The Sayzeh Song, Book Three

By Chaim B. Segal

Eighth grade at a predominantly Black public school in Dayton, Ohio, 1983-84. The blind author finds a very special teacher, who is Black, and a younger female friend, who is White. The practices dictated by the author’s Orthodox Jewish faith still rule large parts of his daily life, and he frequently obsesses about the Holocaust. His growing love of popular music provides needed diversion and takes up more and more of his time at home. Then a traumatic five-hour skating party at a downtown roller rink changes his life and leads him to the inescapable conclusion that he needs mental counseling.

Throughout the book, the true and very moving story is recounted in astonishing detail.

In the author’s own words:
“I now find it shocking that I wasn’t sent for help much sooner. Eventually, as an adult, I came to the sad and ironic conclusion that there was a silver lining to my time at Skateland. Even during the event itself, I realized that as desperate as I felt at the time, my situation could not compare with that of most of my schoolmates. Sometimes we need to hit rock bottom in order to ascend higher.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chaim B. Segal
• Release date: Dec 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005827304

Book preview

Introduction

My early return from Camp Stone offered a sense of immediate relief, followed by chronic boredom until the start of eighth grade around three and a half weeks later. Though I did not return home from Camp Stone with as many physical keepsakes as I did the previous two times I attended, I carried home something completely different. Having been exposed to the sound of up–to–date popular music of the time, I now had a desire to familiarize myself with more of it.

First and foremost, I felt refreshed by much of its sound. Additionally, I hoped my interest in it would help me find more friends my age. Over the following nine months, I would indeed become familiar with the main mix of popular music styles which dominated the scene at that time, plus another style that was only beginning to circulate within the general pop music scene.

However, my new interest in current popular music, in and of itself, did not win me friends within my immediate peer group. In part, this was due to the vast cultural differences between me and most of my schoolmates. It was also that my difficulties were mine alone and unlike those of any other teenage boy I knew. One unique aspect was that I never cared how popular I was. In fact, at the start of my eighth grade year, I considered myself lucky to have even one personal friend outside of the family. It did not matter how young or old he or she was.

With the start of the new school year, I did indeed find two special friends. They were a guiding force in keeping my morale up when I needed it most over the course of that school year. One of these was an extremely special teacher, while the other was a kind and giving female schoolmate who was three years my junior. Though these close relationships would be forced to end sooner than I had expected, these two friends were my biggest source of comfort during what I still consider to be the most crucial time in my life.

Meanwhile, outside of school, a combination of enjoyable and stressful events took place within the family and the community at large. These events led me to experience various dispositions which could change nearly at the blink of an eye. As each of us Segals was experiencing his or her individual stresses, there was often not enough time for explanation with each other concerning our personal burdens. Sometimes these led to big misunderstandings, especially between my father and me. Yet, just when it seemed that things would never be right, a positive experience would occur to brighten things, at least for the first half of that school year.

A few weeks into the second half of this most memorable school year, an event would take place that would permanently change my internal life.

The event in question took place at the mysterious roller skating rink in the heart of downtown Dayton which I had heard about but was told was not for us. Over the course of this infamous five–hour event, I learned a number of valuable lessons, not to mention how vastly different my background was from that of most of my fellow students. This event shattered my prior belief that poverty in our cities was not rampant, and it caused me to realize that I could no longer keep giving people the benefit of the doubt.

As a person who has very few fears, I consider it ironic that the single most frightening occurrence for me that morning involved the song that would eventually become my personal favorite. Indeed, the title of my story is derived from it. A lot of irony surrounded this occurrence, which I would say marked the exact point at which my childhood ended and my adolescence began.

Attending the skating party caused me to enter a mental funk that would last nearly three months. During this time, I operated in a nearly constant state of mental confusion, and I carried out minor but serious acts of rebellion—something I had never been accustomed to doing in the past. The end result was my deciding I needed personal counseling. The psychologist in question decided family counseling was what was really needed. In my opinion, the latter was not helpful, and I came to the conclusion that I and I alone would have to pull myself out.

By the end of the school year, my main pastime was listening to popular music on the radio. This had also become my brother Moshe’s favorite pastime, which strengthened our bond as brothers far more than anything else ever had. Though the end of the school year meant the end to seeing one of the above–mentioned special friends in person, it also meant the long–awaited end of elementary school.

So, let us continue from where we left off in Book Two.

One

Bearing Being Bored

In the week following my return home from Camp Stone, nothing that exciting happened, as Dad and Mom had told me would be the case. The biggest highlight of that time was going down to Sinclair Community College, where Mom was taking nursing courses, to use the Kurzweil Reading Machine with Moshe. We were still continually thinking up jokes and familiar sayings from the past 10 years to type up for reading on it. Sometimes we would turn the volume of the machine down so that nobody from the outside would hear what we had written.

