The ship docked in Hoboken, NJ, where we were met by my Dad who had purchased a new 1947 Chevy Coupe. We drove to Manhattan. My father found housing in Greenwich Village in New York City.
We reached the apartment and unpacked. Our living quarters were in an old house chopped up into apartments and rooms. We had a living room, three bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor, but the kitchen and dining room were in the basement. Housing was scarce in post-war New York City so we were fortunate to have something. Other tenants mostly were artists and musicians who practiced at all hours of the day and night.
One musician came by one evening and offered four free tickets to attend the world premiere of an opera written by a good friend. He explained the friend needed a large audience (I suppose to get a good review). I was not eager to go, and I didn’t find the experience that exciting. The event was held in a medium-sized off-Broadway theater. The composer was Gian Carlo Menotti, and it was indeed the world premiere of “Amal and the Night Visitors” which was well received. The significance of the experience didn’t register until I saw it on a TV Christmas special years later.
Within two weeks after arriving, my mother and sister went on a frantic search to find a college for her. They visited Radcliffe, Wellesley, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Vassar and Bryn Mawr. Because we arrived in the USA in early March, application deadlines had passed. Finally, Bryn Mawr College accepted her and she enrolled in the fall of 1947, graduating with a degree in English in 1951.
She received a very good education, book-wise, but her attitude did not change from her prefect days at Geelong Grammar Ladies College. During her senior year, she was nominated to be president of her dorm but lost the election. She told us she was disgusted with the back-biting that occurred during the short election campaign. It left her with a disdainful attitude about most of her classmates.
My father enrolled me at Haaren High School in Manhattan as a freshman and I took college prep courses in English, Latin, history, algebra, and science. I coasted, yet earned high grades because most of the material duplicated what I had learned at Scotch College in 1946. However, the school served a critical purpose. It socialized me to the American way, American civics, and American history. That was always the mission of the American public school, namely to socialize immigrants, including me and for that I am grateful.
The student population was diverse, and some students came from economically poor homes. I recall one incident during a science class. The class was shown a movie and two black kids sat behind me. They kept pestering me for money. I told them to shut up and watched the movie. They persisted. So, not necessarily knowing the norms of an American High School, I stood up, turned around put up my fists and gave one an uppercut to the jaw with my right fist. He went sprawling over the floor.
The teacher stopped the movie and asked what happened. I explained the problem and because she viewed me as her ‘star student’, she accepted my explanation and sent the other two kids to the Principles office. They were expelled.
My parents started looking for a home in the suburbs. They bought one at 409 Weaver Street, in Larchmont, NY, and we moved during June. They sent me to a summer camp in New Hampshire, a co-ed Quaker camp devoted to socializing immigrant children to America. Fellow “campers” originated from France, the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Italy, Yugoslavia and Poland. Generally we got along.
The high point of the summer was to climb Mt. Washington. We drove to its base and spent the day climbing to the summit. We took the cog railway back to our cars. An elderly man approached us while at the observation deck and asked who we were. Because we were immigrants, he invited us to his house for a coke and cookies and pointed to its location. He owned the Cog Railway and clearly was a wealthy man. What impressed me was that he drove in a Chevrolet no different from my father’s. Clearly, the lesson learned was that despite his wealth, it was best to spend money wisely. Wheels are wheels; it’s the chrome, price tag and nameplate that are different.
I enrolled that fall as a sophomore at Mamaroneck Senior High School, a mile walk from our home. The student body came mostly from affluent and upper middle class homes. Moreover, because I skipped most of a year of school, I was the youngest member of my graduating class. I took the usual college preparatory courses, sang in the high school choir, made it on the swimming and track teams, and joined the current affairs discussion club. I made several friends too.
My activities continued through my Junior and Senior year. During my senior year, I was selected to host a student from Malaysia sponsored by the New York Herald Tribune International Student Exchange program. He stayed for five weeks, attended my high school, and participated in a variety of events. His stay concluded with a ceremony and forum at the General Assembly Hall at the United Nations and featured all the exchange students from overseas and their American student hosts.
I also renewed my interest in scouting and was active in the local Boy Scouts of Larchmont. During my junior year, I was appointed “Police Chief for the Day,” had my picture in the local paper, and learned much about the Larchmont Police. On the day I served as “chief,” a marked patrol car came to my home and the chief of detectives took me on patrol. I then went to the Police Station to sign in, met the real police chief, was shown the jail, their crime lab, and allowed to operate their radio dispatch to other patrol cars.
The chief of detectives drove me home and asked if he could inspect our home. I checked with my mother and she approved. First he went to the attic where we had noticed a rusty stove to which were connected wires. He then went to the basement where we noticed similar wires and a buzzer button connected to them.
The chief of detectives explained that his first assignment in 1925 was to watch the house. They noticed trucks backing into the driveway at all hours of the night, loading cases and driving off. The Larchmont Police Department staged a raid and discovered a bootleg operation there and arrested everyone on site. The attic stove was part of a still. The wires went to a basement lookout who signaled if trucks or suspicious people were coming. He was surprised that some of the original equipment was still there. It taught me that community police departments have very long memories.
A college fair was held every year at Mamaroneck High School and I met admission officers from colleges and universities that my parents suggested I consider, and to which I had seen better students matriculate. By the time my junior year ended, I decided I preferred attending a smaller college. I focused on Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, Swarthmore and Oberlin. At the Fall College Fair during my senior year, I met their admissions directors and dropped Williams from the list. I visited Amherst, Swarthmore and Wesleyan (CT). My parents were not too enthusiastic about Oberlin because of distance. I applied to all four. Only Wesleyan and Oberlin accepted me. I decided to enroll at Wesleyan University. Graduation was on June 25, 1950, the same day as the outbreak of the Korean War.
Four of my classmates joined the National Guard during their junior year. Within a month after graduation, they were called to active duty and shipped to Korea. Two came back in body bags, one returned badly wounded, and one returned intact.
All my friends went off to college except one, Charlie Albert, the star halfback on the football team. Charlie was always full of life with a positive outlook. He was also African-American. His girlfriend, Charlotte Latten, was a cheerleader and extremely attractive. During the summer of 1949, he got her pregnant and they married. Charlie finished high school and then took a job driving a delivery truck. I saw him during a vacation from college. He became a beaten-down man and requested I never contact him again. Regrettably, I honored that request. During my life I met many people with potential who were derailed from their goals because of financial status, unfortunate events, or serious mistakes.
During the summer of 1948, I attend Camp Pocono, a Quaker boy’s camp on Lake Wallenpaupak in the Pocono Mountains. It was a beautiful setting. We lived in tents. I learned canoeing, did a lot of swimming, and a lot of woodcraft.
The following summer, I returned as a junior councilor. I instructed canoeing and swimming. I returned