Junior and Senior High School Years
But not to dwell on this phase of things as life really began for me, in a certain sense, in Junior High school. I was attending Kenmore Junior High Shool on Highland Ave, Kenmore. My first real love was Susan Marks of the
There were three or maybe four girls at school who were rumored to have ‘liked” me. Unfortunately the forces of repression and suppression in me and an almost pathological shyness towards girls handicapped me from getting it on with any of these kids. Yet I was hopelessly in love with Susan Marks for several years. She was half Italian and half Jewish and in my opinion had an almost Sophia Loren face, very Neapolitan. Maybe my possible Italian genes were clicking in?
Sue Marks
But social class divisions and my own inhibitions prevented much contact. We had a few dates to the Colvin Theater to watch films like Doris Day in “Pillow talk.”. Alas, it was a mostly one-sided romance. And a good deal of my time was absorbed by athletics and maintaining high grades, a cunning strategy of school officials, no doubt. authorities at the time keeping students so engaged in athletics and academics that they have little or no time for romance.
Rumor: she (“Doctor”) liked me
At Kenmore West Senior high I was captain of the wrestling team (undefeated in my senior year), a member of the National Honor Society, and NY State Scholarship winner, Art Editor of the Yearbook, member of the school library’s Paperback Book Club, and secretary of the Poetry Club which published “The Flame.” I once had a poem in this journal which caused me to be called into the Principal’s Office.
I cannot remember the title but there was one line making reference to “a sniper in the fluorescent lights.” This was around 1961 when there were as yet no terrorist incidents and none on the national horizon. But it was enough to get me a dressing down from the Principal. He also didn’t like my plan for a jazz concert at the school, which he cancelled when he got wind of it (Blacks in the school! Yikes!), and the yearbook coming out red when it had always been blue and white.
That summer saw some interesting developments. My friend Dave Meltzer never forgave me for placing a “letter to the editor” to Buffalo Evening News from his mother (purported to be from her) which I wrote that denounced organized religion. One of many of my juvenile pranks. But I could be outdone easily.
Molly Fried
Chris Meunier
One afternoon my friend Bruce Marshall and I were looking for trouble. He would go to a house and ring the door bell. When they answered he would rip the doorbell from the door and we both dashed out, running for our lives. Very cheap thrills. Although I must admit, Bruce never warned me he was going to do that. He just did it spontaneously giving the whole affair a surreal aspect. Unfortunately I lost track of crazy Bruce after high school and haven’t found him yet.
Like me, he became a philosophy major, maybe even a college professor, so I think. I heard rumors to that effect but have
Jay Bowling and neighborhood friend
No way of confirming this.
friend Rick Sugerman was heading for Yale. I was staying home. Destiny had it that I would attend UB. I had no idea that Susan Marks was heading there too.
Why the yearbook was red??
I was art editor of the yearbook and wanted to do Renaissance style sketches for the yearbook but an art teacher insisted that we stick to cartoons as the traditional look of the artwork in the yearbook. I was miffed so made the proposal to yearbook staff to make some big changes: no artwork, just photography and a modern layout.. The yearbook committee agreed and voted for the change. When the art teacher got wind of this, she went to the principal to get me fired from the yearbook staff. But before they could act on this there was one more meeting. I proposed that our 1962 class really stand out by making the yearbook red. After all, I was livid red with anger for being thrown off. The Committee approved my proposal. Then I was officially removed.but it was too late for school authorities to change the students' decisions. The ball was rolling. This was my first real act of student power rebellion and a precursor of my later student activism against the Vietnam War at UB.
Me in the high school orchestra -- clarinet and oboe
That's me lower center -- captain of the wrestling team, undefeated in senior year in the 127 pound class
Lynn Allen, leading cheers