From a bit before I went to camp that summer, I had begun a campaign to get copies of Frank Sinatra’s songs New York and Chicago on 45s—or on an LP record if the songs were not available on 45s. Sometime during the day following my return from camp, Mom took me to the downtown branch of the public library to see if we could find a copy of either song. We found both a single and a three–record set by Frank Sinatra. One of the records in the set had New York on it. We checked it out. I was to have a lot of listening ahead of me the following week while Mom was away and Moshe was at school. I had also become curious about Frank Sinatra’s other music.

While I was at Camp Stone, taped letters from Mom had reported that the family had been awakened by screaming in the middle of the night at certain times. It was discovered that our cat, Smoky, had been moving her new family to the closet on the landing from where Mom had settled them in the living room. When I returned home, the kittens were temporarily settled once again in the living room. Smoky began to leave the house more and more. It seemed that she was beginning to tire of being a mother. Our biggest worry regarding this came the weekend that Mom went away to Milwaukee.

Although nothing either very serious or very good happened during this time, there were a few happenings that left mixed impressions on me. I would not have realized at the time that anything was making an impression on me. That’s because I was taking everything that happened—good or bad—for granted.

On the third day following my return from camp, Mom prompted Moshe to clean out his bedroom for the start of school the following week. By this time, barely anything in his bedroom was mine. However, there were a few things that we still shared. One of them was a collection of old country music 45s, which had been given to us during our days of listening to WONE. There were also some old SESAME STREET 45s, which I had planned to save for the kids I hoped to have in the future.

During the good old days, when Moshe and I listened endlessly to WONE, our favorite disc jockey, David G. McFarland, broadcast live from Herbert’s Furniture Store in Dayton, trying to boost sales. Dad had a little extra time on his hands in those days, and he would take Moshe and me to talk with McFarland in the store between his spots on the air. When a song fell off the country chart or when the station did not play it much anymore, McFarland would pass the 45s on to us or to other interested customers who just happened to be in the store.

Although Moshe and I hardly listened to these 45s anymore, I still had a sentimental feeling connected with owning them. Moshe was thinking longer term than I was and realized that even though not all of these 45s were scratched, supposedly they would not sound good for too much longer.

During lunch on the third day back home, I got this surprise from Moshe. As we were eating, he suddenly announced, When we’ve finished eating, I think we’d better go through all those 45s. Otherwise, I’m about to throw them all away.

Why? I asked, astonished.

He responded, Because Mom wants us—or actually me, because Hillel starts next week—to get ready for school to start. She wants me to clear out some room for myself. We might as well get rid of those old 45s. We hardly ever listen to them anymore.

You’re really going to throw them out? I asked. You mean in the trash?

Yes.

I objected as nicely as I could. But I was going to save them! I mean David G. McFarland gave them to us personally! Besides, I wanted to save the SESAME STREET ones and let my kids have them.

I then recalled that one of the 45s contained two songs that were sung by the same woman who had inspired Charlie to take on Yiddishkeit. So I asked, But what about the one with Beracha singing?

He responded without any hesitation, That one we’ll save. We’ll only save the ones that are very special.

I had forgotten that we also had some children’s stories on 45s that were in relatively decent shape. I stated again that I thought he should leave the SESAME STREET records.

To this he responded, Oh, Chaim, by the time you have kids, the sound of those records won’t be good for anybody!

I thought he meant that SESAME STREET itself wouldn’t exist by that time. I responded confidently, There will always be SESAME STREET.

He countered, There may be. But the sound of those records will be so pathetic that I don’t think even a baby would want to listen to them.

I thought about it and then responded, Okay, maybe you’re right.

After lunch, we went upstairs to his bedroom and began to go through the country music records. We had forgotten about most of the songs. The two of us laughed as we discovered that the introduction to the song that began with the words Mona Lisa sounded like that of a Pirchei song.

Every time I heard Moshe throw an unscratched 45 into the wastebasket, I felt sad. Moshe kept hearing me sigh and kept insisting that those records would not sound good much longer.

It took nearly the entire afternoon to go through all the records. Later, over the course of my adult life, I would come to find that Moshe’s belief concerning the lasting power of 45s was not correct. Indeed, I still have nearly all 45s in my audio library, records which I would purchase over the course of this period and beyond, until this medium went out of major production.

Mom had been talking about her trip all week, and the next day, it was reality. At about 6:30 that morning, Dad dropped Moshe and me at Shul for Shacharis and drove Mom to the Greyhound station to go to Milwaukee to visit the Goldmans. I was uncomfortable with Mom taking this trip—especially with her leaving on a Friday. This would mean that Moshe and I would be spending Shabbos alone with Dad.

Sometime in the week prior to Mom’s departure, Smoky disappeared, leaving her kittens crawling helplessly around. We could not figure out where she might have gone. Right then, this could not concern Mom, who was in the process of getting ready for her vacation. I knew that those kittens badly needed milk, and I figured that I was going to have to be responsible for providing it. I was looking forward to doing this.

Moshe and I went down to Sinclair that Friday morning and afternoon. We fooled around with the Kurzweil Reading Machine, then went down to the cafeteria for lunch. After we went back and spent some more time with the machine, Moshe had to go to class. I headed out of the building with him to go home to prepare for Shabbos.

