I was born about a year after the end of World War II in a small suburb of New York City. My father had served in the Pacific and returned a year before I was born. My mother was a housewife and I had one older brother. My first house was a row house and by age of one we had moved into a single-family house nearby. My earliest memories are in the row house as I staggered toward a bridge table where my grandmother and brother were playing cards. I also remember the sounds of the garbage truck outside my bedroom window, and my mother singing as she fed me in my high chair.
The second house is most vividly remembered. My brother and I slept upstairs in a dormer bedroom and my parents slept downstairs in a bedroom next to the stairs. There was one bathroom, a dining room with a wood floor, a small living room with a carpet, and a small bedroom next to that of my parents’ bedroom.
It was in that house I remember my mother listening to radio programs during the day as she fussed around in the kitchen. I can remember the organ music background to the radio dramas that she listened to, and the news of the world punctuated by announcer descriptions such as “iron curtain” and “red china.” I recall hearing references to President Truman and United Nations. In my mind I had images of a living-room curtain made of iron, or a place painted red.
Like many families we had a console radio/phonograph in the living room. Unlike many families, we also had a little TV/FM radio in the small downstairs bedroom. It was by a company called “Gayrod.” In those days, even in New York City area, there was very little TV programming. At night, for entertainment, we sat in the living room, my mother on the couch, my brother and I on the carpet, and listened to evening radio shows while my brother and I played with plastic cowboys and horses on the carpet.
On weekend mornings there were childrens’ radio shows and Ray Forrest’s Childrens Theatre on TV. I can remember listening intently to a radio story with a sad ending where some animal died. My brother and I were bawling, at that point.
When I reached the age of five, the other five year olds on our street were starting kindergarten at our neighborhood elementary school. Because I was born after some arbitrary month in 1946, my family was told there was no room for me in kindergarten and that I would start the next year in first grade. So, I missed that kindergarten experience where you learn to get along with others, to settle differences with words instead of fists, and being forced to “pay attention” when you’d rather be fantasizing. I believe that loss of kindergarten experience had a huge impact on me all through life.
When I started in first grade that next year, the 1952 election was at hand. I remember getting on that yellow school bus in the morning and seeing kids with Eisenhower/Nixon buttons, and a few others with Adlai Stevenson buttons. It was all a big mystery to me – presidents, elections, buttons. I do remember my parents were for Stevenson and that Eisenhower won that election.
None of that seemed of any importance to me. I was more concerned with not getting bullied, not getting punished, and listening to 78 rpm records on our Philco console phonograph. My father brought home two records that I remember most well. One was Duke Ellington’s Caravan, and the other was Gambler’s Guitar by Rusty Draper. I played those records so much that I wore them out – literally.
By the end of that first-grade year, my parents had decided to sell our house and move into a two-family house on the other side of town with my father’s parents living upstairs, and we living downstairs. I lived there from second grade until I was a junior in high school. I was not naturally athletic but I had a real love of music. Before the debut of rock & roll, I was already listening to AM radio and developing a taste for up-tempo, and bluesy music. I was an early fan of rock & roll and remember well the first time I heard Rock Around the Clock, by Bill Haley and the Comets.
At age nine, my parents bought my brother a phonograph that played LPs and 45s. Our collection began growing starting with Elvis Presley 45s and Harry Belafonte LPs.
During that period, my perception of politics was purely driven by discussions I heard by my parents and other adults. They were for the democrats, therefore, so was I – whatever that meant. I heard mutterings about McCarthy and the Rosenbergs, but it meant little to me other than feeling really sorry to hear that Julius and Ethyl Rosenberg were executed leaving behind two young boys. I can remember watching the McCarthy/Army trial on TV during lunch, at home. I remember looking at McCarthy’s face and having mixed feelings of pity and disdain. The pity was because of the body language clues on his face, at times, and the disdain was from remembering all the horrible things he did (according to my parents).
My first real political awakening happened during the run up to 1960’s election. My mother was active in the local democratic party and had seen Senator Kennedy in person at a big event in a nearby town. She was very excited, and some of that excitement rubbed off on me. I remember watching the Kennedy/Nixon debates and marveling at how they did not disagree on objectives but rather on the ways to achieve those objectives. It all seemed very civil to me. I was thrilled when Kennedy/Johnson won the election and I enjoyed watching Kennedy during press conferences where I noticed his thick Boston accent and sense of humor.
My first 15 years of life were spent in those three houses – most of it in the last house. Looking back, I can see how mass communications changed from one of reading newspapers and magazines, to one of listening to programs and news on radio, and ultimately to one of watching programs and news on TV. Our circle of family and friends were all essentially local. We didn’t do much driving around. My friends and I walked to one another’s house and spent our time outside during the day rather than watching TV or listening to the radio.
My ideas about what makes people successful, or attractive, were based in part on my own processing of information and the attitudes and perceptions of people I encountered. Without question, my parents and brother had a lot of influence in how I thought then. At around age 15 I realized that my parents, teachers, celebrities, and Nobel Prize winners were all human. They all had flaws. None of us were perfect. Every idea was subject to review. From that point on, my beliefs were less influenced by outside influencers and more by what my own senses were telling me. I realized that all of us have a sense of self that is partly based on what we think about ourselves and partly based on how we see others reacting to us. There needs to be a balance. If all you use is what you think about yourself, then you become totally self-centered and possibly narcissistic. If all you use is what you see being reflected by others, then you will also have a distorted sense of self.