GROWING UP IN THE SOUTH BRONX ENLIGHTENED THIS “WHITE SHADOW”.
WARNING: URBAN LANGUAGE AHEAD
William Wordsworth wrote in his famous poem, TheRainbow, “The child is the father of the man.” It sure applies to me.
I went to kindergarten in PS 96, the Bronx. At the time it was in the mostly Jewish Pelham Parkway area. I wasn’t there long. My mom and I had to move out of our nice digs to my grandmother’s place in the south (at the time misnamed east) Bronx. It turns out that we were evicted for lack of rent. Dad did not pay his obligated monthly child support and alimony payments and mom’s job in the garment district as a former model turned “Gal Friday” paid her slave wages. She had no union. So, like little red riding hood, it was off to grandmother’s (Mom’s mom) I went, and PS 61, on Boston Road and Charlotte Street to finish kindergarten.
You might know grandma’s place. President Jimmy Carter visited the area. She lived on Minford Place and Charlotte Street. Somehow we were able to move to our own place a few blocks away on Longfellow Ave. and 172nd street, not far from Grandma and a block from my new scholastic and athletic home, PS 66. It was there that I endured Mrs. Witch in class 1-3. I have one class picture of me in a cowboy outfit. I was smiling; it must have been Halloween. It was probably the only time. I smiled in first grade. What I do remember is getting yelled out for putting my feet in the aisle because I didn’t GROWING UP IN THE SOUTH BRONX ENLIGHTENED THIS “WHITE SHADOW”. | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:
