Rev 2023-Aug-27 3,07 pm final update today
2022-11-19 REV 1 2023-MAY-30 REV 2
rev Aug 4, 2023 Friday midway down at rev_1 8-4-2023 added more content, particularly about 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Price. which I will link to later.
karate.diplomas.series.photo.version.html
Easern Military School, Long Island, NY. Very short stay then I am husked off to live with two woman in very fancy 6th floor apartment at corner of Madison Ave and 96th street. Two whole apartments converted into a very large one by "The Doctor" A Mary Jane Sherfey, MD (Psychiatry) See Google.com With a connection I don't know about, Sun Hwan Chu knew about Eastern, its headmaster and that I had attended there but only for a few weeks.
About the end of the first week at Eastern, I was taken to see these two woman at this apartment by Radja. And I stayed until Sunday afternoon when the Doctor took me back to Eastern. Then a week later, as best I remember, the Doctor and Ruth came for me in one of NYC worst hurricanes, that fall of 1954. And she had a brand new 1954 Chevy in which she took me with that car the next spring to Indiana to meet her parents. For a while I was scribbling my name as I was shown, as Nenad Cuic Sherfey Shileds Downing. Figure that one out. And then it became Nenad Sherfey Shields Downing until I had made my "selection" which was exactly what I was asked to do. Seems odd to me.
Janey told me that she was the one who actually "sponsored" Radja, by 1/2 brother Dankmar and myself to America. Which I believe because she was already famous in NYC had loaded with money. A plane trip from Australia for three is not cheap, even back then. And radja had no money. She worked as a maid until six months before we left for USA. And where does a 'dishwasher' get the money to bring three people over in a plane and then to Detroit from San Francisco? That was the story I was told years later.
Then again, from Radja on one of my regular visits to NYC when I got my driver license at 16. Her best friend Pushka, a Russian woman who had kept me for a while while in Munich had funded the trip. And when Radja would visit with me at the 97th street apartment - she would talk with Ruth stories about 'Pushka' this and 'Pushka" that. And it appears that Pushka was no stranger to Ruth.
Kálmán István (Steve Coleman) in his 182 Bio, posted, and also in emails to me, said clearly that Ruth had known Radja and Pushka in Germany and that Ruth had become acquainted with me in Funk Kaserne the former large NAZI army military barracks near Munich. It makes sense because near her end Ruth did say that she had arranged for Radja and my brother and me to come to US."If only Radja had waited." Ruth had said.
As for my father, a Frederick Zahan, why did you hire a prominent NYC attorney to keep my "natural father" from visiting me. "He was making trouble for us and threatening to get you deported." Why, I asked, and she was nearing the end. She wouldn't respond. She would just wring her hands and walk off. She didn't like radja either, or my 1/2 brother Dankar.
I have an old picture with Chuck and me sitting on some beach in Italy waiting to get on the SS Oxfordshire to go to Australia. I am sitting on the sand holding a cup. Chuck is next to me smiling. Ruth had that photo, a 4x6 changed where Chuck was brush stroked entirely out of the picure. When Radja came to visit one time in Chattanooga house she saw that picture and a grimace came over her face. But she didn't say anything.
Kálmán István emailed one time that Ruth and Radja had made the arrangement that Ruth could keep me provided that she would never block me or her from seeing me and would facilitate my visitng her in NYC when I was old enough to do so on my own. And in NYC Radja started to come more regularly to visit me at the 97th street apartment. Until, that is, Ruth decided to leave NYC and the CSS for a better job in St. Louis and we then abruptly left a few days after I returned from all summer long Camp Songo in Main. When I got to NYC by train from Main, Charles King met me and took me to the airport and there I took a flight to St. Louis. I did not see Radja again until I turned 16 and was able to drive to NYC and visit. And Ruth kept her word about facilitating the visits. Who really knows the way of woman.
Freud and Josef Breuer both said that woman were essentially "hysterics" by nature, by God's design for woman. STUDIES ON HYSTERIA Freud also believed and taught that neurosis was mainly an affliction that woman experienced, and that most, but not all, neurotics were woman. I don't know and as long as my wife is alive and owns half of all the property I shall remain in amnesia on this issue.
Sigmund Freud (1856—1939) This is about the best detailed summary on Freud and his flights into fantasy, in my opinion.
It is now 5:22 am May 30, 2023. I think I will take a break and try to see if I can get me some sleep.
- post my 'Green Card'
- Frederick Zahn photo
- photo of the band on train trip to Watkinson School
- photo of me after graduation from UT-K
- photo of me, Daffy, the Doctor's mutt, Janey and Ruth in Tarrytown house
- post photo of me on Italian beach with Chuck blotted out
- post rest of Eleanor Roosevelt pictures and Harlem students
- post Sumerhill School picture
- post radja at Kuter Kline Manhattan
- Try and find photos Radja sent of Russian trip and the photo of the giant statue of woman swinging giant sword, etc. and post in can' I think it was taken at the battle of Stalingrad area.
- there is something in thevaccine.net I have wanted to post here but I can't remember what it was. Perhaps the Ford Fairlane photo, me in front of Dojo, etc. look there later.
Also, I dropped of my memories of Mr. Chang the teacher at Whitfield, I need to come back on that because he fought very hard with the school not to kick me out which the headmaster also said.
Manhattan PS-6 comes after Whitfield and it was that teacher who got me totally and forever in love with classical music and poety and literture. In fact, he held the whole class spell bound. 6th grade. Or was it before? After I left Whitfield where did I go to school next?
- arrive USA, San Francisco then detroit then Eastern
-eastern military fall 1954
- walt whitman - fall 1954
- Scarsdale school, living in Tarry Town.
- Irvington elementary, living in Irvington in the big big doctors house
- Ruth has heart attack, Janey tells her not to come back, I am left alone in the big house in Irvington for about two weeks. Gertrude comes to feed me morning and evening. the doctor temporarily moves in with Ruth Slinger and then when Ruth is able to get me, Slinger moves into Irvington house with janey. I then see Janey no more until I visit that house and see her when I am 16 and visiting Radja and Lena, the Russian mathematician, now teaching at CW Post.
- move to hotel with Ruth then 97th street apartment when available. We move in, almost no furnature. no tv. no nothing.
I think then it is PS-6, since Irvington was 6th grade and I left abruptly from school there I have report card so might post that
- yes because that was next camp songo.
- whitfield school, 7th grade 1958 didn't go well at all. Harlem project. Meet Elanor Roosevelt at graduation day for the Harlem students of project.
- a NYC public school, I think 7th grade
- 2nd Camp Songo, Main to NYC then directly to St. Louis by plane
- arrive in Linden, MO, St. Louis suberburb from NYC
- went to Clayton City school, 7th grade, but held back.
- Brentwood, Mo, school, leads to suicide attempt.
- month stay at Jewish Hospital
- then St. Louis Academy
Bernard School
University City High School, very short stay
- quit and same day painted the portrait of the sad face
- junked cars for money, laborer, landscaping, some construction laborer, etc.
take up Judo
night school at Fallon high, st. louis, have some records
- move to memphis,
American school correspondence
Dojo, karate, meet nash
vocational school,
complete correspondence
pass GED
take ACT do OK
take additional math courses at State Tech, Memphis, Greg Maksi, great influence on me, Georgia Tech, teacher at State Tech, then went on to get his PhD and become dept head. Because of his influence I keep pushing ahead.
get admitted to engineering at Univ of Tenn
weekends take tutoring in Calculus from Jane ? math teacher at State Tech.
at UT-Martin everybody is great, especially teachers.I teach a karate class on tues and thurs evenings and have about 30 students. One decides to see if I really know what the stuff. He finds out I do and soon I am treated with a lot more respect, first friendships but then also respect when word got around. Same happened at TVA. Changed attitudes real fast.
work one year at Allen & Hoshall Consulting Engineers per Dr. Harte that I take a year off. Friend Harry his father owns the company.
return to UT-Martin
I learn how pot affected my ability to do differential equations for about two weeks. Later I realize that pot AND thorazine affet the RAS, reticular activationg system. Thorazine dulls the abstract thinking level, strong pot leaves you in a cloud for a while; not in writing poety or reading literature, etc. but for sure in the higher levels mathematical based subjects. It induces real brain fog which does not leave you for quite a while. I stay off all drugs then until I graduate in Knoxville in 1974
UT-Knoxville for last two years of engineering school
Senior year, meet Jan and we become long time 40 years + friends. He goes on to NASA after getting his PhD in engineering.
4-1974 I go to work for TVA as EE engineer. first 3 years are boring as hell. I then transfer out of where I was bored and into direct support work for plants, fossil, hydro, nukes and really enjoy what I am doing.
I get back on pot and hash. then in about 1980 buy an old chicken farm about 40 mi from Chattanooga. get back on pot heavy along with hash. One evening coming home and smoking pot I realize suddenly some of the pot has been laced with, what was a bad new drug going around, I will think the name later. I barely make it to the farm and on the long straight away someone is following me way back and rapidly gaining speed on my. I go all out, hitting near 90 in the jeep. then his lights dissapear. who knows.
Then a few weeks later my supplier gives me some LSD purple micro dots. I prepare properly and on a long weekend I take my first LSD. The experience was a wonder to behold. In a letter I described it all to Dr. Harte. I decided to paint a picture at the same time to record my new experience. The barn scene was that painting. Most people actually like it. But it was not good art.
One thing the first LSD trip did do was snap me out of a terrible depression almost stuper like; brought on by constant heavy use of strong pot and hashish. It does put you into brain fog, period. I still had enough presence of mind to recognize what was happening to me. The fist trip literally woke me up as I had not been for years. I am also certain that the psychotropic drugs, espeically chloropromazine family such as Thorazine do put you into a low level fog, depending on the dose, but even small doses when used regularly do diminish your higher cortical abstract reasoning abilities.
I mean, if not too heavy a dose, you can still do say engineering level math. But not with the acuteness, keenness of thought and perception you get when your mind is totally free of any mind altering drugs.
Like I quite taking any dose level of thorazine about 16 months ago. I had been taking it ever since Jewish Hospital and Dr.Harte put me on it at 14. I just thought I needed it. Dr. Vince Dowling, a cardiologist at the large Baptist Hospital in Memphis had become a personal friend of mine and Ruth and told me I shouldn't be taking it and said that he had a patient just like me when he was stationed in Okinawa after the war who was JUST LIKE ME and so he put me on Ritalin, 10 mg. which I took off and on. But I thought it was making me slur my words (this was while I was at UT-Martin) and so quit taking it. Dr. Fulton, another friend and also a TVA doctor said that the sluring was not from the ritalin, and if anything it was the thorazine and that I should not take it anymore. So, sometimes you learn the hard way.
At any rate, I took about six more trips and then started having an occasional flash back and realized that I might cause permanent damage so I quite.
After the first trip on LSD I started to get ORGANIZED for the fist time in years. That stayed with me. Also, I never again craved pot or hash and have not taken any ever since. The desire for pot left when the depression left and that depression left so fast that I got to thinking that I could possibly be a big help to catatonics, a sort of shock effect, if properly done. What has the catatonic got to lose? Dose is everything. And if you control the dose I don't think you are going to have a bad trip - if setup time is done correctly.
Each subsequent trip had less and less effect, that is, I had quickly developed the tolerance for it after the initially fist trip.
I think if your are really a true clearly diagnoses Schizophrenic, and you will know one if you have ever have seen one up close, then the strong tranquilizers will help keep such a person functioning. Same if you have a real psychotic, detached from reality and often dangerous. But often times they won't keep on the drug(s),
As for the anit-depressents - I have been on all of the three major types. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors, the most effective ever for me. Really made a big difference and quite soon. And when it did snap me out of the slumps I got off of it and got busy finding things that I liked to do and kept me off thinking about myself.
Tricyclic antidepressants. They did nothing for me at all.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)? I took them for a while, perhaps too long. My opinion, and often experience is the best teacher, unless you like wadding into quick sand - I would avoid just for thata reason.
The Russians have an old proverb which says, "Be careful if you wade into the quick sand as you may not be able to get back out." And you might want to but then it might be too late.
If you are feeling so sad that you want to take your own life, then remind yourself often that once you make that decision you can't take it back. What I learned to do in such moments and sometimes they will never go away, I learned to say to myself, I say to myself, I won't do anything to myself today, won't take anything; I'll wait until tomorrow and see if I still feel the same way, see if the pain has gone away. I just take it really JUST ONE DAY AT A TIME. And if need be, I HAVE TAKEN IT ONE HOUR AT A TIME. And alway the crisis passed on by and I am still here today. And things got better.
You know, there really are people who care, people who really do care about you as a person. Those crisis phone numbers - they really do work. Because when you get into a real emotional crisis, when everything seems to be collapsing all around you - it is just like the alcoholic who has had that one too many to drink and now he is in his own world of crisis, just like the person who is feeling terrible grief and doesn't know why. If you can just wait it out, just wait it out, just let yourself buy some time, go somewhere, get out of the house and go shopping, or to a movie or just go walking for a while. It is real hard to think about killing yourself when you are walking and keep on walking until the feeling leaves you. And it will. And you find for out for yourself that the crisis, the overwhelming feeling of sadness - goes away. You just have to have the strength to hold on until the sadness does go away, and often it can be just 10 minutes of walking that will do the job. And then a new day comes and things often seem to be getting better for you. Never give up on yourself. Life is worth living. It really is.
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rev_1 8-4-2023 added more content, particularly about 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Price.
Manhattan, Mid Summer and fall, 1954
The Walt Whitman School, Manhattan, Fall, 1954 Had arrived in USA that summer.
The Scarsdale School, Westchester, NY Didn't last very long as I still could not read or write, etc. What was I doing in 4th Grade in this very expensive private school? (Mrs. Price, 4th grade teacher who did her best to help me. At 16 when I went to NYC to visit Radja in the Village apartment in Manhattan I went by way of Virginia Beach, final home of "The Sleeping Prophet" Edgar Cayce. Edgar Cayce was born and raised in Hopkinsville, KY just 40 miles from where I now live. The best seller book about his life is "There is a river." I brought some of my paintings to show Mrs. Price and also Radja. One of them was strictly an abstract I did when living in University City in, I think it was 701 Princeton Ave, house. She liked this painting and said that it reminded her of Edgar Cayce and the book, "There is a river." She recommended that I read it and said that she strongly believed that "There is a River" which I have come to believe in the sense that it is another dimension which is free of entropy and therefore it would be possible for 'eternal life in heaven' in the sense of the Christian view. I think I still have the small b&w photo of her, school photo from Scarsdale school. She and Mr. Price had a small house just a block from the beach which they loved to walk up and down along the sand.
She was to me a very kind person. It is amazing how when a child some adult can have such significant influence in a positive way on the child as to change their life for the better.
