The Autobiography of Albert Fried-Cassorla

This page was last updated March 31, 2016.

 

1949-1957

I was born on Sept. 14, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York. My parents were Betty and Louis Cassorla. Like most people, I remember very little of my earliest years.

In fact, I once believed that I remembered learning how to drink water without making noise. What I remembered turned out to be a scene from a home movie that my parents had made!

Brooklyn seems to me to have been a warm and glorious place to live. Of course, I have enshrined us. Of course, I view my past in a kind of golden lambency, for which there's probably no justification.

But I do remember that the neighborhood was filled with warmhearted people, relatives, friends, loads of children playing in the streets, alleyways filled with fond, a love of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and much more.

From a home movie said seen, my Mom treated me as some kind of Prince. I had a gorgeous white-tired baby carriage, a kind of giant perambulator. On outings I was often shrouded in the warmest blankets and protected from the sun. My grandparents live nearby, meaning for my father's parents, Sophie and Abraham Cassorla, and my mothers parents Mazalto and Chaim Camhi.

My parents lives were closely entwined with the shul, which was also a few blocks away, I believe on Malta Street. My father was a sportswear manufacturer, in my mom was a full-time mother. In later years she reduced seamstress working for my dad.

 

1951 - Falling and Crashing!

My parents tell me that one major event in my live was falling down the staircase that led off our kitchen. We had a ground floor apartment at 732 Alabama Avenue, in my grandparents, who owns the building, lived upstairs. I guess my falling down the staircase was a major and cataclysmic event, but I don't remember

I do remember my brother Kenny running down the hallway into French door, which had million glass panes. He smashed through and cut his wrists and there is little over the place. I also remember seeing something sticking out of his wrists, perhaps sinews, and to me they look like spaghetti. It was very unreal. Kenny was rushed to the hospital. I don't think there any lasting effects.

One of my first friend was named Jerry Elias. He was I believe the-year-old enemy. Hiram member that he had blonde hair and dressed nicely. His mother was also very kind and pretty. His dad was old, and it seemed to me a marvel that such young boy could have such old father.

I have very few memories of Brooklyn, so those that I do have will promptly only take up a few pages. One of the nicest features of our building was a bench for people to sit on that was placed at near the streets in front of the apartment building. This bench had rose of curved slacks that were painted in alternating dark green and chartreuse. This color combination seemed most happy to me.

I remember an old man who use the bench, and who would sit there sometimes and talk to me. He cared 18. He seemed very kind and sweet. That was the Society we lived in, where people put a bench is for passersby to sit. It seems an unlikely thing today, when it would appear that no one wants strangers sitting in front of the house.

I also remember that my grandfather maintained cement planters which had ornamental jade friends in them. I think there were jade friends. In any case, they were succulents, little green leaves about the size for quarter which, if you snap them into, revealed the juicy glistening interior. They were fun to feel, play with, and snap.

Stickball and punchball games

Another friend of mine was named Gary. I think he was younger than me. So Jerry, Gary and I hung out together. We would play stickball and punchball in the streets. For first base, we refuse to headlamp of a car perhaps, and for second base a sewer lid would always do the job. We had great fun in these pickup games. You're allowed to take a player, as I recall, by throwing the think rubber ball at him. Those balls were called Spauldeens (Spauldings), and you were allowed to bean players with them.

These Spauldeens when new were a thing to behold, and especially to smell. When you for one of the corner candy store, it had a kind of sugary patina to it, and was most wonderful. The bright patina lasted for a short time to was wonderfully sensual.

We played stickball and punchball in the streets often. The street was not that busy. A fender or headlight of a parked car would serve as first or third bases. Home plate and second base were sewer manhole covers.

A power-hitter was said to be a 2-sewer man -- meaning he could hit the ball the distance between three sewer manhole overs.

1956: Jewish funeral for a sparrow

In our own innocent way, we were deeply religious. I remember once having a funeral for the pigeon that died. We carried a the corpse of the little bird in a newspaper down to the corner vacant lot. There, we dug a hole and buried it.. Like good Jewish boys, we gathered a minyan, and five or six of us headed down the lot on the street corner of Alabama Avenue and Linden Boulevard. There, we held our most solemn service, said boruchas, and laid the creature to rest. We said a Jewish prayer for it.

I remember a triangular hole at that street corner, where the sidewalks met at right angles, and the dirt had eroded from below. Maybe the gap persists today -- and I remember believing that snakes lived in that hole. That hole was and remains very mysterious to me. Someone said snakes lived there. I peered into the hole and its mysterious darkness and contemplated those fearsome snakes often!

Around the block from that was a motorcycle repair shop with big, ugly, and intriguing Harley-Davidson and Indian motorcycles. Continuing around the block was the corner candy store, where we could buy any delicious treat or toy. And I loved to spend my few cents. As my Aunt Bessie once said, "With Albert money burns a hole in his pocket. All he has to do is walking today candy store any spends every cent he has."

 

1953 - 1955 - My Red Pedal Car

The when I was about three years old, my grandfather, Avrahm Cassorla, decided to get me a marvelous toy! The toy was a red pedal car, maybe 36" long, which I could sit in and which had a little white circular steering wheel that worked!

Just yesterday (August 6, 2000), my father was telling me about how my grandfather got the toy for me. He said "Avrahm had seen the red pedal car somewhere, maybe had a junkyard or antique store. So he decided to bring it home for you, Albert. And that was not so easy! He had to carry the heavy car home on the IRT subway. It was very hard to him."

My mom added, "Not only you enjoyed that pedal car, but Kenny loved it too. Marshall did not get to use it, because we moved to Long Island. I don't think we took it with us."

I remember pedaling it all around -- it was so cool. It had curved lines, and I remember it took a lot of child power to make it go. But when you wrote that car, you were king of the sidewalks of Brooklyn!

Below is a photograph of the same type of little car that I had. This one is in blue and appears to be a station wagon type. Benjamin and I sighted it in an antique store window in Vancouver during our trip in August of 2000. I snapped it through store window with my digital camera.

She had cool, graceful lines and rounded fenders. My red one was a beaut!

 

Going to P.S. 190 in Brooklyn

 

1955 - Kindergarten - Ms. Katz.

She was a kind young woman, a bit plump with dark hair. One day, I remember a wheel fell off a baby carriage used by he girls. Somehow I found a Carter pin or maybe a bobby pin, inserted it in the axle and kept the wheel on! What a repairman!

Mrs. Katz was very happy, and I was, of course, very pleased with my junior handyman talent.

 

1956 - First Grade and turtles with Mrs. Rosenquit

I believe that first grade classroom was the first one with actual desks. These were ancient wrought iron desks with Victorian floral black metal and wood tops, with circular depression for inkwells. There were no actual inkwells when I was there, though!

My recollection of Mrs. Rosenquit is that she was absolutely ancient and humorless, dressed in black with severely tried-back hair. I would guess she was 70 years old. Could that be?

 

1955 - Age 5 - Loving the Brooklyn Dodgers

I dimly recall he fervor surrounding the Brooklyn Dodger's World Series games with the New York Yankees. My father took me to Ebbett's Field, where I saw Duke Snider lay centerfield. Of course, I don't recall the way he played, but I do remember the magnificence of the night lights as we watched the Duke from behind in our centerfield bleachers.
On our street on Alabama Avenue, there was a drawing on a fence at the corner. It showed a heart with the words Brooklyn Dodgers in the middle of it, a neighborhood icon. I had arguments with friends about who was a better player, Duke Snider, Mickey Mantle on the hated NY Yankees, or Willie Mays of the New York Giants. We also argued about who was the best catcher, Yogi Berra of the Yanks or our own beloved Campy, Roy Campanella. I would argue strenuously, even as a 5-year old. But of course I knew nothing about how they stacked up skill-wise one vs. the other! then again, in a long life of strongly held opinions, I have never allowed facts to intrude very far!

I believe my Kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Katz, a young dark-haired woman. One day, she needed someone to repair a doll baby carriage that had lost a wheel. I attached it with a carter pin and was her hero! a 5-yeaaar old does not get to be a hero too often!

 

Friends Gary and Jerry

The only friends I recall from Brooklyn were Gary and Jerry.

Jerry was Jerry Elias, son of Sam and Betty Elias Theirs was a May-December romance, with Sam being the older part of the couple. Betty was nice and would make sandwich lunches for Jerry and me now and then. Jerry was taller than me and blond. I don't remember much about Gary at all. funny about early childhood friends -- you know how important they were to you then, every day. But you forget the details of why and how.

