The Roller Coaster Life of Flappy

By Stanley M Schwarz

This book is a thrilling account of a person who was raised in poverty and by sheer will of determination overcame impossible obstacles to become an intelligence officer during the Korean War, an honor graduate of Temple University Law School, a prominent assistant DA in Philadelphia, a leading Civil Rights attorney, and a successful advocate for thousands of clients.His description of his childhood during the 1930s Depression and the many jobs he worked at during this period and in his later teen years will amaze the reader.His description of his parents, siblings, and children is especially poignant. As a child, his father was constantly leaving the family for months on end and finally left for good when the author was about thirteen years old. He describes the hardships during this period and his ability to overcome these conditions.The author also describes his training at Fort Benning, Georgia, to become an officer during the Korean War as well as his duties in the Army Security Agency intercepting enemy encrypted messages.The author's account of his interactions with his two young children as a divorced father will delight the reader to no end. His love affair with his wife, Kathy, will also pull at the heartstrings of the reader.The reader will especially enjoy the many legal cases that the author describes in detail. From the "poison apple" case that wound up in a lengthy article in "Inside Detective" magazine to his reliance on the legal doctrines of "attractive nuisance" and "fruit of the poisonous tree," the reader will learn some interesting legal principles. The author also relates a detailed description of his tactics in prosecuting as well as defending some murder suspects in cases assigned to him by the Courts. In addition, he gives a detailed description of the many Civil Rights cases he handled as well as his representation of some unique civil cases which garnered extensive media coverage.The author winds up his book with several short descriptions of some scary encounters, his unusual steps to foster his love of music, and some entertaining comments about his golf and card games.The author's unusual life story will surely spark an inspirational feeling and attract the interest of his readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662468902

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The Roller Coaster Life of Flappy

Stanley M Schwarz

Copyright © 2022 Stanley M. Schwarz

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-6624-6889-6 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-6891-9 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-6624-6890-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgment

Prologue

Chapter 1

My Childhood and Teen Years

Chapter 2

The Family

Part 1: The Kids

Part 2: My Parents and Siblings

Part 3: My Romance with Kathy who Will Always Be My Bride and the Love of My Life

Chapter 3

My Military Years

Chapter 4

My Law School and Court Clerkship Days

Chapter 5

My Time as a Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney and Some Interesting Moments Thereafter

Chapter 6

The Neighborhood Law Office

Chapter 7

Some of My Cases that I Hope You Will Find Enlightening

Chapter 8

Some of My More Personal Moments

Epilogue

About the Author

To my beloved wife, Kathy, who has made my life a heaven on earth.

Acknowledgment

I also wish to acknowledge my deepest gratitude to Sandy Swann, my executive paralegal, without whose tremendous help, this book could not have been completed.

Prologue

So you're wondering who or what is Flappy. So here's the deal. I, Stanley M. Schwarz, am Flappy, a nickname thrust upon me by my siblings as a child that tormented me to no end. The reason and the end of this teaser you'll find out as you read on.

But it is now the year 2022, and at ninety-one years of age, I am in the latter stage of my twilight years. I have had such an interesting, unique, and wonderful life that many, many people have encouraged me to share some of my experiences. As a lawyer, I have been trained to express my thoughts in some logical fashion, so I have divided this book into separate categories that concentrate on various subjects and stages of my life. I'm sure that at times, I may have overly reported on a subject while at other times, I have purposely restricted some thought as a matter of time economy for my readers.

I hope that you will enjoy what follows. I'm sure you will be able to relate to many of the personal experiences I have suffered or enjoyed, and you will sit back and relax as you read on. So here it goes.

Chapter 1

My Childhood and Teen Years

I was born in Jan of 1931 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mom had come from NYC to be near her family while she had this baby and soon returned to NYC after my birth at the old Jewish Hospital, since renamed Albert Einstein Hospital many years ago.

