ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS MEMORIES

(1948 – 1954)

When I started the first grade I was living with my father in an apartment, the apartment building had been built by my father and he had named this apartment complex the Santa Barbara Apartments for my sister. These apartments were located in Lauderdale by the Sea, just across the street from the Atlantic Ocean.  These apartments that were located just about midway in this rental community named as Lauderdale by the Sea, which was on the Atlantic coast just about midway between Fort Lauderdale and Pompano.  Since there were no local schools, I had to attend the Ft. Lauderdale Elementary School for only that first year of school.

The only memories I have of this elementary school itself occurred one day when I was standing just outside classrooms on the second story balcony and needing to clear my throat that required me to spit. When I had leaned just over that second story balcony to clear my throat and spit; as luck would have it my spit landed on a teacher standing immediately below where I had spit. I remember being sent to the principal's office for this unfortunate incident and apparently when I had explained exactly just what had happened; the principal was apparently convinced that my action was not at all deliberate or anything directed at the teacher, but simply an unfortunate accident.

My father pulled me aside one day and said, “if you have any trouble at all with the other kids on the school bus; you tell me!  I just want you to know that your father is doing the right thing.” As you may or not know, Broward County in that period of time in our history was extremely anti-Semitic, and what my father had done, that caused some degree of friction with the other landlords and apartment owners of the area, was to have rented to some Jewish friends from Rochester, New York that he had met when he was in that area trucking vegetables north and south.  As that time, Jews were only encouraged to rent winter residences in the Miami Beach area and Broward County was only and certainly unofficially opened only to the Gentiles.  My father had specifically taught me to, “Always do the right things!” When my father taught me this lesson, he would say, “I don't care what you mother says, or your teacher tells you, or even what the church or some minister tells you to do, your government and its laws or anybody else for the matter-of-fact; you're always to do what you feel is the best and only the right thing.”  When I asked him, “How will I know what is the best thing to do?”  His answer was very simple and to the point, “You'll know; you'll know just what to do, believe me!”  My father was so emphatic about this personal ethics point that it had and has remained with me for the entirety of my life.

You may remember that I told you that it was my grandmother that was the one that taught me how to fish, and my love of fishing is another trait that has remained with me for the entirety of my life. There was a fishing pier in Lauderdale by the Sea that was only about one block from the Santa Barbara Apartments.  There were any number of days that I would get out of bed before my father and go fishing in Angling’s pier; that could and would cause a problem sometimes just because I would sometimes not return in time to catch the only school bus to the Ft. Lauderdale schools.  This very understandably caused a bit of friction with my father, unless of course; I had brought home some fresh fish for dinner.  Then, of course when I did go fishing I always did my very best and tried to make sure to bring home fresh fish.  If the Blue Fish or Mackerels were not running on some given day, I would usually return in time to catch the bus.

There was another childhood hobby that I had more fully developed while living in Lauderdale by the Sea and that was my seashell collecting from local seashores.  Lauderdale by the Sea was a strip of land that occupied about three or four miles on Atlantic Ocean shoreline that was separated by some empty spaces that were both North and South of this area. It was these empty areas devoid of any human population that made shell collecting a real premium that no longer exist today. The vacant area that was south of Lauderdale by the Sea was about a mile long and bore the name of Gault Mile.  It is presently filled with high-rise condos and such.  The vacant area that was just north of Lauderdale by the Sea had no particular name, but like the area that was just South, it too has now been fully built.  Because of the vast development in these open areas along the Atlantic seashore, shell collecting is all but lost.  As it became more difficult to collect shells along the shore lines, I turned my collecting attention to various shell shops that were usually found along US-1 between Pompano and Miami, with a concentration in Dania and Hollywood.  I remember saving my allowances in order to purchase seashells from around the world’s oceans and water ways.  There was some particular shop where the nice lady proprietor had encouraged me to purchase several varieties of coral that she still had on hand as there were new laws being passed that prohibited the collection of corals in a concerted effort to preserve the reefs that could be found just offshore all along the Atlantic coast particularly the warmer waters off the Southern states.  I'm very grateful to this particular lady today, because I followed her timely advice and still have those same corals in my collection today.  I am particularly taken with a blue colored coral that has a smaller very white coral that is very central to its blue host.  This vivid color contrast dramatically serves to insure that the dark blue color of the larger coral is indeed authentic.  The other piece of coral that I am so proud to have in my collection is a smaller piece of red color from the Mediterranean Sea that I had purchased locally from a Native American Jewelry supply house.  This popular Native American use of red coral began when the invasive Spanish used this red coral as a trade tender.    