Meanwhile, Dad went to work at Central State, then came back home. On the way back, he stopped off and picked up a turkey roll and other treats for our Shabbos meals. Apparently, given that he missed Mom, or knew that he would during Shabbos, he had decided to make the meals special for all of us. Somehow he had found out before Moshe and I did that Charlie was coming in from Columbus to spend the weekend.

We prepared for Shabbos, and Dad put the turkey roll and Chinese egg rolls in the oven. Then we went to Shul. There was nothing extraordinary about the service that night. We came home and proceeded with the meal. It felt strange with it being just Moshe and me with Dad. We had never had that combination for Shabbos before. Fortunately, Dad was in a jovial mood, and the three of us had a good dinner that night.

The remainder of Shabbos passed rather smoothly. Charlie arrived at some point in the afternoon, with plans to stay until the following evening. Periodically throughout the day, Dad kept announcing to the rest of us that the next day, Beth Abraham was holding their annual picnic and would be selling hamburgers for 25 cents apiece. With hamburgers being one of my favorite foods, I was rather excited about this.

The following day, I decided to take it upon myself to assure that Smoky’s kittens were getting fed. I carried a small bowl of milk out to the garage and allowed the kittens to lick the milk off my fingers.

Beth Abraham’s picnic proved enjoyable. Dad invited Charlie to join us, which he did with some reluctance. At the picnic, we sat next to the Levine family, who were longtime friends of ours. Michael Colstein intercepted us and went off with Moshe to hang out for a while. Eventually, Dad got involved in an extended conversation with a former Hillel Academy teacher who had recently been fired for no reason. Though I was a little bored by the end of the affair, the tastiness of the hamburgers outweighed any feelings of regret for having attended. Upon our return home, Charlie promptly left for Columbus.

The following day was Moshe’s first day of school for the year. To keep myself occupied during the long hours while I had the house to myself, I began to listen to the Frank Sinatra records. The turntable on Moshe’s stereo was currently unusable. Therefore, I had to listen on the Talking Book machine. I figured that even though the music would not be in stereo, it was better than nothing. I listened to one or two records and was nearly bored out of my mind by the slow, uninteresting music. It seemed to be mostly for older adults and did not have that hopping, upbeat feeling of the pop music from Rock 102 back at Camp Stone.

The following day, I began my listening for the day by taking out the middle record of the triple set. Side One of that record had a version of Song Sung Blue, which I recognized as a Neil Diamond classic. Charlie had played this song for me around seven or eight years before. The song New York was the last one on the record. As soon as I heard it, I went and gathered up an old used cassette, a tape recorder, and a microphone and proceeded to stand in front of the Talking Book machine and record the song. Next, I would have to find Chicago and record that also.

That evening, as Dad was preparing supper, I couldn’t suppress my hunger and was walking through the house sucking on a leftover hard butterscotch candy from Camp Stone. Thinking that my assistance would enable us to eat sooner, I offered to help Dad with making supper. At first, he was elated by my offer and began to instruct me on what to do for him. Then he noticed that I was sucking on something and became curious about it. I had not suspected that he would notice what I was doing.

On a number of occasions when I was younger, Dad had become extremely upset when he found out I was eating candy before supper. He would rant and rave about how bad it was and what could happen as a result of my doing so. I began to take his doing this with a grain of salt after I witnessed him doing the exact same thing on one occasion.

Seeing my sucking on something, Dad suddenly demanded, Hey! What are you sucking on?

Pushing the candy to the back of my mouth, I replied, Nothing. I didn’t like to lie, but I also didn’t feel it was worth arguing that sucking on one rather small piece of candy before supper would not spoil my appetite.

Advancing over to me, he jerked me forward and glanced at my mouth, then began to bawl me out for lying to him. Strangely enough, he did not also bawl me out for eating candy before supper. He then told me to Just forget it! with regard to helping him. I backed away from him and let him fix supper by himself. He was making such a big deal out of the matter that I was afraid he would attempt to make me go to bed without supper. If that happened, I would go down to the kitchen in the very early morning and fix myself some food without his knowing it. Fortunately, Dad’s anger at my lying subsided, and all remained cool.

Following supper, we went to Shul. As we were waiting for services to begin, Moshe told Dad that he needed sneakers for gym. Dad could not understand why Moshe even had to take gym class and responded, What the hell do you take gym class for, Moishe? He began to give Moshe instructions on how to make sneakers with old tires and canvas. I deduced that he was trying to find a way for Moshe to make money for himself. Moshe did not seem too interested.

The next morning, I was becoming fed up with the thought of being alone in the house. Dad was able to sense this without my telling him. I thought that Elaine Shoffman had decided to switch from Hillel Academy to Northmont and figured she was home. I figured that possibly we could go on some type of outing that day.

