As Bad as They Say?: Three Decades of Teaching in the Bronx

2. Nobody

2 Nobody Iwrote this book specifically to tell you about my students. My intention was to be the storyteller, not the story. In a world where celebrities rule, fame fades, and idols fall, I am only too glad to have little or no attention focused on me. I am happy to stand outside the crowd and just be myself, my own person. The poet Emily Dickinson said it best: I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you—nobody—too? . . . How dreary—to be—somebody! How public. . . .1 Without pursuing fame or fortune, I have led a rich and rewarding life. But we live in a day and age when everybody writes his or her memoir , and maybe, just maybe, a nobody like me should write one too (albeit a short one), just in case there is something in my life that might help you, the reader, with yours. It was never my intention to be different or to do things differently; it just worked out that way. Certain events and people and ideas molded me into the person I am today. As to which ones had the greatest influence, I couldn’t possibly determine. Nonetheless, I’ll begin by describing an event that occurred very early in my life, and maybe, just maybe, it was the most profound and influential. 9 10 Bronx Roots The Little Kidnapper I don’t know the exact date of the kidnapping. I was only about eight at the time. What I do remember is the weather; it was a cold, gray fall day. The few trees on Boynton Avenue, the street in the Bronx where I lived, had lost most of their leaves. I was on my way home after visiting a friend (a play date, in today’s parlance). I was in a rush to get home by six o’clock. My father, certainly not a difficult or demanding man, had one rigid household rule: The family—my two brothers, my mother, and I—had to have dinner together every night. (My father was way ahead of his time.) It was a rule we tried hard never to violate. In my haste to be on time, I almost didn’t notice a little three-or fouryear -old girl crying. She was sitting on an old milk crate in front of James Monroe High School. I stopped to see what was wrong, and between sobs, she told me that she had been waiting for a long, long time for her father to come out of the school. I looked into the school windows, but there were no lights on, and I couldn’t see anything. I walked over to the main entrance to see if any doors were open. The little girl followed me closely and watched as I tried to open each of the five doors. They were all locked, so I took the little girl’s outstretched hand and walked to the side entrance, but the doors were locked there too. It was starting to get dark, and I realized that my parents would be getting worried. I waited just a little while longer, hoping that the blondhaired , blue-eyed girl’s father would return. She was shivering, wearing only shorts and a sleeveless blouse. Recalling the novels about Nancy Drew, the detective, I imagined that the little girl had been abandoned by her father because he couldn’t afford to feed her. I knew my parents would feed her and give her a sweater, too (my father was in the sweater business), and so I asked her if she would like to go home with me to get something to eat. She readily agreed (I guess children weren’t told to avoid strangers in the late 1940s), and once again, she grabbed my hand and held on tightly. We crossed East 176th Street, looking both ways, as my mother had taught me, and continued walking down Boynton Avenue toward my house. I could see my mother standing on the front stoop, the same stoop used daily for stoopball and other games, frantically waving to me. I told you that I was never late. As I approached, I saw my father step outside, too. I explained to them what had happened, and my father said that he would go back to the high school and look for the girl’s father. My mother said that we should go inside to our apartment where she would give the little...