Beit Sefer Tichon

So, I DID say I would write about High School. The problem is, there is not too much to write. I coasted through high school without ever really learning anything. I remained active in my shul youth group. I remained a social outcast.

Ok, a few things.

I became close friends with Rose Blas. Rose was actually two years younger than me, and we would only share one year together in high school at the same time. We became friends, really, because she totally looked up to me. She loved the way I dressed and she wanted to learn from me how to dress well. She also thought I was cool (little did she know) and it was cool simply having a close friend who was 'older'. We used to go shopping together all the time. Shopping is not actually correct...Window Shopping is more like it. We drove the salespeople nuts. We would descend on a store and proceed to try on half the store. And we always left the dressing rooms a mess. This was before big box retailing -- each store was small, locally owned, and security measures to prevent shoplifting had not yet changed the face of retailing.

She and I also attended TLS together. TLS stands for Torah Leadership Seminar. These were usually 3-4 day seminars, over Shabbat, organized and run by Yeshiva University. TLS was designed to introduce non-relgious young Jews to religious Judaism and Shabbat. In truth, they were brainwashing sessions: we were kept up and got little to no sleep, we were kept in a state of hyperactivity -- roused to "spiritual excitement" with constant singing and emotional stories, etc., fed awful food so we barely ate -- all the while being bombarded with how wonderful it is to be religious and to keep Kosher and to keep Shabbat. Well -- it worked. Many students who attended these TLS events, are today, religious Jews. (A sort of outgrowth of this type of kiruv [outreach] has been the establishment of the organization NJOP -- National Jewish Outreach Program.)

I remember, I had already attended one TLS event and loved it and had convinced Rose that she would also enjoy it. She asked her parents if she could go and her father, who ran a little dictatorship in his household said no. I think his main objection was the cost. So, she asked me to convince him. So, I, at age 15, was to convince a grown man, a father and businessman, to allow his 13 year old daughter to attend TLS with me, and to spend about $118 dollars in doing so. I went to her house to speak with him. His main objection (at least what he told me) was that he did not believe that we wanted to go to TLS because we wanted to learn about our Jewish heritage. He believed that the real reason we wanted to go was because there were cute boys there -- and we were boy crazy! My response? "Ok, so, what if that is true? What if the real reason we want to go is because there are cute boys there? At least they are Jewish. We will be meeting and socializing with Jewish boys. Isn't that preferable to meeting and socializing with non - Jewish boys?" * He told me he liked my "shpiel" (sales pitch)-- and he let Rose attend TLS with me.

I also sort of introduced dance to Rose. In truth, Rose had always been a dancer. She had taken ballet lessons, tap dance lessons, and Jazz lessons. I had never taken any of those lessons (more about that in another entry). But I had a good feel for rhythm and in my last year of HS would go to disco's and dance clubs with a friend of mine, Lou Kogon. He taught me how to hustle and I loved it. Then, toward the end of my last year in HS, which would also be my last year in USY, we had a "senior" USY dance for all the outgoing members. I invited Rose to attend and also my friend Lou, who was a year older and had been an outgoing member in the prior year. Well, the band started up and Lou and I took to the floor. Now, bear in mind, I was still a social outcast, in spite of being active in the group and on the board of the group. No one at this event had ever seen me dance. When Lou and I began dancing, everyone else stopped. We were that good. We danced three dances like that. At the end of the third dance, we stopped and all of a sudden I was mobbed! Rose especially was entranced and said that she had no idea I could dance like that. Rose and I and Lou left the dance after that. Later, my mother (who had been there as a chaperone and witnessed the whole thing) would tell me how great it was and that everyone was watching me with their mouths open -- they could not believe that this person who was the social outcast, who could not hear, could dance like that. And when I left, I left them all with this amazing picture in their mind of me and who I was -- that they would never forget! It was great for me!

Rose and I remained close friends throughout most of my high school years. In my last year of high school, I began to change a bit, and Rose also knew that I would be leaving for Israel after HS -- and we began pulling away from each other a bit. We were still friends, but we shared less than we had in the past.

After I left HS, and went to Israel, Rose sort of picked up where I left off. She became friends with Carlos Roncancio. He was also a dancer and she and Carlos began going to disco's and dance clubs. This was against her father's wishes. One night she and Carlos were to compete in a dance contest at one of the clubs. She snuck out of the house, and went to the club with Carlos and his sister Anna. They danced in the contest and they won. In the meantime, her parents discovered her missing and her sister, JoEllen told them where she was. So, they called the club, and asked that they hold her there. However, the club realized that they were underage and instead simply warned Rose and Carlos and Anna that Rose's parents were on their way over. So they left the club. Rose's parents went to the club but it took a really long time to get there due to a terrible car accident that had occurred. They passed the accident on the way there. Of course, when they got to the club, Rose and her friends wee gone. So, they went home, passing this accident again. Upon returning home they learned the horrible news that Rose and her boyfriends sistter Anna, had been killed in a car accident -- the very same one which they had twice passed.

I was in Israel during all this and had no idea of any of this. My parents were afraid to tell me, lest I demand to come home for the funeral -- and they really could not afford that. So, they did not tell me. I learned later, that hundreds of people attended Rose's funeral. The driver who killed her and Anna, had been drunk, the son of a well respected local doctor. He did no jail time, nor were any major fines levied. This was in 1979, long before DWI became treated as a real crime.

A week after Rose's funeral, her father went into the hospital for some routine surgery, I think something to do with a hernia. My mother went to visit him and she could see that he was depressed. He said he was worried about the surgery but my mother who knew about it explained how it was routine and what they would do and that he would be fine. Sy (that was his name) died on the operating table. My mother was the last non medical person to see him alive.

To this day, I cannot fathom the depths of misery that Mildred, Rose's mother must have felt, to bury her husband one week after having buried a child! How awful that must have been.

When I returned to the States from Israel, about two manths after all this had happened, it took my parents almost two weeks before they sat me down to tell me what had occurred in my absence. I was devastated. It took me several months before I felt I could go see Mildred.

Ok, I am sorry for the maudlin story. Life goes on, and so life went on.

More later...

* A word of explanation to non Jews: This was not considered discrimination or prejudice, at least not in a negative way. For religious and traditional Jews there is a strong desire and established law (for those who follow it) that we are to marry only Jews. Thus, Jewish parents, even those who were not religious back then, want their children to meet other Jewish peers. This pull is not as strong among non religious Jews today as it was back then.