In one of the 'boys camps' in Australia, the director of the facility was a Mr. Stevenson, who was a major in the Salvation Army who operated the facility which was very sparce on resources. This was after all just a few years after WW-II and many nations, including Australia, paid dearly in the lives of their young soldiers in battles in N. Africa and also the jungles of New Guinea. He could be quite brutal at times and was, especially on one occassion of which I shall not forget. Her wife was Mrs. Stevenson and she was just the opposite, exceptionally kind and had wanted to adopt me. They were in their 50s at least. I have a photo of them, small, and will post in this diary of sorts.
His treatment of me, not frequent but enough that even now I remember the worst of it - well it did leave me with an undercurrent of anger and even hate which once in America some of the early teachers did try to help me deal with. This was mainly my first few years in Manhattan. But when the Doctor and Ruth moved to Tarrytown, NY and enrolled me in Scarsdale it was Mrs. Price who sensed how I was bottled up with anger and worked to help me to "learn not to hate." It is not alway an easy thing to do.
(incude the email from Ned Depew wanting to form a Scarsdale Alumi organization.
Ned Depew was a school friend and lived in a large house just a few blocks from the doctors place. His parents must have been quite well off as the house was really nice. The doctors house was also very big and fancy. She had a lot of money and drove to her office in Manhattan each day from Tarrytown. Ruth alway took the train. Ned was my best friend in Tarrytown. But I suppose that is because he was the only friend I had. I will see if I still have photo of him cutting grass in his large yard with engine propelled lawn mower. I was age 10 at the time.
He and his family moved to Manhattan where they lived in a really nice and larg apartment on Park Avenue down a ways from the Brick Presbyterian Church. If you know Manhattan layout - well you know Ned's father had him a good paying job.
Many decades later I just decided one day to do a search of "Nenad Cuic" and came upon Ned's email looking for those who were alumni of Scarsdale school. So we exchanged for a while emails.
Also, Kálmán István - the Hungarian Jew,(Steve Coleman) had responded to one of Ned's emails and informing Ned that I was not Hungarian but Serbian and that I was then working as engineer and how to reach me. From his email then that is how I was able to begin a correspondence with him.
Kalman Istvan had taken many of the photos of me and Radja while in the Funk Kaserne camp. He acknowledged that he and Radja (your 'mom" as he would write) had been very close friends since they knew each other in Munich and they had stayed in touch. From Kalman I learned that the "very high up in the government (NAZI) that had personally intervened to stop the scheduled execution of her youngest brother, Nenad, being held in concentration camp near Belgrade had been Himmler himself. Himler had provided his own plane and pilot for her to travel to Belgrade for that purpose.
The way Kalman explained it to me was that in war time you did what you had to do to survive. The SS had killed her other six brothers because they were captured partisans fighting with Tito and that was an instant death sentence. Radja had also told me personally of the murder of her parents and that almost all of her professors had been driven to a high mountain clift and forced over the clift to their death. She told me about these killings in a rather detached manner. Often American's cannot understand how a person can be so seemingly "detached" emotionally from such trauma in their life. In my teenage years I often heard people talk about this "indifference" to death by "Russians." But Americans did not suffer on such a massive scale what happened to millions of Russian people, both soldiers and civilians. Virtually every Russian had some family die as a direct result of that war. Americans DO NOT KNOW suffering on that magnitude, otherwise they would not be so quick to look in the other direction when their government destroyes the lived of millions of innocents in such wars as Vietnam, Cambodia, (both directly and by being responsible for the rise of Pol Pot) Iraq, Syria - and let us not forget the mass murder of near 300,000 or more Japanese civilians by the explosian of the two American atomic bombs at near end of World War II.
The German people of the past know well the personal trauma that war brings to them and their families for many generations aferward. So do the Japanese. So do the French (though of less total magnitude) as well as Great Britain. That is why it is puzzling to me how these Americans today as well as Germany and Great Britain - who did themselves suffer terrible - and Poland!? You would have thought that Poland would have thoroughly ingrained into its young the actual personal consquences of war - what all out war brought to the Polish nation; yet they all seem to suffer an amnesia, a sort of dimmentia. For they take the very real and high risk of having a repeat of World War II so nonchalantly.
What does that word mean: In a nonchalant, indifferent, or careless manner; coolly. In a nonchalant manner. In a composed and unconcerned manner. The GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English. Like what is happening is to them who have neithor directly or indirectly suffered from a total war to the death - just another Netflix episode, a war video game. Several of my history books gives the death toll for China at over 60 million. This included starvation of a colosal scale; disease, and just plain barbarism that total war brings to all those involved.
It seems like "The Guns of August" all over again. [The Guns of August: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Classic About the Outbreak of World War I
Part of: Great War Series (2 books) by Barbara W. Tuchman and Robert K. Massie $9.00 www.Amazon.com I will tell you this, those of you who live in Sleepy Hollow [ The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle - www.amazon.com $4.00 ] your political leaders continue to provoke Russia and China and they will respond militarily in force and FOR KEEPS. YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE. YOUR CHILDREN AND YOUR GRAND CHILDREN. AND FOR WHAT?
r
This is the first time I ever graduated from anything. First time I had proof I wasn't a failure. That I was worth something, to someone else, in my case, my foster mother, Ruth.
