hair, and looked like everyone’s grandmother. One of my classmates announced that he had to go to the washroom, so Miss Kimble unbuttoned his union suit in the rear. He promptly let it fall and walked to the bathroom with his buttocks exposed. We all laughed. I can still see him walking as vividly as I remember the parading soldiers.
I never got to the first semester of first grade. Instead, I suffered a series of contagious diseases. My mother tells me I had whooping cough, followed by measles, and finally German measles and mumps. In those days, the order was to quarantine, so I spent the entire first semester in bed.
It’s strange, but the next episode, perhaps of critical importance in my life, is only vaguely present in my memory. The first semester of the first grade served to set the foundation for basic reading. My mother knew this, so she purchased a blackboard and chalk, and while I was in bed, she taught me how to read…a practitioner of “home schooling” before its time. I vaguely remember the blackboard on an easel and my mother standing beside the bed lecturing to me. When she spoke of the experience, she told me how rapidly I learned all the letters and words. I think she used a self-invented system of phonics long before it became popular. Of course, I never realized the loving and critical importance of this action.
Since I missed the first semester of the first grade, my mother brought me to school to meet my second semester first grade teacher, Miss DiMatta. I remember her appearance: short, thin, coal black hair, glasses, and a superior air. She told my mother that even though I missed the first semester, and therefore did not learn to read, she would pass me onto the second semester, but put me in the “slow group” and hope I would be able to catch up.
“Oh no,”` my mother said, “I taught him how to read. He doesn’t need to be in the slow group.”
Miss DiMatta was incredulous, and said she couldn’t do that because I had missed the entire semester, but my mother insisted that I they give me a book and test me on the spot. The principle, Mr. Garret Rickard, agreed. How did I ever remember that name? Anyhow, I read the book with ease and joined the second semester advanced group. I can still remember the upstaged look on Miss DiMatta’s face. I was worried about it, but I didn’t know why. Things must have worked out because I have no further recollection of the first grade.
I lived almost a mile from LaFayette Grade School. In kindergarten and first grade, my mother walked me there every day. This meant four round trip walks. We never could afford a car, and even if we could, it was rare in those days to have women drivers. She brought me to school in the morning, walked back home, picked me up at school for lunch at home (there were no school lunches then—or busses), brought me back to school after lunch, came back home, picked me up after school and walked back home with me. I don’t remember how long it took me to protest that “I could do it myself,” but eventually I did.
CHAPTER 4
GRADE SCHOOL
The first grade must have been good for I became an avid reader. Since I knew what direction my life would take, I spent my spare time reading books about the human body, biology, physiology, health, hygiene, science in general. My personal private life was good, but my home life became an environment I needed to conceal from friends. There were constant verbal battles between my mother and her parents and sisters. “They don’t know what I’m going through,” my mother would say. Apparently, she thought her aberrant behavior was borne of absolute necessity. “Someday people will know I was right.” My uncle, who by now was involved in WWII, left with the statement to the family that “if Sheldon had to live through those family battles, he would probably end up in a straight jacket.”
The battles became so verbally abusive that I would expect to come home in the middle of a fight. So, if I ever would arrive home with friends I would always run ahead of them and fly up the stairs to be able to quiet things down before my friends would arrive. It was uncomfortable and difficult and I was always fearful of having a friend over.
As best as I knew I was the only one of my friends who had divorced parents. In those days, divorce was a rare phenomenon. It made me feel different, and I lived with that knowledge, but my mechanism of handling it was to ignore that it was reality. If people spoke of it, I left the room or changed the subject. I am sure that current thinking would be totally against such an approach, but I think it worked for me. I can recall my cousin Harvey, dumbfounded by my pretense, say, “God, is he dumb.” I ignored that comment by pretending I never heard it. Harvey’s sister, Sheila, was my good friend and youthful playmate as was Marshall, my aunt Rose’s son.
Although my upbringing and parental relationship was different from my friends and relatives, I had the support of an extended family. In those days, families lived in close proximity and provided mutual support for each other. On one block of Sacramento Boulevard, I had my mother, grandparents, all my aunts, uncles and an assorted collection of cousins.
So this is the way I grew up, an emotional loner, but finding the strength to resolve problems by myself. I did very well in school, but thought that the more I knew about the human body, the greater would be my chance of becoming a doctor, so I concentrated on subjects I thought necessary, but made an error by ignoring two subjects I disliked—math and English. “I don’t need math. I can talk so why worry about these grammar details.” Even if someone had told me I was wrong, I would have probably ignored that sound advice. I focused on my scientific interest. It was almost a fatal mistake—but more later.
CHAPTER 5
MORE GRADE SCHOOL
Sacramento Boulevard was strictly a residential street. Division Street was a mile away and was mostly commercial. There was a Walgreen’s drug store on the corner of Division and California where my mother would often take me for a thick malted milk with two cookies if I remember correctly. On Saturday, she would often take my cousins and me to a movie at the Division Theatre on Division Street that featured the weekly serial, Flash Gordon. For twenty-five cents (?), you saw the serial and the feature film and received some dishes. Going every week guaranteed that you would get the entire collection of chinaware.
I remember my fifth grade teacher very well. Her name was Miss Ryan. She was short and very pretty to the perception of a ten-year-old boy, and I think I was the “teacher’s pet.” I distinctly remember one episode, because I lied to her. It was the first time I can ever remember telling a fib.
Miss Ryan gave the fifth grade class an assignment. She wanted us to write an essay titled “The Two Greatest Inventions in the History of the World.” I wracked my brains and came up blank. However, through an amazing coincidence, I happened to have a science book that I planned to read. One of the chapters titled “The World’s Two Greatest Inventions” opened my eyes and I proceeded to digest every word. According to the book, the two inventions that had the greatest impact on world history were language and the wheel. I had my essay.
The day after we handed in the assignment Miss Ryan took me aside and said, “Sheldon, where did you get your greatest inventions idea?”
“Uhh…I just thought of it,” I said in a matter of fact way. Then I looked at Miss Ryan’s face to see the effect. She nodded her head, and I interpreted the expression on her face to be one of amazement that a ten-year-old boy should have such a profound understanding of the concepts that could so expand civilization and world progress. At least that’s what I thought her expression meant at the time. More than likely, her thoughts were—yeah, right, you little fibber.
There it was. I told a fib with the ulterior motive of wanting my teacher to think that I was this smart, deep thinking, little kid. I believe I remember this episode so vividly because of the lie I told. I knew I was doing wrong.
Another major memory I have of grade school was in the sixth grade in 1941. Upper grade children went to the auditorium. There was a large radio on the stage and we all heard Franklin Delano Roosevelt give his famous days of infamy speech to announce the entry of the United States into World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Everyone remembers where he was that fateful day. I had been to a Chicago Bears football game. When I arrived back home I found my grandmother crying. She