The Jane Addams HS boys basketball team with Coach Jon Ostrow (Ozzie) in the blue shirt.

A Favor for the Coach

I’ve shared many memories of my years working at Jane Addams HS.   (See Magazines for the Principal , The Diary of a Young Girl,  Going Back to Work , Mr October  and The Parking Lot Seniority List)

Here’s one more.

I live in Manhattan’s upper eastside and for the many years I worked at Addams,  which is in the Bronx,   I commuted to work by car.   It was an easy drive  –  in the mornings the southbound lanes on the FDR Drive would crawl,  but I was heading north against the traffic and would breeze along.

And I’d either drive alone or carpool with other eastsiders depending on our semester’s  schedule – our school had both early and late sessions.   But one eastside colleague who was never in our carpool was my friend Ozzie.   He coached the boys basketball team and stayed late for after-school team practices and games,  and thus drove up to school himself.

However on the afternoons the team had games at other Bronx schools Ozzie would leave his car in the school parking lot,  take public transport with the boys to the host school,  after the game take a bus or subway home to Manhattan,  and the next morning take public transport back up to school.  But in addition to the inconvenience of no car for his morning commute,  leaving a car in the parking lot overnight was always a bit risky as our school was in the infamous south Bronx,  a high crime neighborhood.

And so one day Ozzie asked me if I would do him a favor and on the afternoons Addams had away games,  I  would drive his car back to Manhattan and park it.   He and I lived only a few blocks apart and of course I said yes.

Ozzie was on early session and I was usually on late,   and so rather than wake up an hour earlier to drive up with him,  I’d come to school with my carpool and later drive myself in Ozzie’s car back to Manhattan.

I garaged my own car,  but Ozzie parked his on the street so once back in our neighborhood I’d have to look for a space,  being mindful of alternative-side and the myriad of other New York City parking rules.   And as the upper eastside is the most densely populated residential neighborhood in Manhattan,  finding a legal overnight space could take as long as an hour.  Then once I found a spot,  I had to let Ozzie know where to find his car.   He and his wife Liz lived in a small apartment building that had no doorman,  or that would have been an easy solution.

So this is what we did –  I’d find a parking space,   walk home to my own building,  and then write a note saying where I’d parked .  I’d give the note with Ozzie’s car key to my doorman for Ozzie to pick up when he got back to our neighborhood after the game.

And I’m happy to say during my years at Addams we had many winning basketball seasons.   The credit goes to the boys on the teams and to their great coach of course – but maybe just a bit of the glory should go to the coach’s friend who did him a favor and parked his car!

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Birthday Bakers

Going to birthday parties has always been great fun for kids.   When I was young I’d wear a pretty party dress and my mother would take me to the birthday kid’s house,  with me proudly carrying the wrapped gift.   Then we’d put on paper hats,  play games,  and eat cake and ice cream while the celebrant’s father took home movies as we waved shyly at the camera.

A generation later things were quite different.   The birthday parties I took my son to were usually themed and held in restaurants,  gyms,  or museums,  with entertainment supplied by hired clowns or magicians.   Pizza or 6-foot heroes were usually on the menu,  and the kids were completely unfazed by the professional videographer recording the event for posterity.

But for my son’s birthdays I always tried to come up with party ideas that had special meaning for him,  and one year I capitalized on his early love for cooking and baking.   (See Reading with Hattie, Baking with Julia)

He was 7 or 8 when I hired the Birthday Bakers,  two lovely young women who arrived at our apartment bringing everything that was needed for a dozen little kids to bake and decorate a cake,  even little chef aprons for them to wear and keep.

All I was asked to do was preheat the oven while the Birthday Bakers spread everything out on our dining room table,  and helped the kids break eggs,  measure flour and the other dry ingredients,  mix the batter,  and make the icing.

Then while the cake was in the oven,  the kids sat in a circle on our living room floor and our two Birthday Bakers read them Maurice Sendak’s wonderful book In the Night Kitchen.

And that year everyone agreed our birthday party really took the cake!

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Had someone drugged the soft drink they served me, at the offices of the mining company where my newfound friends needed to make a stop? Was I influenced by the sultry thirty-something woman who insisted that I receive my first lesson in appraising sapphires?
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The Puppy Farm

I’ve written before about my wonderful childhood puppy  (See Fluffy, or How I Got My Dog and Fluffy and the Alligator Shoes)  but sadly there is more to tell.

I’m sure today’s child rearing gurus would advise you to tell your kids the truth no matter how painful,  but I suspect my folks practiced the old school kind of parenting.

When I was 10 Fluffy was hit by a car and the really awful thing was I saw it happen.  I was coming home from school when she saw me from across the street and ran towards me.

I don’t know why Fluffy was off the leash that day,  or if somehow she had gotten out of the house alone.   I only remember the sound of screeching brakes on our usually quiet street,  my beloved dog lying motionless near the wheel of a car,  and my mother and my visiting uncle kneeling in the street trying to console me.

Eventually they led me to the house and told me the vet was taking Fluffy to a puppy farm in the country where she would get well.

I never saw Fluffy again and although we never got another dog,   we did have a succession of wonderful cats.  (See Missing Pussycats ,  Mr Bucco and the Ginger Cat,  Hotel Kittens,  and The Cat and the Forshpeiz)

Over the years I must have wondered if there was something a little fishy about the puppy farm story and whether city dogs who get hit by cars really do go to the country for rehab.   But I never questioned my parents because they were grownups and I knew grownups never tell lies.

And now my parents are gone and my uncle is gone,  and surely the vet is gone too,  and so there’s no one left who can tell me what really happened on a shady Bronx street one afternoon over half-a-century ago.

And so I choose to believe that Fluffy did go to that puppy farm in the country,  and for all I know she’s there still.   For in my mind’s eye I still see her running through the fields  –  the Elysian puppy fields.

– Dana Susan Lehrman