A Few Odds and Ends

~Mark Weinstein

In the Spring of ‘65 I won a trip from the Science Fair to the IBM labs in New York, and the World’s Fair. One day I heard a knock on the connecting door in the motel in Yorktown Heights where IBM put me, and Mrs. McGuan, who was the project sponsor, up. When the door opened I was faced with her back and dress that was unzipped and she said “Zip up my dress. And if you tell anyone about this I will kill you!” I assume she has passed on now so no harm is done. 

I also remember a really awful science teacher named Durkin, who said one day in our freshman year, “Students, the Student Peace Union is a Communist organization, everyone in the SPU is Jewish, why do you Jews do this to a country that has been so good to you?”  I walked out of the class and that evening, at home, we got a call from Bill Spellburg (whom my parents knew) asking exactly what Durkin had said. She issued an apology a few days later.

I could never get Dr. Conroy. First, of course, I knew even then that for Ph.D. to call himself “Doctor” is rather pretentious. Second, he never struck me as being very bright. I guess is Ph.D. was in Phys Ed – he did a million push-ups and they had to give it to him!

There were also some great teachers who really challenged us. Jack Zevin. Lou Stanek. But mostly, they didn’t really push us, didn’t force us to confront what was going on the world (the Civil Rights movement, the start of the anti-war movement). And too many didn’t reward us when we questioned what was going on.

A confession, I was chair of the Senior Class finance committee. We set the dues for the class. Mr. Goldberg (one of the petty martinets) told me what the dues would be, and it was a number (I forget now what it was) that I knew would be a stretch for a lot of people in our class. I objected to him that we did not need to raise this much money, but I caved. This was really what was going on, no trust in us to find our own way, no respect for us (except from a few).

Sorry to be so gloomy.