My earliest recollections start as a three-year-old with our apartment in the lower east side of NYC. I later learned that our family had lived in several other apartments before this one. It was a walk-up building, and we were located on the fourth floor. My older siblings at that time were Gloria and Wilbur (later William/Bill). I have written about them along with my parents in a later chapter. I don't remember what my father, George, did for a living; but I'm sure, whatever it was, that the earnings were meager. It was during the beginnings of the Depression that started with the crash (stock market) of 1929 and lasted until the outbreak of World War II in 1941. The building was dilapidated with clotheslines and fire escapes stretching outside. But we were not alone. All of these buildings looked alike. I remember walking around our three-room apartment in what I believe were linoleum floors. Mom would wash the kitchen floor every Friday and put newspapers down presumably to keep it clean. Although we were never too religious, Mom would light candles every Friday night and say a prayer.

Our neighbors and closest friends were the Gelbs, Sam, Bessie, and their little son, Irving, who was about two years older than me and a little terror. Sam worked as a postman, so his family never worried about their next meal. My father, on the other hand, as I'm told, went from job to job so our situation was much darker. I remember Bessie bringing in food to us during some hard times. But what really stands out in my mind was Bessie's situation with Irving. As I remember, Irving was quite a problem, even at his young age, and, as he grew older, became an even greater brat. He would intentionally do things to aggravate his mother such as running in the street. But Bessie had her own way of handling Irving. She would always curse herself when correcting Irving. I still remember Bessie crying out, Oy, I should only be hit by a car and die if you don't behave yourself, or Oy, I should only drop dead, if you don't stop. We moved from that apartment after about three years. I know that Irving must have straightened out because we stayed in touch and visited Sam and Bessie for many years thereafter and they never mentioned any problem with Irving. From our apartment on the east side of the city, we moved to the Flatbush area of Brooklyn to a fifth-floor walk-up tenement apartment. It was in the heart of a tough neighborhood called Williamsburg. I was still very young, maybe five or six, and we remained at that location for almost two years. While there, I was bullied by another little kid, Harry, who was a couple of years older. Harry wore thick wire-framed glasses, and every time he saw me, he couldn't help but tease and push me. So when we finally moved to Silver Lake, White Plains, New York, I felt a load off my mind and body. There, we lived on Pearl Street in a second-floor, four-room apartment. The Capaneros lived on the first floor and were a lovely couple. Unfortunately, Mr. Capanero, for some reason unknown to us, committed suicide in the basement of the building and was found hanging by my sister, Gloria. True to its name, Silver Lake was a real wonder. It was small enough to hike around it, but what was really amazing was that the lake overflowed every year at about the same time. The streets would be flooded, but the good part was that we could easily catch the swarms of fish floating in the streets, which was a godsend during those lean depression years. We remained at Silver Lake for a couple of years but moved in the middle of the night to an apartment in Mount Vernon, New York. Since our gas and electricity were turned off on many occasions for the lack of payment, I assume our nightly move was caused by our failure to pay the rent.

Our address in Mount Vernon was 334 MacQuesten Parkway (do not ask how I remember this). Our apartment of four rooms was located on the first floor of an old house that had a large, grassy backyard. Our landlady, Mrs. Reinthaler, was a real Nazi sympathizer and did not spare her feelings toward us if she felt we did something wrong. She lived in the apartment above us and followed our movements like a witch. We remained there for about two years, and we were called dirty Jews by her on many occasions. The Depression seemed to get worse, which encouraged my older brother (by three years) and me to help as best as we could. One way was to steal crates of bananas at a nearby railroad crossing. Our meals mostly consisted of mashed potato sandwiches. Mom would also buy a big bone from the butcher and make some soup that would usually last for about a week. But we also had some fun. My brother and I would take apart the slats from the crates, and believe it or not, after a while, there were enough slats for us to build a little hut in the backyard. We used newspapers on the floor and got candles to light up the inside. It was a kid's paradise. We would sit on the ground with some outdated comic books that we scavenged from nearby houses and, with the light from the candles, read the comics for hours on end. For a while, Mrs. Reinthaler permitted this to go on but finally forced us to take apart our little castle. During this time, George worked as a grease monkey repairing cars at a service station located in Yonkers, New York, which was only about a mile away from our apartment. On many occasions, Mom asked me to take potato sandwiches to my father who would be working late on the cars. On some occasions, when I was about ten years old, I even held the flashlight for George as we worked on the car's ignition in the cold weather.

