indians on the\nhill and a strange underground chamber at the top. But I climbed it anyway.\nAnd, sure enough, there was a chimney sticking out of the ground at the top. I\nnever did find out what that was for.<\/p><p>From the time I was very young I used to go to classical\nmusic concerts with my mother, mostly chamber music. She was a concert pianist\nwhen she was in her teens and went on to teach piano to thousands. When I was\nabout 5 or 6 I remember going to a chamber music concert of the Julliard String\nQuartet and correctly identifying the Ravel string quartet. The violist and\nfounding member was my mother\u2019s friend, Raphael Hillyer. My mother introduced\nme to him. She knew many musicians from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he\nhad previously played. Hillyer lived to be 96, died in 2010, and the Julliard\nQuartet is still performing. <\/p><p>Before she started playing piano, my mother played the\nviolin. When she was ten years old she played violin duets with a ten year old\nMike Wallace, who later became famous on television. One of his first jobs was\nas a game show host on a local Boston station. As a youngster I remember\nwatching as she talked to him by phone from my house. Somehow, she won a watch.\nOf course, later he was a famous, hard hitting interviewer on 60 Minutes for\ndecades. He worked into his 90\u2019s.<\/p><p>When she was in her 80\u2019s I got her to write a book about her\nlife in music and growing up with Leonard Bernstein. One day I had a meeting\nabout organizing a fundraising event that was at CBS studios in Manhattan. I\nhad a copy of my mother\u2019s book with me. When I mentioned that my mother knew\nMike Wallace, who had endorsed the book, they said, \u201c\u201dOh, why don\u2019t you say\nhello to him. He\u2019s in the office over there,\u201d motioning to the corner.\nHesitantly I went into the office, and there he was, in the flesh, sitting at\nhis desk. I had never seen him except on television. I introduced myself and\nhanded him my copy of my mother\u2019s book. It was one of the most surreal\nexperiences I ever had: It was like handing the book through the TV screen!<\/p><p>Another person I met through my mother\u2019s music group was\nBedrich Vasca. He had a hunch back and a cleft palate. But he was a fantastic\ncellist. When I met him he was quite old. In fact he had studied with Antonin\nDvorak, the famous composer and cellist, who had died in 1904. He came from\nCzechoslovakia. Once, when I was a teen, I went to a concert at my local high\nschool by a newly arrived, young Czech quartet. When we went back-stage\nafterward (we always did) and talked to them in the little English they knew,\nthey were flabbergasted to learn that Vasca was still alive. It turns out that\nVasca had been a pioneer in chamber music there. They said it was like hearing\nthat Beethoven was still alive!<\/p><p>I remember very little from school when I was young, which tells\nyou a lot! But one incident I do remember was when I was curious about this red\nbox in the school. There was a little swinging weight above it. So, I thought I\nwould see what it would do. I picked up the weight and it went down and broke\nthe glass beneath it. Suddenly the fire alarm went off. I didn\u2019t get the\nconnection at first. But then there was frantic activity in the school. One of\nthe teachers saw me standing there, a bit stunned, and took me to the\nprincipal\u2019s office, Miss Clover G. Knowlton. She was a kindly lady and soon\nrealized that I hadn\u2019t known what I was doing. That was the end of that, but it\nwas one of the few things I do remember from that school. <\/p><p>One thing I do know is I don\u2019t remember anyone driving me\nanywhere during weekdays. My mother didn\u2019t drive, and my father drove to work.\nSo, I walked everywhere by myself including walking about a mile to school when\nI was in kindergarten on up. It didn\u2019t matter if was hot, cold, raining or\nsnowing. <\/p><p>On snow days we sledded down the hill on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/dir\/99+Longfellow+Rd,+Worcester,+MA+01602\/Midland+Street+Elementary+School,+18+Midland+St,+Worcester,+MA+01602\/@42.2691324,-71.8286482,17z\/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x89e4069404775931:0xef66c1bab4ae9712!2m2!1d-71.827971!2d42.2669823!1m5!1m1!1s0x89e406934d93280d:0xf198af36fbf88081!2m2!1d-71.8266851!2d42.2710062!3e0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Longfellow Road (opens in a new tab)\">Longfellow Road<\/a>. I remember the song, \u201cLet it snow!\u201d from back then. It was a hit in 1946. <\/p><p>When I was under 6 there were no TVs in our community, and I\nused to listen to a lot of radio. Some of the shows I remember: Bobby Benson\nand the B Bar B Ranch, Straight Arrow, The Shadow, Candid Microphone, The Lone\nRanger, Dr. Kildare and Jean\nHersholt as Dr. Christian<strong>, <\/strong>and, of course, the Boston Red Sox.