Paul and his sister in Travis, Staten Island.

Paul and his mom in their backyard.

"We shared an old house in the predominantly Polish town of Travis on Staten Island during World War II. We were just trying not to starve to death in this particular, fascinating town of xenophobic, exotic bubushkas and kielbasas. There was always little or no money, and a struggle to have enough proper food. My mother would freak out regularly. "

Paul, his mom, and sister at their house in Travis, on Staten Island. "Travis was so unique Elia Kazan filmed most of Splendor in the Grass there because he needed a place that looked like Kansas in 1920."

Paul's mom

"Here's my mother with a collie when she tried to get rich quick because Lassie was the hot book and movie at the time. She bought a male and a female, mated them incessantly. No one wanted to buy the dogs so we ended up living with twenty-six collies.”

"Some of the twenty-seven collie puppies we got stuck with when my mother failed at breeding Lassie look-a-likes which didn't sell."

"I fell in love with Nordelle who I asked out fifty times before she finally said yes, but by then I didn't really love her anymore. I fell in love with Vivian, a girl who died in a fire. And I fell deeply in love with a few dozen other persons who I never had the guts to tell that I loved. And there you have the story of my teen years. I so wanted to love and be loved. I think that was what most occupied my mind, and chemistry, physics, geometry, world history, and baseball all simply passed the time while I wanted the most elusive thing of all. And there was no course in it at the time."

Paul on prom night. "Here's me and my senior prom date, Pat Ryan. She was to me the most beautiful girl in the school. I loved her very much but she married a dynamic gas station attendant." 

Before Paul started writing, he taught chemistry at Tottenville Highschool on Staten Island.