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Flappy at ten years old

Our next move was to Yonkers, New York, to be nearer to George's job. His boss, a strapping Russian immigrant, Mr. Schlieffer, used to pinch my cheeks in an affectionate way. It was at Yonkers when I got my first real job. I was about ten or eleven and convinced the owner of the movie theater up the street to let me deliver circulars on Saturday to the surrounding streets letting the people know what movie films were coming. The owner supplied me with a wagon, and off I went with about 250 circulars. I did such a good job that the boss let me continue on the following Saturdays. I was paid the enormous sum of ten cents plus other perks, i.e., a candy bar and free admission to the movies after my deliveries were over. I did this for several weeks thereafter, and I still remember how tired I was after completing my deliveries. One day, an older acquaintance of mine stopped me during my deliveries and asked me how much I was paid. When I told him, he laughed and said I was really stupid. Then he offered some sage advice: throw half of the circulars down the sewer. No one will ever know, and you will be done in half the time. I knew in the gut that this was wrong, but I followed his advice anyway. When I got back to the theater, the owner asked me if everything was alright and I had any trouble in making my rounds. I said, No, sir, everything was okay, at which point the owner grabbed me by the neck and called me a lying little son of a bitch. He was shaking me, and I started to cry. He finally stopped and asked why I couldn't be trusted. I told him about my conversation, and by this time, I think he felt a little guilty by his behavior. He told me to stop crying and offered me a candy bar. He next surprised me by telling me I could stay on the job and that he would raise my pay to twelve cents. Now that may sound ridiculous today, but at that time, it was a real generous amount.

During our stay in Yonkers, we had a four-room apartment above a candy store at the intersection of Yonkers Avenue and Bronx River Road. We had a next-door neighbor, Mrs. Lawrence, with whom my mother became very friendly. Mrs. Lawrence had two children, a girl, Gerry, who was about a year younger than me, and a son, Eddy, who was about a year older. Gerry was the cutest girl I had ever met, and even though I was only ten or eleven, I had a real crush on her. There was only one thing that I hoped she would never learn about me. Even at my advanced age, I was still wetting the bed, and on occasion, my frustrated mother threatened to hang the sheet out on the clothesline with my name on it. I'm sure this was purely a hollow threat, but the prospect of Gerry seeing this sheet with a large yellow ring with my name on it was too much to bear. For weeks after that, I would try to stay up all night to not pee in bed. Mom also did everything possible to end this habit—no liquids after a certain hour, rubber sheets, and a calm and loving goodnight kiss. Thankfully, this embarrassing habit stopped shortly thereafter, and Gerry and I had a lot of fun together.

I also have many recollections of school. My first recollection was when I was about six or seven and living in Brooklyn. On one occasion, I didn't feel like going to my first-grade class at school and stayed home. About 10:00 a.m. that morning, a knock on the door was heard, and when Mom asked who it was, the reply came I'm the truant officer. In those days, truant officers were quite the rage because parents would send their kids to work instead of school. Truant officers were hired to correct this situation. When I heard who was there, I hid under the kitchen table thinking he wouldn't see me. Obviously, he immediately sized up the situation and scolded Mom for allowing me to stay home.

I also have many recollections of school while we lived in Yonkers. Naturally, the kids all walked to school, and the teachers were mostly pretty strict. Each morning when we sat at our desks, we had to place our hands on the desk so the teacher could see if our fingernails were clean, and if not, BOP with a ruler. I remember my music teacher very well. She was about forty years old and very pretty. She was serious about her job and worked hard to get her students to learn music. During this time, the school decided to create a chorus club, and much to my delight, I was chosen to sing in it. We were taught all sorts of songs, including the Christmas carols during the holidays. Although I was the only Jewish kid in this group, this didn't faze me, and I relished this activity. What I still recall and can sing today is Ave Maria in Latin. The melody is stirring. Our group became so good that we were asked to sing at various locations in the community, which I loved. To this day, my chorus involvement is still a source of pride and memorable pleasure. But the real change in my life came after my baby sister Barbara was born in February of 1942. Mom was in her late thirties and always claimed that Barbara was an accident. I was used to