A snippet

Here is a snippit of a larger sketch on joining the Communist Party

Unlike my two older brothers who did well academically and were elected class presidents in each of their four years, my high school resume and report card were, how to put it, thin. Not one a parent would proffer in conversation with a neighbor.

On my good days, I was an average student who found school a perfect site for daydreaming, misbehaving, glancing at girls in the corridor or classrooms, and watching the clock in its slooooow march to dismissal time. I don’t know if, like Springsteen, I learned more from a 3 minute record than I ever learned in school, but I do recall that in my senior yearbook in 1963 my favorite saying was “I find every book too long.”

That sounds more like a clever editor putting words into my mouth than my own words, but even so, it did succinctly capture my attitude toward book learning at the time.

If I read anything at that age, it was the sports page of the local newspaper. Every morning at the breakfast table, I eagerly checked out the box scores of the Red Sox or Celtics or Giants or Packers, depending on the season.

Of course, my Bible was Sports Illustrated. It arrived in the mail, like clockwork, on Friday and as soon as I got home I devoured it with the same enthusiasm that I gobbled down the jelly donuts from a local bakery that my parents picked up on their way home from work.

If I knew any Marx, it was, not Karl, but Groucho. His weekly TV show, “You Bet Your Life” was a hoot! If it was a choice between his comedy show or doing an assigned school reading such as Dickens or Shakespeare or George Eliot, the choice was an easy one for me. Groucho by a mile!