 

Grandpa Cassorla's friendly bench

My Grandpa, Avrahm Cassorla kept a nice bench out in front of 732 Alabama. grandpa Cassorla ad Grandma Sophie Cassorla lived upstairs from us in the 2-story building.

I fondly remember a long bench he kept outside on the sidewalk, facing the street. The bench had a back and was made of long wooden painted slats. The slats were rounded and felt nice to the touch. They were painted dark green and merry chartreuse. Isn't it funny how kids notice and remember details like this?

Grandma and Grandpa also maintained two cement planters near the benches. These held succulent jade plants. Occasionally, I would break off a leaf and marvel at how juicy and water-filled each leaf was.

 

1957: 2nd Grade with Mrs. Rosenquit

I forget my first-grade teacher. But my Second Grade teacher was the redoubtable Mrs. Rosenquit. She was an elderly lady, and s I recall a sourpuss. That should not be allowed in grade school, I think.

Anyhow. there was one delight about her classroom - she allowed two or three 12" turtle to roam the classroom at will! You'd be sitting there listening to her teach and one of those turtles would start moving below you. So you'd lift your feet to allow them to pass.

 

"Street life"

These Brooklyn streets were anything but mean. Everybody knew everyone else.
Atone point, had a red metal car.

At another point, my Dad cobbled together a scooter from a soapbox, a 2 x 4, and a street skate broken in two. One set of metal wheels went on the front and another at the back end of the 2 x 4.

On one of my excursions around the block, a notorious bully named Ralphy pushed me off my scooter and stole it from me. I went crying home.

My parents told me, "Go tell his parents and ask for them to get it back for you."

So I think I went to complain to Ralphy's Mom in some strange building. And I think she said something like, "So what do you want me to do?"

End of scooter!

 

Kenny's famous Brooklyn escapades!

My brother Kenny's most famous mis-adventures and mostly comical vignettes are:

Kenny goes through French doors and nearly bleeds to death (not comical) - Kenny ran down our hallway and into French doors, made of glass mullioned windows. His sinews were protruding from his wrist, and he bled profusely.
My parents took him to Beth-El Hospital. There, she had make a scene to get attention for Kenny in the crowded Emergency Room.

Kenny turns off the refrigeration at the deli - On a visit to the deli, Kenny found a switch and turned off a meat refrigerator. The store owner later appeared at our home bemoaning hundreds of dollars in damage due to spoiled meats. My Mom compensated him for the damage.

Kenny goes down the produce chute at the supermarket - My Mom let her eyes leave Kenny for one minute at the supermarket. Next thing, she hears a sound -- "Ma" -- coming from somewhere. She scours around and finds the sound is coming from the basement. There's Kenny down there, sitting at the bottom of one of those wheeled chutes for cartons.

and the unforgettable...

Kenny drags his playpen into the street and towards the highway - My Mom placed Kenny in his playpen in an alleyway behind our house. She tied him in, so that if he climbed over the railing, he would not go far. Little did she realize she was dealing with Hercules!

Kenny escaped from his playpen. He then pulled it down the alleyway. Then he entered the street, wheeled playpen in tow behind him. He turned right onto Alabama Avenue, a busy residential one-way street.

So there he was staggering down the middle of the street, playpen behind him, heading towards Linden Boulevard. For those of you from the Philly area, it would be a road comparable to Roosevelt Boulevard in this area, with thousands of rushing cars.

So a neighbor alerts my Mom, who must have been busy in the kitchen. "Mrs. Cassorla, your son is dragging a playpen towards Linden Boulevard!" Of course, she rescued him. But this was typical of Kenny's hijinx!

 

 

The Autobiography of Albert Fried-Cassorla

this section last updated 8-16-02

 

1957 - Moving to Bellmore

Moving to Bellmore from Brooklyn was an unimaginably huge event!

My parents had their friends and business relationships and could maintain them. but for me as a 7-year old, I went from a street full of pals and the warmth of P.S. 190 to who-knows-what in the hinterland.

Before moving, I looked forward to it, telling my pals with a gleam in my eyes, "We're moving!" as if saying, "We won the lottery!"