After a month in Jewish Hospital 'They" decided that the last thing I needed was return to a public school system. After a full year at St. Louis Academy, state of Missouri standard tests put my English level at freshman college level, and math level at 8th grade. I think I still have the test results and will post if I do. The teachers were students at St.Louis University, Jesuits and a few certified teachers.
Very interesting part of my life here. School was funded by very wealthy Catholic businesman, I believe his name was a Charles Vaderaut (sp not sure). For reasons of the "Condemnation Before Investigation" and "The Smear Always Comes First" for which there is no defense, the school was forced to close.
Charles Vaderat (sp) "had heard things" and this was enough to act immediately. No investigation before condemnation. It was condemnation BEFORE investigation. And all the students who loved that school paid the price. I write of this condemnation before investigation in the home page. I do hope to get it all organized.
Come the fall of 1961, I was 15, a Mr. Daniel Sacks, who had been one of the teachers at St. Louis Academy, teaching primarily math, science, and language (he actually knew three I think it was)opened up a small school above a restaurant not far from Delmare Blvd and close to University City Hall. Also with him was a teacher who had been in WW-II, saw action in Germany, was I think a captain in army, and had been with the assault of Berchtesgaden in Bavaria - the German state in which I was born.
Berchtesgaden had been Hitler's retreat in the mountains. The teacher, Mr. Kennedy I think was the name, had brought back from Germany a number of items which he showed me. He lived close to us in Brentwood, MO, and would pick me up and take me to the school, The Bernard School (named after Daniel Sacks brother). One item which I spotted immediately on the living room wall of his house house was an oil painting of a woman holding a child. He said it was an original that he took from the ruins of Berchtesgaden that had survived. He had carefully removed it from the frame, rolled it up, and on demobilization took it home with him. He said that was quite common and that his rank also made a difference.
This painting reminded me of the great unknown someting I and several of the other boys had seen in Australia at the temporary DP camp run by Salvation Army about a year before I left to go to America. I was age 7. Upon disclosure of what we had seen to Major Stevenson (post the small photo of him and wife and young adult son) I received a terrific beating the like of which I have never forgotten. I believe this temporary camp was in Adelaide, not too far from Norwood when I lived my last few months in Australia after Radja had finally gotten her papers to come to America.
I scanned this card years ago before you could scan in color. The new scan, in a few days, will be in living color and you will get to see why ''they'' call it the "green card." The new cards I hear from the internet is actually cheap paper and the size of a current dollar bill. It's not the old "saddle back" dollar bill of many decades ago before the FED destroyed value of the dollar. So today a dollar is not even worth a Mill (youuns who be reading this - you do know what a MILL used to be, don't you?" which it too used to be backed by the full faith and credit of the USA, choke, choke, Because of the millions of gallons of "surplus green paint" I heard tell on the internet as how they, Yellen or is it Hellen of Troy - hell I don't know. But "they" the U.S. Treasury is going to help Immigration Naturalization Service, or is it HO Ho Homeland Security now (for what that's worth) they is going to print up millions of green green "cards" to stem the tide of the millions of millons of illegals coming in here without proper credenitals. The solution to the illegals problem ?
Just make them legal.
Give every one of them what comes across the Rio Grande a "green card" printed out the the trillions of surplus paper dollar "blanks" to be used to print fresh new paper dollars to fill the wheel barrows that are anticipated by government economist to be needed by both the newly minted ill legals and them that used to work in manufacturing except that those jobs all went to China.
Only factories still left is the one that makes high quality "swipes" for the super rich and government employees and especially senators and congress men, woman, binaries and take your style as you like it, to wipe their asses with the trillions of newly minted official "green" dollar sized GREED CARDS since the government can't afford high quality "swipes" since the Donor Class what put them all into office have cornered the market for "swipes" and the price of a swipe has gone "sky high."
After Bernard School closed down, Mr. Kennedy went to work for state of Missouri as a probation officer, in the St, Louis branch. I and some of the other students decided to visit him after several months had gone by and Mr. Sacks who lived near where I did provided me with his address.
On the SCAT tests I did OK. The reason was because of the one on one tutoring the seven of us at the school. But at schools end in June of 1962, Mr. Sacks informed us that he would have to close the school because of a lack of funding. He said he had hoped to be able to continue for another year but that he efforts at finding funding did not pan out. He had hoped to have the school continue with the teaching methods of the Summerhill School.
Summerhill School located in Suffolk, England. The underlining philosophy and methods of this school was, per Wikipedia, Summerhill School is an independent (i.e. fee-charging) boarding school in Leiston, Suffolk, England. It was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around. It is run as a democratic community; the running of the school is conducted in the school meetings, which anyone, staff or pupil, may attend, and at which everyone has an equal vote.