Dad called the Shoffmans. They were going to be busy running errands, but Gilda said it would be okay for me to come along with them. Apparently, Elaine had indeed wanted to switch schools to Northmont. However, after the students from our former Hillel Academy class who had caused Elaine and me so much grief switched to Northmont, Gilda and Melvin were not sure if they still wanted to switch Elaine. They were going to have a meeting with the superintendent of Northmont Public Schools to help them make a decision. Gilda decided that it might actually be beneficial for me to be there, as I had been Elaine’s friend and classmate.

Dad drove me to their house. In my lap, I held a bowl of goldfish that they had temporarily left in our care. We arrived just as Gilda and the girls were about to leave. Gilda was quick to inform me that their first errand was to the Northmont School superintendent’s office.

Keeping a low profile, I went to the office and sat through the meeting with Elaine and her mother. In the middle of the meeting, Gilda and the superintendent turned to me and asked for my opinion. I stated that as long as those classmates who had been at Hillel Academy causing the two of us problems were now at Northmont, it would not make sense for her to switch schools to be with them again. Later on, from something Gilda said to me, I got the feeling that she had secretly hoped I would coax Elaine to stay at Hillel Academy to further her Jewish education for one more year.

Gilda took us to Noble Roman’s Pizza for a lunch of cheese pizza. There we met Mrs. Levine and her two sons, and we talked with them awhile. Soon thereafter, Gilda drove me home.

I had scarcely been home for two minutes when the phone rang. It was Carmen Barnes’ mother, calling to inform me that Carmen was in the hospital and would not be coming to trumpet lessons for a while. I felt rather indifferent about this, as it seemed that she was in and out of the hospital nearly all the time. Not knowing what else to do with myself, I went and put on THE STRENGTH OF OUR PEOPLE, by Paul Zim. That was my favorite Jewish record at the time.

After listening to a few songs from that record and a tape of songs from the Yom Kippur War, I began to get bored with music and wanted something to do with my hands. From a drawer, I took the squirt gun I had bought earlier that year and had taken to camp. I decided to squirt some water in each room of the house. I didn’t want to make trouble for myself by getting anywhere in the house really wet, but I would have the satisfaction of doing something that would be moderately mischievous.

I went to the sink in the bathroom and filled the squirt gun, then began to squirt any which way, trying not to get a whole lot of water on the floor of the upstairs hall. I don’t think I went to every room of the house. After a few minutes, I decided to stay in my bedroom and not squirt too much more water. After a few more minutes, I found myself standing with the squirt gun in my right hand, looking at the light on the ceiling, which happened to be on at the moment.

I began to get a memory of how it looked when the lights were on in the swimming pool at the Belmont and Princeton pools. I knew those were special light bulbs that were encased in a hard, transparent shell. I also knew full well that ordinary light bulbs could not withstand being submerged in water. Nevertheless, I figured that one or two squirts would not do any harm and would give off that magnificent shine.

I walked underneath my light bulb and began to squirt at the ceiling. I squirted twice and heard the water hit the ceiling, but not the light bulb. It was the third squirt that hit the light bulb. The result was far from what I had expected. As soon as the first drops of water made contact with the light bulb, there was a resounding pop as shards of glass rained down from the ceiling in every direction, all over the bedroom floor. I was even more surprised to see another light bulb still burning. I had never known until this point that I had two light bulbs in my bedroom.

With the falling glass came the smell that I knew was from electrical wiring. As the glass fell around me, I imagined, as I often had, that I was on a sailing ship. For a second, I was afraid I might have started a fire. Then all was safe. For a minute, however, things seemed strange in my bedroom. When I breathed, I could almost taste dust. Then that subsided.

I immediately decided to not tell Dad, because I knew I would be in serious trouble for this. I told Moshe, who responded, It was a stupid thing to do, and you should have known better. He seemed to feel that I was getting too bored with not being in school. I figured that I would just make sure to keep my feet covered in my bedroom and throw away the big pieces of broken glass as I found them. Once Mom came home the next day, I could have her clean the bedroom and just say that the light bulb fell. However, she would probably figure out some element of the truth.

Mom came back at 2 a.m. the next day. Dad drove to the Greyhound station to get her while Moshe and I were sleeping. Meanwhile, I had kept stepping on the pieces of the broken light bulb with my shoes until the pieces were in smithereens.

After I woke up later that morning, I welcomed Mom back. She’d had a good time in Milwaukee but did not seem any more refreshed than she was before her trip. When I asked her what the problem was, she said that it had to do with going back to nursing school. I had no answer for her on that matter.

A few days later, I discovered that I had some extra allowance money saved up. I informed Mom that I wanted to go to a record store to buy some type of familiar music.

At that time, some orchestral instrumentals were running through my head. They were from a record that Mr. Neal, the old elementary music teacher at Grant, used to play for us. This record featured pieces by the composer Leroy Anderson. There were two main pieces that I liked from that record. One was called The Syncopated Clock, and it had the beat of a clock that the music was based on. Mr. Neal usually referred to this piece as The Clock. The other piece was called The Typewriter. Throughout the piece, there was the sound of someone using a typewriter to the rhythm of the music. There was also another piece on the record which I liked, called Sleigh Ride. I heard this piece on the radio and TV a lot around Christmastime and occasionally at other seasons during the year, when people were trying to simulate a winter atmosphere. I also had in mind to ask the clerk in the record store if they had any 45s of Frank Sinatra’s New York or Chicago.