<\/p><p>Actually, I never learned to swim\nuntil I was 7. The reason is that every summer my family would go to Onset on\nCape Cod. I was so afraid of the jellyfish in the ocean that I wouldn\u2019t go to\nthe beach. Instead I would stay back at the summer bungalow\nand listen to Red Sox games. Then I would wander over to the town center and go\nto the penny arcade. One thing I remember you could do with pennies is turn the\ncrank and look at the flip cards as they made moving images. I thought that was\namazing. My cousins Steffie Pall and Susan Shapiro would come to visit with\ntheir parents, my mother\u2019s sister Josie and her husband uncle Dave, and my\nmother\u2019s oldest sister, Hester, with her husband, Uncle Morrie. <\/p><p>When I was 5 or 6 years-old we were very friendly with the\nSmith family, two doors down on Longfellow Rd. The parents were Joe and Rose,\nand their daughters were Arlene and Beverly. Arlene, the older and about my\nage, was one of my best friends. <\/p><p>The Smith family was the first in our block to get a TV set.\nSo, all the children in the neighborhood would pile into the Smith house every\nday to watch the Howdy Doody Show and Kukla, Fran and Ollie. It ran from 1947\nto 1957 and was completely ad-libbed! Fran was Fran Allison, the only human. It\nhad one puppeteer and many puppets, such as Beulah Witch and Fletcher Rabbit. Howdy\nDoody ran from 1947 to 1960 with human Buffalo Bob Smith and Clarabell the\nClown, played by Bob Keeshan who later became Captain Kangaroo. <\/p><p>My mother\u2019s parents lived in Boston, my Nana and Grandpa. We\nused to visit them every week or two, on the weekends, and sometimes they would\ncome stay with us. My grandmother born Lucy Romberg, was born in Kharkov,\nUkraine. Her father was a prosperous beer maker and the family lived a good\nlife until the Tsar kicked all Jews out. Amazingly, I have my\ngreat-grandfather\u2019s violin! The family fled and made their way to the United\nStates. My grandmother didn\u2019t speak any English when she arrived but learned\nEnglish so well that she became an actress and speech teacher. Before she\nmarried my grandfather, she lived in New York City and met all kinds of people,\nincluding Juliet Thompson. She was a key person who arranged for a visit to the\nUnited States by Abdul Baha, son of Bahaullah, founder of the Bahai religion.\nWhen I mention that to Bahais, they are in awe. To them this was like knowing\none of Christ\u2019s apostles. I remember that Nana used to recite poetry and comic\nroutines she had memorized. <\/p><p>But the greatest influence in my life was my Grandpa, William\nBlatt. He was the son of an alcoholic but became a respected judge and lawyer.\nBut his first love was the spoken word and he was such an expert on Shakespeare\nthat he wrote a drama called \u201cAfter the Curtain Falls,\u201d extra acts of\nShakespearian plays written in iambic pentameter. It was performed all around\nEurope. He also wrote books of epigrams that were published. Some of them use\nto appear above the headline in the Boston daily newspapers. When I was a bit\nolder I remember sitting around the dining room table at my house as we went\nover his epigrams to decide which should go in his books. <\/p><p>But his biggest influence on me was much simpler. When we would\nvisit him in Boston, he\u2019d sit down with me and say, \u201cWhat do you want to\nlearn?\u201d He would give me choices like science, history, and literature,\nincluding fiction. I remember not wanting to hear about fiction because it\nwasn\u2019t true! So, starting at about 6 or 7 I remember learning about theories of\nhumor, the causes of World War Two, the ego, id and superego in psychology, and\nthe difference between atheism and agnosticism. He was not religious, but he\nwas proud to be Jewish. He said he was an agnostic because \u201catheists would have\nto prove there is no God, which is impossible!\u201d <\/p><p>To me, this approach to learning made a lot of sense and I\nloved it. When I discovered that school didn\u2019t work the same way, this led me\ntoward my life-long quest to reform education. <\/p><p>At about that age I started planting a garden next to my house.\nI remember tending it and being so happy when it produced something to eat. I\nstill have a garden and love working in it. <\/p><p>Also, at about the same age I cleaned out a former coal storage\nroom in our basement, made a little club, and began to publish a house\nnewsletter, the Mintz Daily Gab. I made three or four copies by carbon paper. I\nremember one illustration I made of a Ted Williams home run creating an eclipse\nas it passed the sun!<\/p><p>A great fear in those days was polio. It was crippling and\nkilling a lot of people, including a lot of children. I remember that in the\nsummer we didn\u2019t dare go to the public swimming pool for fear of contracting\npolio. We were also afraid of atomic war. I used to have nightmares about\nthat.