Of course the part I underlined is easy to do if you have a very small teacher to student ratio. But that is not possible when 25 perent, minimum of the nation's wealth is going to feed the monster of the Military Industrial Complex.
St. Louis Academy, where I excelled, was based on the same philosophy. I think such a concept IS possible if the billions and now trillions plus that goes into non-productive buying of bigger and bigger and more and more missiles, bombs, aircraft carriers at 15 billion a wack. There is no reason that all public schools class room size could be kept at no more than 15 per class and to pay the teachers at least what the average lawyer makes (and do you see any shortage of them). The states could and should be able to do this but cannot because the federal government is stealing most of the nationl's wealth so that its beaurocracies and political class can continue to thrive and grow richer and richer at the People's expense.
There is nothing great or "exceptional" about a country that willfully deprives a large segment of its citizens from a decent education and being able to live in reasonable safety; and I speak not only of the negro but also the hispanic and the very poor and destitute white people living in the Easter mountains of Apalachia, both in Kentucky and Tennesse (which I now of from personal visits) but probably also West Virginia, economically devistated by fanatic belief in the Bubbling Earth Hypothesis.
America's poor, including a large segment of its destitute Vietnam veterans are allowed to live in squalor and worse than anything Charles Dickens ever wrote about. And the one's who shout loudest against the poor, claiming they just don't want to work (sure, where and doing what. Dumbass Joe Biden saying the poor and displaced and hhomeless because of his policies and his fellow traveling democrats, but not all, can learn to code "computer web coding and other types is just showing his total contempt for not only the poor but ALL people of color (which is an obnoxious term when you consider that there are also millions of white people and shades of white that are economically now destroyed because of Biden and his ilk, meaning his, Biden's LIKE KIND, selfish, indifferent to the sufferings of others - and only concerned with making millions more than he can possibly spend.
But judgement day is coming. And those laughing at the poor today will be jumping out of windows tomorrow like the Bed and Beyond CEO when he realized that his company was soon going to be bust along with him. Just imagine what that tells you about these super rich CEOs (but not all. I would never include the Warren Buffets, the Bill Gates, the guy who built Home Depot (who used his money to build a medical school. All that they have, all that they are is the objects that money can buy. For them, to HAVE is the most important thing in their life. The more they HAVE, the bigger their egos. When they see they are going to lose it all, down they go, squish, their pompus egos flattened on the concrete world or reality.
2923-aug-13 Rev 1 what follow is major additions. All is extemporaneous and will have the attendent grammar errors etc. That's just the way it is. As time provides, corrections will be made.
Next step was University City High School. We had moved to University City from Brentwood, MO that summer. And during the summer I took a class in typing at the high school. It is the only really good thing I every got out of that place.
That fall the school had set a couple of "getting to know you" days for students to meet teachers, etc. The high school was within walking distance. On one of the days I went up to the school to visit because I heard that I could take art lessons and I wanted to do that. I had a car, the blue 1962 Ford Fairlane so I took my most recent painting attempt with me to see where I stood in terms of talent and future prospects.
The art teaching was a young guy, perhaps in his thirties. There was several other students in the class room. One guy, about my age, 16, was playing a guitar and showing off how could he could play "spanish guitar." The art teacher then asked me if I had any samples of painting or drawing I had done. I told him I never learned to draw but I had done a few oil paintings, mainly copying from old masters such as Van Gogh. He asked me to bring him a sample. So I went out to the car and brought this one to him. He looked at it and one of his art students also came over and looked at it.
Then the teacher, saying nothing, grabbed a 12x16 white board canvas and with acrylics proceeded to paint what I thought was a very good painting of Mark Twain, evidently from memory. It took him about half and hour and he said nothing all the while. When he had finished he handed it to me and said, "Enroll if you want to." Then he walks off and goes to talking with the student strumming his guitar.
I took it like he didn't give a fuck whether I enrolled or not. I hadn't been saying that I was exactly good at landscapes or I wouldn't have been wating to take lessons. To get really good at most anything you have to take lessons. I wasn't sure whether it was the Australian accent I still had. After all, it was in Australia that I learned to speak English. And I had been living now in the U.S. for seven years, and part of that had been in New York, Manhattan. I wasn't Invory Black, I wasn't Burnt Umber brown, or even Indian Red. I thought I was white, like Zinc white or titanium white or flake white. But he must have been seeing me AS a flake. Who knows. For me he was just another shit head like the rich rich little boys at Watkinson preparatory School for Boys. I opted not to take art lessons from this guy. I wanted to get good at art, particularly paining landscapes as at the time my favorite artists was Van Gogh. I didn't care much for doing figures or portraits, probably because, I suppose, people's figures just didn't interest me. As for faces, portraits, you really need lessons if you want to take that on. But portraits don't give you much wiggle room for error whereas with landscapes - you can fake it and most people won't see the errors.
I think all this was in 1962. I did attend the University City High School for a while. I don't remember frankly just how long. This was after all 61 years ago. I was misserable there - didn't like it, I was out of my gourd bored.