My next memory is of fourth-grade that was spent at Miami Shores Elementary. My fourth grade teacher was Ms. Cusec (sp) had one day called my mother to tell her that, “Joe beat up a kid on the playground today.” When my mother had asked the teacher as to what actually happened, Ms. Cusec explained, that when one of the regular playground bullies had complained to her that Joe Walker had beat him up on the playground; her response, without any hesitation or though, to this “bully” was simply to her perceived point of view, “if Joe Walker had beat you up, you must've had it coming.”  Ms. Cusec had the more usual impression that I was one of those kind-mannered and soft-spoken individuals that would have more likely been beat up, rather than to give a beating to someone else.  Ms. Cusec had just and only wanted my mother to know that Joe Walker was quite able to take care of himself, and for my mother to never worry about my more passive and kind nature.

The other significant part of my childhood was my early on fascination and involvement with orchids.  Ms. Cusec (I really don’t recall the actual correct spelling), my fourth-grade teacher, loved field trips, and on one of those fortuitous outings she had taken the class to a local orchid grower and popular Florida tourist attraction, Fennell’s--The Orchid Jungle.  I was so fascinated with the whole adventure, and most particularly intrigued with a laboratory that was also on display at this facility.  Fennell’s was apparently amongst some of the first orchid hybridizers to become actively engaged in the “cloning” of orchids as well as the cultivation of orchids from their single-celled seeds.  For those earlier times, this cloning process was something right out of a science fiction book, and from that very point forward, I was mysteriously and firmly hooked on all aspects of orchid cultivation and their rather totally unique and scientific cultivation that required a sterile environment laboratory in addition to the usual tropical environment greenhouse.

Adding to the overall drama of this adventure with orchids was a particular classmate, Malcolm Wisehart.  His father was a rather prominent judge in Miami, and the man grew orchids just as a hobby.  It was interesting that this man, in a most fatherly manner, told me to “enjoy these wonderful orchids, but never permit yourself to become involved with the American Orchid Society!”  I had the best of intentions of following his fatherly advice, having somehow arrived at the intuitive belief that this sacred-cow organization must have been some kind of exclusive, typically high-class snobby group, with their noses way up their very smelly and brown messy posterior opening, that was most probably totally and inherently unsuitable for the more common folk like that of myself.  The rest of this rather sad story and its ultimate outcome will come alive later after I had eventually moved to New Mexico.

While in fourth-grade we lived in a duplex that was built by my mother and was located on North Miami Ave.  It was one day when I was running wild around the outside of this duplex that I had accidentally stepped into a coffee can and deep-cut my ankle rather seriously.  My mother and Cuban stepfather rushed me off to a doctor that had then and necessarily put several stitches into my ankle to stop the profuse bleeding.  I can remember the blood filling up my shoe to over-flowing.  This was my first and very thankfully the last stitches needed to stop the bleeding due to any accident and/or incident.

I believe it was a year or two later when we were then living on North 103^rd Street that was next to a house that my grandmother had bought so that she could be closer to the very nursing home where my grandfather was in residence.  I have several good memories of living there, the first of which dealt with a little monkey that was named Poncho. This pet monkey was a woolly monkey that had its own little house where he was chained and it was located in our backyard under one of the two rather large trees.  I can affectionately remember one of Poncho’s most endearing traits that was his cunning ability to so easily pickpocket anyone’s shirt pocket.  He would take whatever he could get from your pocket and immediately take it into his little house which had a small attic and it was in this small attic that he would leave whatever it was that he had taken from your pocket.  The access to this tiny attic was from inside his little house, which made it almost impossible to retrieve anything that he may have taken from your pocket.  I can't say as to whatever happened to that very cute little monkey because I really don't remember.

It was a girl that had lived within the same block that our two houses were located that played the violin.  Well, I fell in love with the violin and asked to be given one on the very next gifting occasion.  I not only received a nice violin, but I also received violin lessons as part of the gift. I believe the lessons that were provided must have lasted for about a year.  For your information, I still have that same violin.