&nbsp; <\/p><p>&nbsp;My parents didn\u2019t\nreally smoke, although my father sometimes smoked a pipe or cigar. But they\nwould leave some cigarettes in a bowl for guests. When I was 7, I sometimes\nused to steal them and sneak out to the burning barrel behind the garage, light\nthem and puff on them. One day my parents caught me. They thought it was the\nfunniest thing they ever saw! Well, that was it. It wasn\u2019t worth it. I never\nsmoked again! <\/p><p>When I was 6 or 7 my parents sent me to a Jewish day camp\ncalled Pack a Lunch. They needed a camp song and I wrote one. I even still\nremember the beginning words and music:<\/p><p>\u201cWe salute the campers that go to Pack a Lunch<\/p><p>We sing and we dance and we\u2019re such a happy bunch!\u201d<\/p><p>I guess they used that for publicity and there was a story\nabout it in the newspaper. <\/p><p>One of my counselors was Richard Talamo, Whose father was a lawyer. He lived at the top of my street. Later that year he gave me his stamp collection. I used to work on it off and on, mounting the loose stamps. Every once in a while it seems to pop up in my house. I suppose it might be worth quite a bit now. <\/p><p>One thing I used to do when I was seven or 8 was climb on\ntop of our garage and others. Then I would jump off the low part the\ngarages.&nbsp; I remember my mother wasn\u2019t\nvery happy about that, but I never did hurt myself. <\/p><p>I used to cut through several yards from June Street to get\nto my house. But one day, when I was about that age, a neighborhood bully from\ndown the street whose father was a judge stopped me in the middle of one of the\nyards and beat me up. He was Irish. It got me really mad and determined to\nlearn how to defend myself. I used to watch boxing on television and study\ntheir techniques. Then I would practice by hitting big pillows. Sometimes my\nlittle brother, Billy, three years younger, would hold the pillows up. After a\nwhile I became very confident in myself. But for the next 8 or 9 years nobody\nchallenged me. My theory is that bullies are really cowards and since I now had\na lot of confidence in myself, I walked in a different way.<\/p><p>By the way, that ended when I was in high school. I was in a\nlab and Tommy, my lab partner was the biggest, strongest football player on our\nhigh school team. I idly told him that I wouldn\u2019t be afraid to fight anyone in\nthe school if I had to. The next day he came in and said, \u201cSo you think you can\nbeat anyone in the school! We\u2019re going to fight.\u201d I confidently, naively\nagreed. As time went on the rumors began to fly. At that point I was just known\nas a tennis player, science student and violinist. One was that my father had\nbeen a golden gloves boxer and taught me. <\/p><p>The day came to fight and someone came down to the science\nroom and introduced himself as my manager. He said \u201cEveryone\u2019s waiting in the\ngym.\u201d My science teacher had fashioned a teeth guard for me. <\/p><p>Indeed, there were hundreds of students in the gym. But the\ngym teacher said we couldn\u2019t fight on school grounds. So, the whole throng went\nacross the street to an empty field. We put on our gloves and helmets, they\nmade a human ring, and someone said \u201cDing!\u201d<\/p><p>We started fighting. If you\u2019ve ever boxed, you would know\nthat boxing is one of the most tiring sports. We swung and swung and swung. He\nwas strong but slower than I was. I actually hit him hard with a left.\nMeanwhile the principal heard the noise and commotion and sprinted from his\noffice and up the street to the field. He said he thought it could be a gang\nwar. When he got there, he laughed and broke it up. By then we were pretty\nexhausted and happy to have it come to a halt. <\/p><p>He never challenged me again and I never got into another\nfight. Fifty years later, Mike, a class historian who refereed the fight wrote\nin our reunion yearbook,\u201d Tommy always spoke admiringly and with respect for\nJerry as a praiseworthy opponent. But who can doubt the cajones of our Jerry\nMintz, a quiet, bespectacled violin player, to enter the ring with the fiercest\nguy in our class?\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Education Revolution Podcast \u00b7 Episode 21: Stories From Jerry&#8217;s Childhood The covid era has many of us in a state of contemplation.&nbsp; And it\u2019s been very interesting to me to think about the freedom that I had as a child compared to the children of this century. But maybe covid is unwittingly changing some of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[240],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26096"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26104,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26096\/revisions\/26104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.educationrevolution.org\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}