My final break with that place was when I was taking some class of sorts, must have been a "science" glass, because the class was requred to go out "into the field" and collect various BUGS from a list the teachers gave to the class - and we were to identify them and mount them and do a short write-up on each. I couldn't believe what he was asking. What a waste of time. I asked him, the teacher, WHY I needed to run around all over looking for bugs. Couldn't I just research the one's on the list and do the write-ups? The teacher so it was required for the students to actually go out "into the fields" and collect these things, mount them, research etc. Best as I remember, he, the teacher, was a nice guy. We got along. I don't remember ever having issues with any of the teachers when I did attend school.
I don't remember if I went home to think it over or just made my decision then and there. But I decided I was going to quit school. For me it was deathly boring and I didn't like being around so many people. That was a lot of it right there. Too many people and too much noise and confusion. I couldn't think in a place like that. And collecting bugs seemed pointless. So I told he I was going to quit. He really was a decent guy and he tried to per me otherwise. He asked if I was going to find another place to continue with the schooling. I just don't know I replied. He didn't press me but he did say something that did stay with me. In effect he said, If you're going to quit school Nenad (and he did call me by my first name and correctly and I appreciated that because they way he spoke I knew he was sincere and did care about what happened to me) at least try to keep up with your education. That's what's important.
At the house that day I quit school I wrote a letter to Ruth thanking her for all she had done for me. And it was a lot. I was very difficult to deal with - in fact I think today it would be called "oppositional disorder." Why she put up with me beats me.
In addition to the letter (see below) I also painted the face of anguish if I can call it that. For I did feel that way. I didn't know what path I would be following next. I hadn't set a goal for my future. I didn't think I had a future. For the longest I thought I would never make it to 55. And I believed this of me. Next is that painting I did. As best as I remember the idea came from I think it was a National Geographic Magazine article regarding Japan and its culture. The picture had two faces, the sad one and the happy one of a face smiling. I sketched it out first on paper. Then with pencil I lightly sketched the face I saw. Usually when I attempted figures or a portrait I did sketch first and study it for a while. With most of my landscapes I did not use that method.
I don't claim any special talents for painting faces. The above is just part of my story which I think is interesting.
I wish I had dated this letter. About the music, this refers to the baby grand piano, a Chickering, that Ruth had bought for me when we lived in Brentwood, Missouri, a suberb of St. Louis. I could play OK by ear and I could hear the music which I would then repeat with the keys. As with the art, I wanted lessons the lessons but the music teacher got royally pissed off at me because I kept asking him questions. He did have a "royal manner" so to speak. and I think he subsribed to the notion that "children should be seen, not heard."
Ruth was unable to find another music teacher in the Brentwood area and it would have been too expensive to have one come from St. Louis.
Many decades later I heard for myself The Celestial Music and knew then that there was more to life than what we see. For life is also what we hear.
I sort of think that had the art teacher been a little more encouraging I would have stayed at the highschool for the reason of art lessons. But now as I look back over 60 years gone-by I think I would have lost more than I would have gained. Because by quitting school at that time - I learned so much more of the real world than ever I could have from books and routine highschool life. And I never felt I "fit in". I could never connect with the other teens because our interests and likes were so far apart. I loved classical music - thanks to that PS-6, 6th grade teacher who truly was a genius when it came to knowing how to bring young children to love the classics, music, poetry (Whose woods are these I think I know, his house in the village though ... And of all the many poems this teacher taught this 6th grade class - the one that meant the most to me was and still is this one:
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night It came again with a great wakening light, And showed the names whom love of God had blest, And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. by Leigh Hunt.
*****
And I think to myself, now in my old age (77.6) with the final station of my journey's end just ahead - I think what meant most to me and the other 6th grade students in that class was the answer that Ben Adhem gave to the angel when Ben Adhem asked "What writest thou?" in a book of gold. And the angel replied,
2023-aug-14 rev1
Is not the new commandment given to the people of the earth, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." I read in Christ's statement [(Romans 12:9-13; 1 John 3:11-24)] that the actual COMMANDMENT IS: ye (people of the earth) love one another.
There are no other qualifications needed, no provisos, no 'subject to change'and NO mutatis mutandis. In other words, this commandment stands alone and applies to all men and woman of the earth regardless of their particular brand of 'religion.'
If some belief or 'religion' teaches and promotes [is in contavention to] that which we intrinsically know to be evil, such as worship of the Satan (and Satan IS real and at your peril you beieve it not) then it is the imperative of each person who hears such lies to oppose such teachings or movement by denying in anyway whatsoever - their legitimacy, or support of such movements or beliefs.
As Soloman said In the Book, ""Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: (1)Fear God (2) and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." Ecclesiates 12:13 I.E., We are to submit ourselves to The Will of God and Obey His Commandments.
(1) And what is meant by "Fear God." Is this fear the trembling of a small child who hears the thunder and lightning outside his bedroom when a storm comes? I don't think so though I respect that we will each have our own different opinions. I believe that what is meant in the King James Bible Version 1611 . . . (and there are many translations today and I am sure many of them will use a different word than this word fear.
