Magazines for the Principal

I had a long and happy career as a school librarian,  the last years spent at Jane Addams,  a small vocational high school in the south Bronx.  The neighborhood was poor and rather sketchy,  and the students,  burdened with lives lived in those mean streets,  were sometimes difficult.  But our dedicated faculty strove to educate and elevate them,  and we took great pride in their achievements..   (See  The Diary of a Young Girl)

And because we were a small school with a tight-knit staff,  there were strong bonds of affection between the students and teachers, and life-long friendships were forged among the faculty.

For many years during my time at Addams our principal was David F who had been a master teacher and then chairman of the English department.  David was the consummate educator,  a keen intellect, a tennis ace and sports fanatic, and a ready wit.  I counted him as a good friend and at his untimely death several years later I mourned him greatly.  (For more about David the basketball fan,  see Mr October)

But thinking back to our years at Addams  I remember that during David’s tenure the city mandated that all vocational schools that had been historically single-sex would now become co-ed.   Addams had been an all-girls school,  and although now boys could be admitted,  we continued to attract a majority of female students because of the trades we taught  – practical nursing, cosmetology, and business skills.

But as the school librarian I was determined to make the library appealing to our contingent of male students, no matter how relatively small.  I ordered books and a number of magazines that teenage boys would like – Motorcycles,  Popular Mechanics,  Black Beat,  Chess,  Games,  and of course several sports magazines.  And as I had a bigger budget that year,  I ordered English Journal,  Science Teacher,  and other pedagogical magazines for the younger faculty who were still working toward their graduate degrees.

I put a copy of my new magazine order in David’s mailbox hoping to impress him with my efforts,  and I attached a memo asking him to check off the magazines he would like routed to him before I put them out in the library for the kids.

Knowing David,  I wasn’t surprised to get my magazine list back that very same afternoon,  initialed in his distinctive hand.   The only magazine David had checked was Basketball Digest.

 

David F

– Dana Susan Lehrman 

In an instant, there was a rumble and a slight jerk, and then a slow roll, as I watched the stacks of books opposite me rise about a foot and a half, and gently fall, as if carried by ocean waves.
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I would be remiss in my discussion of the Newark Public Library if I did not mention Philip Roth's novella Goodbye Columbus.
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The Diary of a Young Girl

Among my friends and the distaff side of my family are many very accomplished women – doctors, nurses and therapists, a pharmacist and a research scientist, lawyers, two judges and a diplomat, a film editor, a TV producer and a theatrical director, several writers and artists, and a publisher and two poets.

Also among them a chef, an interior decorator, a chaplain, a rabbi and two cantors, singers and actresses, several school principals  and many master teachers.

The good all these women were doing in the world sometimes made me wonder if I was doing enough as a high school librarian in one little corner of the Bronx.  Then I’d think about the students.

One was Ana, a soft-spoken, rather shy Dominican girl who was a bit of a loner.  I never saw Ana hanging out with the popular kids, in fact she seemed to spend much of her free time in the school library.

After class she’d often call her mother from my office to ask permission to stay until the library closed.  Before she’d hang up I’d always hear her say,  “Te quieto,  mama.”

Ana was a good reader and of course I encouraged her.  One day I gave her a copy of Anne Frank’s famous memoir,  The Diary of a Young Girl.  A few days later when she returned the book I asked what she thought of it.

“It’s so sad what happened to that young girl,”   Ana said,  “but she wrote in her diary that people are really good at heart,  and I believe that too.  And because we have the same name I’ll never forget her.”

Then I saw tears well up in Ana’s eyes.

That night at dinner I told my husband, “I did something good today.”

”What did you do?” he asked.

”A student named Ana was returning her library book and I made her cry.” I said.

“Why was that good?”  my husband asked.

”Because Ana is a young Hispanic girl who lives in the south Bronx”  I said,  “and she was crying for Anne,  a young Jewish girl who lived in an Amsterdam attic.”

”Ah yes, that was good.”   he said,  and I saw tears well up in his eyes too.

– Dana Susan Lehrman