Now it’s necessary for me to flash back to earlier days, so that our next segment of the story carries current relevance.

On my return home from school before my brief stint at Hillel Academy, there was usually a space of time of about an hour before Moshe came home from Hillel Academy. If Ray was around, he would usually be either about to go out or was going about his own business. This gave Mom and me a chance to have some enjoyment together for a while. After my snack, there were a few things we liked to do best. One of them was to sit on the couch together for Mom to read to me. She read from books like the Laura Ingalls Wilder series or from books by famous children’s author Beverly Cleary. As I grew older, I often had more energy and did not like to sit around and listen to people reading as much. Mom and I began to change our activities to listening and dancing. We would put on records of the movie soundtracks of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, THE MUSIC MAN, OLIVER, or THE STING, and we would move around the living room floor to the fast songs from the shows.

Since I had gone to camp after seventh grade and had heard popular music on the radio, I had decided that nothing could be as good as its beat. However, I didn’t know if I was ready to start buying it on a regular basis, yet, and decided to settle for familiar, upbeat orchestral music from the past.

As it was, I had been scanning the AM and FM radio dials to try to find the songs that I’d heard back at Camp Stone. Once, I managed to find The Border on WHIO AM and heard the disc jockey who played it say that the song was by the group called America. I caught Puttin’ on the Ritz on a far–off AM station somewhere in Indiana. One Saturday night soon after Shabbos was over, I picked up Ebony and Ivory on WHIO AM. It sounded very different from the way those choir kids at Stivers had sung it. When I heard the song in its original form, the words made more sense, and I understood their importance. For the time being, none of the other songs from camp were to be found anywhere on the radio.

Regarding the situation at hand, I thought I would have to prepare to do my own listening after school if Mom would need to study, as she was insisting she would.

Mom drove to National Record Mart and parked the car. I walked excitedly inside with her, feeling a sense of pride regarding making a purchase for myself with my own saved–up money. Unaware of how record stores were organized, Mom had a hard time figuring out how to proceed with looking for what I had asked her to find. I suggested that she ask a salesperson in front of the store. When she took a look behind the counter, it seemed to her that all the salespeople were constantly busy and that getting their attention would be somewhat of a problem.

Mom and I decided to begin by looking for a record with Leroy Anderson’s music. We made our way to the Classical section and began our search there. Not having any success, we moved on to a few other sections. Eventually, we found ourselves in the Easy Listening or Semi–Classical section. We were in this isle for a few minutes before Mom found a record of the Boston Pops Orchestra playing Leroy Anderson’s music.

Mom read the listing of musical pieces on the record to me. The Syncopated Clock, The Typewriter, and Sleigh Ride were all on it. There was another piece entitled Trumpeter’s Lullaby that sounded interesting to me. In addition to my favorite Leroy Anderson pieces being on this record, it also featured a very famous trumpeter named Al Hirt. This made me even more excited about buying the record. We went to the front of the store and waited our turn to pay for our purchase. I paid for the record, then asked the man behind the counter if he had any 45s of Frank Sinatra’s New York or Chicago. He stepped out from behind the counter and took a brief look. Returning to his place, he said that he didn’t. He suggested that we call or come back in a couple of weeks, and he might have them by then.

We drove home with the new record. I listened to it once and figured out which piece on it must be Trumpeter’s Lullaby. I was intrigued by how softly Al Hirt could play the trumpet. I could tell from the sound of the record that he was not even using a mute.

I was so excited about this record that I even showed it to Dad that night. He was happy that I had gotten something I liked, but I could tell this was not something that he felt genuinely good about. I listened to this record numerous times in its entirety before the start of school—alongside my monophonic recording of New York.

Moshe’s birthday came without too much excitement. At some point while he was still at school, Mom had me give her the talking clock radio from Sears. She wrapped it along with other presents that Dad and she were giving him that year. As she always did, Mom made a pineapple upside–down cake as his birthday cake, which we ate following singing Happy Birthday at the conclusion of supper.

As I had expected he would be, Moshe was more than ecstatic about receiving the talking clock radio, and he wasted no time in learning how to use it. He was glad that he now had a way to wake himself up in the morning.

Meanwhile, we all woke up one morning around that time to find only three out of the seven of Smoky’s kittens around. We figured that the others must have crawled away trying to find a new home and died somewhere in the bushes. A few days later, Dad and Mom came down to find one of the three kittens dead—possibly on account of some other animal. There were only two male kittens left. One was rather plump, and his brother was rather thin. Both were totally gray, as Smoky was.

We took the remaining two kittens into the house and began to refer to them as Fat One and Thin One. About two weeks later, Fat One began to disappear for longer and longer stretches of time. Finally, he did not come back. That left us with only one kitten, and we couldn’t find a real name for it. Eventually, and then for the rest of his life, we called him Gray One. Gray One would live as a member of our family for around the next 11 years before his health deteriorated and he died.

