Before I Met Sandy

Elementary & Junior High Schools - 10 to 13

I read voraciously. It was my ambition to read every book in the public library. I made a start at it, but, unfortunately, authors kept writing faster than I was reading. For some reason, I attracted dogs. When I walked down the street, they would come up, follow me and jump up and grab my sleeves. Dad told me that, in good weather, he would stand in front of the store and watch me walk home, reading a book, ignoring the dogs following me and the ones hanging from my sleeves. The cuffs on my shirt sleeves and jackets were always frayed. In school, one day, the teacher told us that we were going to do an experiment. We were all to stand, and when she gave us the signal, we were to shut our eyes and stand for one minute. When we thought that the minute was over, we were to sit down. I was the last to sit down, and the only one who had come close to one minute. When the teacher asked how I timed it so well, I told her that I had read that the average person breathes 16 times a minute, but when I had timed myself, found that 12 was closer to a minute, so I just counted 12 breaths.		1940 Lee and Bob Nostrand	Bob Nostrand was my best friend. We met when I started 5th grade in Farmingdale, and we went through junior high and high school together. He was a good student, too. Through the years, we competed for top academic honors. And like me, he was athletically challenged. Bob's father and his uncle owned a prosperous fuel oil delivery business. They lived on the top of Lenox Hill, the only high point in Farmingdale.  Bob had access to his father's mimeograph machine, so we put out a newspaper, and, in Bob's basement, with other friends, put on plays and skits, for which we charged admission.
1941 Sixth grade homeroom graduating class. I'm in the middle of the top row, Bob is third from left in the same row. The two to his right aren't very happy.
Pearl Harbor was attacked on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. We heard about it on the radio. We followed the news and knew that we were at war, but I didn't know what that meant. Monday was school as usual, and as usual, I came home for lunch. Going back to school after lunch, I could hear President Roosevelt's speech as I walked down Main Street because many of the stores had their doors open. As far as I was concerned, there weren't any changes in my life. In school, we were taught how to handle incendiary bombs if there were any dropped in an air raid - just take a shovel and scoop it into a waiting bucket of sand. It was presumed that the shovel and the bucket of sand would be nearby where the bomb landed. Not explained was how to get near all that heat. I don't know what the teachers thought. They carried on teaching us as if there was no war, with just mentions when covering current events, and not much of that. Maybe they thought we were safe because the oceans kept the fighting away. Farmingdale was the home of Republic Avaition, which made the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter for the Army Air Corps. We were only 3 miles or so from Bethpage, where Grumman was turning out the Wildcat, a Navy fighter, and the Avenger torpedo bomber. My brother and I, and all of the boys we knew, became very knowledgeable about airplanes. Since we had important war industry, we had overhead fighter cover during daylight hours. P-47's were rolling off the assembly lines here, and we could hear the machine guns being tested, but the fighter cover was Lockheed P-38's brought in from California. The fact that neither the Germans nor the Japanese had long range aircraft that could attack us made no difference. That the Germans had no aircraft carriers and all of Japan's were in the Pacific also meant nothing. We had our air cover, and we learned how to handle incendiary bombs. My 12th birthday was in November of 1941. In April of 1942, I was given a birthday present that I hadn't expected - a bicycle. Apparently, my parents decided that winter was no time to start me on a bike, so they waited for the spring. The bike was my freedom to travel. Within limits, distance no longer mattered. Bob already had a bike - three speeds - so he could go up the hill sitting down while I had to stand on the pedals and pump away - so we went visiting friends far and wide. I frequently travelled to Hicksville, a 10 mile round trip, and to Bethpage and Amityville. I wanted to bike to Brooklyn to visit Baba and Aunt Esther, but I was concerned that I would not be allowed to. I had joined the Boy Scouts when I turned 12. I told my parents that I wanted to go to Brooklyn as part of my attempt to get a biking merit badge. There was such a thing, but I was not the least bit interested in getting one. I don't know what discussions they had, but I was given permission - after all, I was 12, not just a little kid. So, one Saturday in June, during school vacation, I set off for Brooklyn on my bike. I knew the way, so I didn't need a map. My mother insisted that I take a lot of cherries to slake my thirst on the way. Loaded with cherries and sandwiches, I headed off. It took 5 hours to get there. I parked my bike in the alley next to the building and I went upstaris to see Baba and Aunt Esther. They were surprised to see me and Esther asked how I got there. I told her that I rode my bike. She told me to stop kidding and tell her how I got there. I told her to look out her kitchen window and she'd see my bike in the alley. She did. She immediately went to the phone and called my mother, and when the phone was answered, shouted, "Anna, are you crazy?" Realize that a phone call from Brooklyn to Farmingdale was no easy or inexpensive thing. Phone calls were reserved for matters of great import. If you just wanted general communication, you wrote a letter or a postcard. Phones were for local calls or emergencies only. Of course, Esther would not permit me to bike home. On Sunday, we tied the bike to the car and the whole family drove me home. That was one of the few times that Nat ventured out to Long Island without getting lost.
1943 8th grade homeroom graduating class. I'm third from the right in the next to top row. Second from right in the first row is Herbert Freiman, who retired in the mid-1990's as vice-chairman of Shearson Lehman Brothers. I haven't seen him since 1947, but I called him in 2008 after I learned that one of his sisters had died. He told me that I had been the bane of his existence in junior high and high school because every time he brought home a test mark, his mother wanted to know what I got.