This violin girl, who was probably a year or two older, and I had one year taken it upon ourselves to celebrate that Halloween together with the rather nasty trick-or-treat prank of placing in one of the neighbor’s Florida Room jalousie windows, a garden hose that we then turned on and ran for our lives.

It was while I was at the Miami Shores Elementary School, I believe it was fifth-grade, that I must have failed my mathematic lessons because I was required to attend summer school or fail to be advanced to the next grade for what had to be some obvious mathematic deficiency.  I definitely remember this setback even though math was probably always my strongest class.  My mother told me later that she believed it was that summer class in math that was very likely responsible for my superior efforts in math for the remainder of my education.  I remember being a bit embarrassed for having to attend this summer school that was always reserved for those poor students with serious deficiencies.  I will most likely never know the full effect of that required summer school on my future academics dealing with mathematics.

It was also during those elementary schools’ period of time that I had taken up another interest; stamp collecting.  I would acquire most of my new stamps from advertisements in magazines, usually offering rather large random collections of either American or all foreign stamps for what always seemed like a very reasonable cost.  They didn't seem to be as many stamp shops in Florida as there were the shell shops.  Of course, the main portion of my stamp collection was that of the American historical stamps as well as the commemoratives of the day.  I'm sad to report that my stamps did not fare as well as my shell collection, mostly because the stamps were stolen later in my life.

JANET KENNEDY: It was during this particular period of elementary school and while we were living on North Miami Ave. that my mother had made a new friend with a woman artists, Janet Kennedy.  This artist later in my life had given my mother an oil painting of Jesus Christ, which eventually ended up in my own collection of art and is to be used as the artistic cover material for the book, Interview with Jesus in the Hot Tub.  My mother did not really care for this particular image or Jesus—my mother was just a bit offended with the painting’s roughness and perceived unflattering strength that was part of the selection of dark and vivid colors of blue and red.  This painting of Jesus represents for me a truer depiction of Jesus’ true strength and strong character that surely he had as the very rebel that he was.

This exceptional artist had once been a Catholic nun and it was her Mother Superior that encouraged her to leave the convent and take up her great gift of painting and artwork in a more realistic environment of the outside world.  I am to understand that she had gathered quite a following in the New York City art market and that many well-known celebrities had specifically collected her well-colored and vivid paintings that were mostly of a religious nature.  Janet remained a good friend of my mother until the day she died.

          It was also during the younger years that I have had an unusual experience that I can remember even today.  I had experienced seeing an image of Jesus walking on water while I was on the beach in Lauderdale by the Sa.  Now knowing what I have since learned, I do not question the experience, but I now understand that I am the “projector” as it is the same with anybody else having visions whether religious or otherwise.

Many of these aberrations seem so terribly real as are so many dreams that are experienced as a direct product of our unconscious minds.  In layman’s terms we are simply dreaming while still fully awake and in touch with both of the conscious and unconscious minds at the same time.  Those common and in touch with both minds’ experience usually depict images, that are well or even better known, that is part of realities that are perceived as the real thing even with the absence of any empirical evidence.  It is as though our unconscious minds voluntarily provide these non-empirical images with a touch of realism that is otherwise simply not available.  Why?  Because these imagined images are truly and simply NOT real!  We should be sure that we do not confuse the reality that we are truly experiencing these images with the probable reality that the subject matter of these experiences are most likely NOT real in any sense of the perception.  You may need to re-read this sentence several times to be sure that you fully understand and comprehend its full meaning.  

          It was closer to my 10^th birthday that my family was leaving the Santa Barbara apartment and I was rushing to catch up.  In my hurried state I had slipped on some wet concrete and had fallen and found myself temporarily unconscious.  I can very vividly remember seeing my life flashed before me in those very few seconds that I was knocked out.  I'm reporting this incident because I can remember the great impression that this experience had made on me, and just how it had taught me as to the working of our minds, especially in terms of the time element that was so depicted by such a brief encounter with my unconscious mind.  This experience at such a young age definitely had an unusual effect on my limited understanding of the workings of the mind.  It was such a brief encounter, that I never shared this with my parents as when I had finely reached the car there was no concern showed with my running late, which had only indicated that my perceived timed separation from my conscious mind must have been rather brief.