By Labor Day, I’d had enough summer vacation and was eager to start my eighth–grade year at Stivers. However, there was something on our own calendar that was to hold me back. On account of how early the High Holy Days were falling that year, there was a rare occurrence. That is, the first day of public school and Rosh Hashannah were coinciding with each other. That day was September 8. This would mean my having to miss the first day of classes, which was something that I would have tried to avoid at almost any cost.

At some point the previous week, we had received notice that the bus was scheduled to pick me up that Thursday morning. The bus driver would be in contact with us with further details. Both Dad and Mom had to call the Board of Transportation to inform them not to come to the house for the first two days of school, Thursday and Friday. They faced much confusion, but they got the message through. However, we did not know exactly what time the bus would come the following Monday morning.

On the day before Rosh Hashannah, Charlie arrived home earlier than expected. Soon after he arrived, I asked him if he would be interested in seeing the Kurzweil Reading Machine. When he said he would, I decided that the two of us should go down to Sinclair that afternoon. I didn’t stop to think that I should call Joan to make sure it would be okay.

At about two o’clock that afternoon, Dad drove Charlie and me to Sinclair so I could demonstrate to him how the machine worked. Knowing that I hadn’t memorized how to get there by myself, Dad told Charlie which room it was in and how to get there. For some reason, Dad chose to stay outside and wait for us in the parking lot. It was just as well that he did. Another blind woman we knew just happened to be having a lesson at that time. She and her teacher were okay with giving us a few minutes of their time for me to demonstrate the machine to Charlie. However, with the turmoil of the day, I couldn’t seem to organize my mind enough to do it. I settled for Charlie listening to the machine reading the page that was already scanned in. We left right after that.

As the two of us returned to the car, Dad expressed surprise that we had come out so soon. I explained to him about the lesson in progress, and we all concluded that it would have to wait for another day. Dad then drove to Friendly’s, where he bought himself and me each a double–dip butter–crunch ice cream cone. A yellowjacket got on my cone, and Charlie tried to kill it. Dad began to plead, Charlie, leave it alone! It deserves to have a shot of life, too! Charlie then extracted the yellowjacket from my ice cream cone, only to have it attach itself to Dad’s cone instead. Finally, he or Charlie chased it away.

Before long, we were on our way to Shomrei Emuna (our synagogue) for Minchah and Maariv. We arrived late to Shul. Given that I took my time when I Davened, the rest of the congregation finished Minchah long before I did.

I could hardly wait for the chanting that began Maariv on Rosh Hashannah. There was something in the melody that seemed to wash through my entire body and soul to cleanse me. The sound of myself humming the familiar melody with the rest of the congregation always gave me feelings of hope and promise for the year ahead. Indeed, when Maariv finally began, after the lengthy speech that Rabbi Feld gave to us on conducting ourselves at this time of the year, that splendid feeling came over me once again.

This year, I felt even more of a sense of promise, as my day–to–day surroundings seemed to be so much better than before. I was no longer in the midst of turmoil and homework that I couldn’t finish because of other assignments having priority, the way I had been at Hillel Academy. During the services that first night of Rosh Hashannah, I felt that God was watching me from above and casting a warm light on me as if to say, I understand your doings of last year, and you will see good days ahead.

The rest of the holiday remained uplifting, especially the usual apples dipped in honey and a piece of a fish head on the first night, and then going to do Tashlich the following afternoon. It was on the second day that trouble struck.

At about 5 p.m., Mom was preparing food for Shabbos when she reached into a drawer to get something out. There was a sharp knife sticking in her direction that she didn’t see. She cut herself severely on it and thought she had broken a blood vessel. She bandaged herself and was going to call Gilda Shoffman to come and take her to the hospital. I figured it would be better for someone who was not Jewish to do this. Dad and Charlie were on some sort of walk at the time.

I walked next door to our neighbors, the Fleetwoods. Ron, the husband and father of the family, was an ordained Black Pentecostal minister who ran a church band and liked to fish. Ron’s wife, Debbie, worked various jobs in various places throughout the years. At this time, she was home taking care of their two children most of the time.

I had always taken it for granted that they were a Black family. As long as they wanted to be neighborly, I would be neighborly. Sometimes when we had other Jewish friends over who did not hesitate to openly refer to Black people as Shvartzas, Mom would close the windows of our house so they would not hear and be offended.

We had never before needed to ask Ron or his wife to do us a favor as time–consuming as this one would be. However, I figured they would be willing to help, as this was an emergency. The older of their two kids answered the door, and I explained the problem to her. She went to the back of the house to report to her mother. The mother was trying to help give the younger child a shower and had to dress the child before she could come to the door. I explained to Mrs. Fleetwood what had happened to Mom, and further explained that today was a holiday on which it was preferable that nobody from the family or anyone among our Jewish friends drive Mom to the emergency room. Mrs. Fleetwood said she would be over with the car as soon as we had our dog clear out of her way. The Fleetwoods were terrified of Tov.