Only after the actual transition did I realize what I'd lost. It would take a long time to build new friendships. I remembered crying at one point, wistfully remembering dear old stickball streets on the city. Our old neighborhod of New Lots, Brooklyn (a.k.a., East New York) was a tightly knit community, with an atmospheric synagog (where the women sat up[stairs). At Bar Mitzvah services, people threw candy at the kids, like happy hailstorms! You scrambled right there in shul to gather what sweets you could. People in our neighborhood were often of Sephardic origins, though it was certainly mixed with Askenazis and Christians. Almost everyone there seemed ot haver moved earlier from the Lower East Side. In New Lots, packs of playing kids roamed the streets and you could meet friends and pick up a game of punchball pretty easily.

Now relatrively alone in Bellmore, I at least I had younger brother Kenny to torture and tease! The new house was a source of excitement in itself, a recently completed split-level, it reeked of newness.

 

1957, Bellmore, Land of Lawns

As my industrious home-making Mom saw it, there were shrubs to plant, a new electric range and double-oven to manage, and a lawn to conquer.

We had a lawn planted. It took forever for the dark dirt to turn green. Still, it was kind of magical to watch the thin green shoots pop up.

This was our city-dweller's introduction to the pursuit of the Holy Grail of the Perfect lawn.

When it finally appeared, our lawn seemed to be mostly made of rye-grass. We got a push lawn mower. That didn't last long. Large yards seem to require gasoline as much as fertilizer.

The next mower, maybe 2 weeks after the first one, looked like a push mower with an engine.

With this new mower, in other words, the blades rolled like a spinning barrel, rather than the horizontal style rotary mowers we know today.

What's the diff? you may wonder.. Well, our second mower made lots of noise, but it had one small problem: It could not cut grass!! It did cut some, but left tall rye grasses standing.

I remember my Dad and all of us laughing at our frustration with the non-cutting mower. We were truly amateur suburbanites -- true Brooklyn transplants!

Enter our third mower, a gas-powered rotary job, and #3 was magic!

 

My hate-hate relationship with lawns

Not that lawns were my love -- in fact, they were my hatred. It always struck me as absurd to feed the stupid lawn with mists of water and carefully prepared fertilizer. And then, to be forced to cut what you so carefully encouraged!

It all seemed so very stupid… and still does, though I mow my own lawn now, and nobody holds a gun to my head to do so.

So from age 7 through 17, I mowed each summer, as did most boys, participants in a fumy mandatory ritual. oh, we also had to rake up the bags and bags of clippings. when we got a clipping catcher, that only extended our misery, since we had to continually turn off the mower and empty the darn thing!

Now, as a homeowner with my own lawn, one I've been stupidly mowing for 12 years, I admit to being trapped by the bizarre behaviors and values I seem to have inherited.

 

My friend Naomi Nemtzow comments on Jewish foods and Bellmore, circa 1950's:

No, Scheppy's was not always there, and when it first opened, it marked change. Bellmore in '56, when I got there, was still in pre-war mode, centered north of Sunrise Hwy. Our peninsula was still largely marsh. Remember the landfill progressing a few blocks at a time, just ahead of the house building?

Older houses were small bungalows, looked like they'd been built as modest summer places. Working class Irish families, with teenage daughters who babysat for us. Central Bellmore, you may remember, had a strong German influence. Nary a Jew in the place. The Jews came when we did, 50's onward. Ashkenazic food (which we arrogantly called "Jewish food") stayed behind in Brooklyn, the Bronx & Queens....

And then along came Scheppy's! Lox & whitefish on Sunday mornings! Looms large in my memory. I'm now shaking my brains for the arrival of bagels & rye bread, at around that time, and Waldbaum's and Hills with deli depts.

 

 

Meeting my great childhood friend, Mark Zakarin

Somehow, I met Mark, who would become my best friend through high school.

We would go through adolescent rebellions together, trade confidences about incipient romances, have sports battles, watch endless NY Mets games on black and white TV, cram sessions. and finally, experience the approach and reality of leaving for college.

Sitting on the curb with Mark

So there we were, two boys , age 7, living a few houses apart. Each of us was a "refugee" from Brooklyn --- Mark from Far Rockaway, me from New Lots (also known as East New York).

I have this impression of myself sitting on grass, feet over the curb, dawdling away the time in this strange new place. Marine place, to be exact. A weird new neighborhood that had streets named Army, Navy and Marine Places.

Mark's Mom, Miriam Zakarin, claims to have put Mark and I together by approaching me and saying, "I have a son who s just your age! Why don't you knock on our door and ask him to come out and play ball with you?"

Apparently, I did. And the rest -- as they say -- is history.

Mark says his Mom likes to take credit for initiating our friendship. And so you should, my Miriami!

I can hear her saying, "Thank you, Al-ber-ret."

(She always liked to playfully add that extra syllable to my name.)

Bruce Scher, Mark Zakarin, Albert and Martha

 


Bruce Scher, circa 1973

Bruce Scher remembers 1957:

I was 8 and a half when I moved in to Bellmore, 1957. We all went to Winthrop Avenue Public School. We had gym in the classroom while on double-shift at Winthrop.

Then Shore Road opened in the middle of 4th Grade. Coach Royer used to play the guitar.

Miss Bollen, the gym teachers, passed away years ago.

The second day I was there, I met Frank Cama, Barbara Meyer, and Neal Klugerman.

I remember the big bales of peat moss in front of my house. Legion Street was not paved, it was hard ground. Marine Place was just sand dunes. There were no houses, either. The beach was supposed to be ours -- then they built houses.

We used to catch horseshoe crabs.

Naomi remembers:

I had Miss Lindblom. We made 3-D maps of South America and South Africa.

 

Bruce: I remember the guys with long pipes. Mr. Brellis had a newspaper.

 

Mr. Fitch's Dance Class

Bruce: I won the dance contest at the end of the year. Frank won third place in the cha-cha. Fitch wouldn't hear of the Pony. We danced to "Poetry in Motion" and other songs. He was tall and gangly.

Naomi: Mr. Fitch had a girl student older than us who came along.

 

Naomi: Susan Coren and I had a crush on Richie Phillips. We showed our affection by kicking him in the shins.

 

Coach Paul Royer

We all liked him. Naomi: He taught us a song about Coffee in the Army. He played guitar at our parties and graduation.

One tune went: "Hip Hooray, you're going the wrong way, when you get to your backyard, stop and take a swing, just like we used to in Georgia!" A square dance tune.

 

Shore Road School

It had a happy atmosphere. Naomi: When I take my kinds to it now, they see it as the fishy school. Now it's called Shore Road Intermediate School.

Albert: It was so special to be the first kids there. We had one bathroom for two classrooms.

Bruce remembers Miss. Smith, an older woman. We had Mr. Single in fifth and sixth grade for reading.

The windows had putty, and we made balls of them.

 

Home-Economics Class

Naomi: It was a double-kitchen, two side by side. The class was divided into groups. Two did a cooking project. We did biscuits, muffins, and Waldorf salad, an unfamilar dish. All the girls did that. We learned how to sew from a pattern.

 

Shop Class with Mr. Cella

I remember using a bandsaw, which was big, powerful, and scary.

 

Raymond Ricketts

We were all scared of him, especially in dodgeball. To Alan Barocas: "You and me, we're the champs."

Bruce: He held the ball like a cannon and threw it 100 mph.

 

Playing with Bulldozers and Fighting the Clod Wars

Bellmore had some attractions that Brooklyn lacked. For example, the School Board was erecting Shore Road elementary School across the street.

When we moved in, across the street from us was a big hole in the ground, into which taxpayers' money and cement were being poured. Wooden boards provided forms to shape the cement of the school's basement. We sidewalk superintendants could observe construction progress so easily!

Not far from our home, continuous dredging was going on. This was magnificent to watch! Barges pumped salt water from the nearby canals onto the boggy ground. Huge arcs of water and sand deluged the land.

When the water ran off, the sand remained, forming the basis for our neck of Bellmore. The bulldozers would move in next and spread the sand around.

Then came the incredible, hulking, monstrous pile drivers! Didn't every neighborhood have pile-drivers pounding away all day? If not, how unlucky for those deprived kids.

The pile-drivers smashed enormous, tar-covered telephone-pole sized logs into the sand and bog below. The din at close range was quite incredible and delightful to 8-year old ears! How they'd smash away, with the big diesel powered weight smashing the top of the log with unimaginable force until most of the pole disappeared into the ground.

Construction crews followed the bulldozers, laying house foundations and putting up homes lickety-split. It was amazing how fast entire groups of homes arose out of the muck, sand, piles and frenzied banging of hammers.

For awhile some bulldozers were actually working across the street from our home, which faced on the enormous school yard.

Mark, my brother Kenny and I would take the helm of these iron behemoths when he workers quit at 5 p.m. To our surprise, when we turned the ignition knob, the engine turned over!

