Mr October

Super Bowl,  World Series,  or Final Four stories   – they’re all the same to us sports widows.

A few years ago my friends Pat and David and I were planning a reunion for our former teaching colleagues at Jane Addams,  the small inner-city high school where we first met in the 1980s.  Pat was our principal then and she was justifiably proud of the school, described by the local press as “an oasis in the south Bronx”.  And indeed the blight and devastation in the neighborhood was countered by the warm, nurturing environment within the school, and by the achievements of our students. The faculty was made up of a close-knit group of skilled and dedicated teachers,  and many life-long friendships were formed there.

(For more of my Jane Addams memories see.    The Diary of a Young Girl , Magazines for the Principal, The Parking Lot Seniority List,  A Favor for the Coach,  and Educator of the Year – Remembering Milton)

Now, anticipating the reunion, we chose a restaurant,  selected the menu,  drew up the guest list,  and Pat and I found a mutually good date.  Then we got David’s email.

”No good ladies,  that’s the weekend of the Elite Eight games.”   he wrote.

March Madness was upon us we realized,  and we well knew that David was a college basketball fanatic,  but we hoped to make the date work nevertheless.

”You could tape the games.”   Pat suggested.

”You could check the scores on the TV at the bar.”.  I proposed.

”Neither of you seems to get it.”  David shot back. “And you Dana,  would you ever ask Danny to miss a World Series game?”

David’s words hit home and I told him the following story.

In the fall of 1977,  just a few years after Danny and I had moved to Manhattan’s eastside,  I was asked to join the board as secretary of the Carl Schurz Park Association.  That volunteer civic group worked hard for the benefit of our wonderful neighborhood park,  and I was flattered by the request.  Proudly I told Danny he would see his wife inducted at the coming association meeting on October 18.

But the Yankees were in the World Series that year and Danny had tickets to Game 6 which was to be played that same night.  I implored him to give up the game and somehow he relented.

On the fateful night I waited to bask in my 15 minutes of fame as the meeting dragged on.  Then, as it was drawing to a close and folks were already scrapping back their chairs and putting on their coats,  it was announced that I was running unopposed for association secretary.  A few obligatory acclamations were called out,  and without further ado I became a member of the board.  The president banged her gavel and the meeting was adjourned.

Meanwhile up in the Bronx,  Reggie Jackson belted three home runs on three consecutive at bats,  the fans in the Stadium went wild,  and the Yanks won the World Series.

”Wow”,  David said as I finished my story,  “I’ll never forget that game,  and I bet neither will Danny!” 

By the way,  to avoid any other March Madness conflict we moved our Jane Addams faculty reunion to a date in May,  but first I checked the Yankee schedule.

– Dana Susan Lehrman 

Now when someone asks what I do, I answer for myself. I’m unretired and I’m writing and having a blast.
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My second grade teacher, Elaine Zeve, first engenderd and fostered my desire to act as she read “Charlotte’s Web” aloud, doing all the voices and soon discovered that I had a flair for imitation and imagination myself. She came to see me in my high school plays and we were in touch until her death, aged 42 from stomach cancer, my senior year in high school.

So it was not surprising that in 5th grade (1962-’63), classmate Michael Nanes and I were chosen to represent our school at a multi-week, city-wide acting program for the elementary school children of Detroit, held on Saturday mornings at WTVS Channel 56, the Detroit Educational Television Foundation. It grew into the PBS station in Detroit. Public TV was in its infancy and we were thrilled to be involved. I was subsequently in one radio play, but my moment of glory came in early January, 1963.

The station put on a program commemorating the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. They had an actor dressed like Abe Lincoln read the text, various other segments about slavery, including a classroom scene with the “teacher” speaking about the evils of slavery and its aftermath that I was part of.

They chose several “students” to have speaking roles. I was one. My line was: “But we are only children. What can we do about this?”

Each of us with speaking parts raised our hands and were called on by the teacher, then stood to recite our lines. I had rehearsed my line to make sure I spoke it clearly, with proper emphasis, concern and empathy. I thought I did well and was pleased with my line-reading.

As I looked around the green room where we gathered before going onto the set, I remember thinking they had chosen a diverse group of children to speak. I was the dark-haired, short kid with glasses. There was a blonde, an African-American (though that term hadn’t come into the lexicon yet), and so on. We represented the melting pot of America. Diversity may not have been a “thing” in 1963 but I do remember mentally ticking off the different types sitting around the room.

PBS (both local and national) has always been about teachable moments, whether on “Sesame Street” or “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood”. That was the first instance for me and has stayed with me these 57 years. It would seem America, this great melting pot, has been slower to learn.