Mrs. Fleetwood drove Mom to the hospital as Moshe and I prepared to walk to Shul. Mom was at the hospital the entire time we Davened and then came home. Dad and Charlie met us in Shul, and we reported to them what had happened. Dad was upset but not nearly as much as I had expected he would be. Once we had been home for a while, and Mrs. Fleetwood and Mom had not returned, Dad began to worry. After about an hour, I began to cry out of worry and fear for Mom. At that point, Dad was just about to leave the house on foot to go look for them. As Dad approached the front door to leave, Mom walked in and finished preparing that night’s supper. Her injury was not as serious as she had thought it was. Before long, we had Kiddush and Hamotzi and everything was once again under control.

By the following day, we were all thoroughly tired of the special holiday feeling and longed for our normal routine. I still had mounting excitement about my first day of school on Monday. However, I was beginning to grow a little nervous about what to expect in my eighth–grade classes.

Throughout Rosh Hashannah and the day after, Dad, Mom, Moshe, and I were having a debate over a small concern. We had heard that there was some type of program pertaining to the Holocaust at the Jewish Community Center on Sunday night. Moshe and I, and possibly Dad and Mom, were all going to be fasting that day for Tzom Gedaliah. During Shabbos, we decided we would go, despite not knowing what this was all about. However, Mom and I were concerned on account of the next day being my first day of school. Having fasted all day, I would no doubt be in need of a big meal when we came back home. This would get me to bed much later than Mom wanted for the night before my first day of school. Furthermore, we still didn’t know what time my bus was going to come the next morning, and we wanted to be sure I wouldn’t miss it.

Shabbos ended, and Moshe and I ate a big supper to prepare ourselves for fasting the next day. We went to bed with plans to get up for Shul the next morning. Following through, Dad, Moshe, and I found that most other attendees that morning were facing the same dilemma that we were. When Rabbi Feld decided to hold Maariv immediately following the program at the JCC itself, we decided to attend.

We came home from Shul, and I had a whole day ahead of me to do practically nothing. Even though it was only a minor fast, I still wasn’t allowed to listen to music. I had figured I wouldn’t need to gather or pack anything for the start of school the next day. Moving absentmindedly throughout the house, I found a cassette which had recently been sent to Moshe and me concerning the importance of blind people labeling cans of food or other home accessories. With nothing better to do, I listened to the tape from beginning to end. It was somewhat boring.

At five o’clock, Mom found me in my bedroom and gave a strict order: Take a bath right now so you can change.

Having taken a bath every day for the past month except on Rosh Hashannah, I felt I didn’t need a bath and thought I would surely just be able to take one when we got back if I needed to. I reasoned that I would be in bed late, anyway, so what was the difference? I said evenly, I don’t need a bath.

Mom persisted. Hyim, listen to me! Tomorrow’s your first day of school. We don’t know how late we’re going to get back, and I’m telling you that I think you should take a bath now! Growing upset, she was yelling at nearly top volume by the end of her declaration. Eventually, I complied and took a bath. With what followed that evening, it turned out to be a wise choice. Back in my bedroom after the bath, I put on a suit. Then we were on our way to the Jewish Community Center. We still didn’t know exactly what this presentation was all about.

On our arrival, we discovered we were very late for whatever it was but hadn’t missed the main feature of the program. We were all surprised when we found out what this whole thing was about. We realized the importance of it and were glad we’d come.

At this time, there was a Buchenwald survivor in the Jewish community who happened to have membership in all the Dayton synagogues. As Buchenwald was being liberated by the American Army, there was a rabbi who had been traveling with the Army to try to make contact with any remaining Jews in the camp. Along with all the other Jews in the camp at the end of the war, our community’s member had been in great despair, and this rabbi had rekindled his faith in God and hope for better days in his life ahead. After years of searching, this rabbi and our community member had found each other. Friends of this man had wanted to make this reunion a public gathering.

Following a speech by the rabbi concerning his experience with helping out in the liberating of Buchenwald, someone else was called forward to accompany our member onstage for a reuniting ceremony. Following the ceremony, Cantor Kopmar came onstage and sang a haunting Hebrew song which had something to do with the Holocaust. Mom and Moshe were intrigued by the music. I was happy to be at the program but was also becoming impatient to break my fast.

Finally, the program ended, and we men went into the library to Daven Maariv. When that was done, we left.

On the way back home, Mom had Dad stop at Kroger’s so she could pick up some type of cake for us to eat with supper. We always liked to have cake at meals just after a fast. She wasn’t satisfied with the cake selection, so she bought some éclairs instead.

We arrived home around 10:30. Fortunately, the food was ready, and we could eat almost immediately. We relaxed with our huge meal and didn’t finish until nearly 11:30.