I never recalled an engine actually starting, though Mark says he did. What a a thrill that would have been -- to have all of that rumbling power in our young hands.

 

Dirt Bomb Wars

The Dirt Bomb Wars were magnificent and special in their messiness and harmlessness.

The fortresses from which our wars were fought were 20' high cubic stacks of boards used to form the school's foundation.

The weapon or ammunition was provided by clay clods which coagulated amidst the dredged sand. It stood in puddles, dried to a grayish or yellowish consistency and finally coalesced into parched rectangles of alligator-skin like shape. Each clod was maybe 3" across and half an inch thick.

We'd launch these clods at each other like mad, medieval warriors. What filth! What fun! This might have been the best reason for our move to the Burbs.

Discovering horseshoe crabs and turtles

The 300,000,000 year-old horseshoe crabs that we found along thee nearby canals and bay were incredibly hideous. I know that this is politically incorrect to say, because they are, after all, supreme survivors.

But turn over a horseshoe crab, and what you will see are evil-looking disgusting, writhing legs and claws. Sure, they're endangered -- more now than five decades ago. But they were still ug-LEE!

In fact, they looked something like the creature starring in the horror flick The Tingler.

A Tingler was produced, you might recall, when a person who was scared to death had no way pf screaming to let their fear out. Then a ferocious tingler, a.k.a., horseshoe crab or giant scorpion, was formed and would be born into the world by a ninny of a surgeon. He would be fool enough to excise it from the spinal column, from which misguided liberation it would proceed to consume the delivering surgeon. What a waste of medical talent!

Anyhow, dead horseshoe crab tails made perfect spear-heads. This was their redeeming virtue.

Along the bogs, we also found occasional turtles and we, fished a bit.. when we did, we mainly had our bait eaten by tiny-mouthed gar-fish (eels), and saw sea gulls dropping things from the sky.

To smash their bi-valved quarry, they dropped razor clams, other clams, oysters and more. It was Nature in action, and we had a pretty good seat.

 

Green flies - Youch!!

Our development in south Bellmore (land of the Bellmorons, as we later dubbed it) was a peninsula. On one side was Legion Street and a canal. On the other side was Shore Road and another canal.

The closer we got to he nearby actual water of the salty canals, the more likely we were to be eaten by green-headed horseflies.

Man, nothing this mean ever flew in Brooklyn!

When we dared to swimming the canals, our surfacing would be penalized by a swarm of these voracious greenheads! When they bit, you surely yelped.

Safety lay beneath the water's surface only. Emerge and you were fresh meat!

The only pleasant part of nature I ever experienced at the canal was finding a trove of turtle eggs. I had scooped up some sand and had found the eggs in my hand, opalescent and precious looking as little pearls.

But would Mrs. Turtle come looking for her progeny and not find them -- all because of my disturbing actions? I often wondered.

 

Disappearing nature

We did not know that there was a limit to how long the bulldozers, construction workers and pile drivers would stay.

The actual locus of construction kept getting farther from our house. Six to ten blocks south of us, the two canals emptied into the great South Bay. Land simply ended.

Sand swallowed up all of the green, spongy, feral bog we had bounced upon.

Piles smashed the sand. The last homes were built, the last bog buried and the final stand of trees cut to make Brodey and Randy Lanes and all of the streets southward.

It was sad that you could bike-ride and make a clear loop around the peninsula now and never find a wild stretch. But that was Progress, as it was defined then.

 

 
 W.C. Mepham, where I attended high school, 1964-67.

 

 

 

AP English with Valdora Spaulding

Some of us were fortunate to have Dr. Spaulding as our English teacher.  Her AP English class was small -- maybe 15 students.  Our discussions were wonderful.  I remember little of it except the exhilaration we felt at testing our minds.  I regret not having tried to keep in contact with her for all of these years.  Did anybody try?

She gave us a summer reading list, I suppose the summer prior.  How many have You read?  Click HERE!

I do recall that she loved John Ciardi's translation of Dante's Inferno, which we read.

Also, I remember reading Harper's magazine in class, and that we all had free subscriptions.  One article was about George Romney as a presidential candidate, and Valdora was very impressed with the role of his wife in power politics.

Let's see how many classmates we can recall who were in that class, shall we?

I regret I can only name: Ginny Hoffman, Naomia Nemtzow, Albert Fried-Cassorla