While we were eating, my new bus driver, Nancy, called to inform us that she would be arriving at our house at 6:50 the next morning. Whoops! That was only a little over seven hours from then. There was nothing we could do or say about that. Now I was more than grateful that I didn’t have to take a bath. I only had to brush my teeth and go right to bed as soon as we finished eating. I had Mom help me set my clock radio (which did not talk) to 5:40 a.m. Then I quickly prepared for bed. I got in, said Shema, and was asleep in minutes.

Next morning, I got up and Davened as fast as I could. I barely had time for breakfast before the bus arrived. As promised, Nancy arrived at 6:50. I found her to be a warm and cheerful woman who seemed to enjoy her job. I got on the bus, eager to make the best of my first day at school.

On the ride over, I discovered that most of the other students riding the bus had developmental problems that were far more severe than my blindness. This meant that I would get nowhere socially with them. This year, I was to be one of the first on my route to get on the bus and one of the last to get off.

That school year, there were three other blind students who rode my same route. They were Carmen Barnes, Anita Whitely, and Todd Hatt. I knew Anita Whitely from the year before and from times when all the resource classes at Grant School combined for parties. I didn’t want to talk with Carmen any more than was absolutely necessary, and I didn’t know Anita well enough to talk to her very much. I was somewhat relieved when Todd Hatt stepped on the bus toward the end of the ride. Unlike in years past, there were no severely emotionally disturbed kids on the bus who could only shake around in their seats and make unpleasant noises.

Mr. Backard met us at the bus and walked us to the resource room, which was still located where it had been the previous year. Once I was seated in his classroom, he quickly explained to me that this was not my homeroom. For a change of pace, my homeroom this year would be a regular one, as opposed to the resource room. Mr. Backard had decided that if I could follow a normal schedule, I should be able to have a normal homeroom. This was to be Mr. Pasto’s classroom, Room 412. Mr. Backard told me that Mr. Pasto was a math teacher and teased me that I could ask my answers from him if I ever needed to.

He went on to say that a certain Ms. Bidel would be meeting with me later on that day or within the next two days. She would be responsible for improving my braille skills and transcribing work for my teachers. Mr. Backard immediately told all of us seated in the classroom that they had changed the number of periods in the day from eight to seven.

He then talked me through my schedule. For the time being, it consisted of a foreign language survey class, band, social studies, lunch, Honors English, math, and earth science. In social studies, we would be studying American history. Mr. Backard went on to warn me that my being in Honors English might have to be changed once I began working with Ms. Bidel. For the time being, I could just go and enjoy the day. For that first day, Mr. Backard just walked me down to the foreign language survey class and did not have me go to my homeroom. That would start next day.

At first, I hated the idea of having my homeroom on the fourth floor. This would mean getting off the bus and making an immediate climb which equaled nearly the entire height of the school building. However, I followed through the next day and regarded myself as lucky to be like any sighted student at Stivers. Mr. Pasto was a nice man and always came over to welcome me into his classroom and make sure I found my seat okay.

That first day, I was more than excited to be in a foreign language class of any type and eagerly walked at a brisk pace with Mr. Backard to a certain classroom on the first floor. The teacher for the foreign language survey class was Ms. Dubb. When I told her my name, she exclaimed, Oh! I had your brother Ray at Colonel White! She wasted no time in getting me situated with the rest of the class, even though the particular book they were using was not available in braille. They were studying French for the time being. Later in the quarter, the rest of the class would study some Spanish, and near the end of the semester, she would play a tape on German. I seemed to grasp what French she taught that day and was looking forward to being in this class.

The first session of band that followed was somewhat boring. This class was the only one that would remain at this spot in the morning for the whole school year. This year, we were fortunate enough to be able to rehearse in the room that the Music Magnet students used. I liked the acoustics in this room much better, but the room had a foul odor.

Next came American history. At first, I did not know if I would like Mr. Diggs, the teacher. He had a strange dialect and intonation in his voice. Moreover, it seemed as though it was an effort for him to talk. For a few days, I had American history third period before I had to rework my schedule to work with Ms. Bidel.

Starting that year, Stivers had three lunch periods: A, B, and C. For the time being, I would eat lunch with the A group; we started at 10:30 a.m. The idea of eating lunch at 10:30 in the morning seemed strange to me. (However, it felt normal after three days of doing it.) The next day, I would have an experience in the lunchroom that would eventually change my life.

Immediately after lunch that first day came Honors English. Mr. Backard, who had been walking me from class to class that day to ensure I made it in time, explained to me that I was in Honors English for having maintained an A average since my switch to Stivers the previous January.

The English course was taught by a nice woman named Ms. Denzi. She began class by speaking to us about her life and told the entire class that she had traveled all around the country. When she mentioned having gone to New York City, I figured I would do my best for her, having a feeling of awe toward her for having already achieved something I was aspiring to do. She was one of the only teachers to give homework for that first night of school. Her assignment for us was to write a mini autobiography about ourselves. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this and immediately realized that I would love this class.

Mr. Backard was quick to remind me, however, that Ms. Bidel was planning to work with me that period. He stated that unfortunately, Ms. Bidel’s working with me had to take priority over Honors English class.