And as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has taught that All Religions Are But Different Roads (different EXPRESSIONS nc) Leading to the Same God - I think we who love the KJV, I most particularly because of the Shakespearean English (its sounds and word arrangements)should not quibble - over words. I would rather a friend read the NIV translation that not to ready any bible at all.
. . . is that to "fear" God is to hold great reverence, great respect, and to stand in AWE of His mighty creations.
Jesus the Chist said In the Book of New Testament, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another."
In other words, it doesn't matter what color or race or nationality or political beliefs or past or present behavior - ad infinitum (to infinity, having no end) - what matters most in the end, in spite of all that has happened to you or your loved ones or your country or your race - what really counts in the end is That ye love one another. And that sure can be a hard rule to follow - or even to stomach. But think about it in this way.
Say as a small child, or even a grown-up - you were abused, mistreated, hurt bad in fact and often. How do you take it? How do you handle something real like that? Ask me why "bad things happen to good people" I can only answer, "I don't know 'the why'."
What I do know is this. At the moment of the creation of life within the womb of the mother - the Creator of all things in our universe, God, Allah, Jehovah, YHWH, any name you wish to call HIM, the Creator - at that moment of the creation of the new life - the Creator imparts a special blessing above the many others HE gives to the new life, such as talents.
That blessing is the gift of CHOICE, the ability to chose, to chose what we shall do in a given situation - especially when our choice will not change an outcome which we are faced with - that we cannot change.
During my stay in Jewish Hospital, St. Louis, Dr. Richard Harte was my child psychiatrist. I was age 14, newly age 14.I never thought I got much if anything out of our daily "talk sessions." And that is because he never would enter into a conversation. Instead he would just sit there waiting for me to "talk out my feelings." And if I did hint around in asking a question - well generally he would say he didn't give advice. Just what did he do then I thought to myself.
I think the idea was that I was to have a " Primal Scream " experience. Scream my head off.And this would lead to my having a Catharsis. And having a genuine Freudian Catharis - man that's a big big screem. It's a big deal, to the Freudians I think.
I personally think that this is another giant construct created by the Freudians like thinking that all little girls crave a penis. The Freudians call it Penis Envy and it is very much a major part of Freudian ideology.
And, in my opinion, and with the utmost respect I can conjure up, here you go: The parallel reaction ( Wiki again )of a boy's realization that women do not have a penis [none of this applies now, 2023 and my god probably for ever more] is castration anxiety. In other words, if you stetch it a bit - if you get extreme anxiety because you think your boss is about to fire you - it's really not the worry that you might lose your job. I interpret Freud to mean that the MAN (i.e., male, i.e., he's got one for real)the employee is in Freudian reality projecting his fears of being fired onto the bosses wish fullfilment that he, the boss man, want to cut his dick off because the employee is doing a lousy job.
This castration complex by Freudian Thought is one hell of a good reason to support your unions. If we didn't have the unions then it is quite probable that most of the "MEN" (definition now Limp and in limbo) . . . most of the men in the labor force would by now be "cut off" I say "cut off" to dampen the tragedy of the whole thing - castrate will remind too many people like me who have spent summers on horse and cattle ranches (flash back some time to Ranch Roy-L near Johnsboro, MO owned by stock and bond investor and very wealthy and very kind and generous person, Roy Longstreet, whose offices were in Clayton, Missouri and I DID learn some very meaningful things from him which in the remembering of them HELPED PUSHED ME THROUGH ENGINEERING SCHOOL with its very heavy load of advanced mathematics stuff.
I age 15 at the time at Ranch Roy-L remember visually the monsterous dongs some of the horses exibited in both times of extreme excitation and in deep moments of relaxation.
Now get this one: (Wiki again) - later, had to got out and now I fogot my thoughts
Read the Wikipedia article in the link. But the jist of the Primal Screem is in the first line of the Wiki posting: Primal therapy is a trauma-based psychotherapy created by Arthur Janov, who argued that neurosis is caused by the repressed pain of childhood trauma.
With Dr. Harte, I have always felt the only useful thing I ever got from my "treatment" with him was the years of FEED-BACK he provided to me in the form of letters and telephone conversations. It was invaluable and I will also say "life-saving." And I will add that the "life-saving" is for the times AFTER Jewish Hospital while I was still living in Missouri. But also from my trip to see him in Kansas City, Missouri. And it was all touch and go from when I came to America until about - [remember Camp Songo on Pleasant Lake in Maine] in well.) I was going to say, until I graduated from the university. But, as is the nature of free-association - my life really changed the most for me was after I got married, by common law marriage in the 1981 period and then by statute law in 1989.
What can I say, for then I knew I had finally found someone who [I suppose it should be whom, but that sounds too awkward and I like words to flow together ] I knew loved me as I was, I knew I could trust her - as never before had I trusted anyone.
Before then I was always sad and very prone to suicide with often taking it very serious. I think the real insight I gained from these years of turmoil and struggle was in the letter I wrote to my young friend in prison when I concluded the letter my saying,
"I don't see we can depart from the norm when we have someone whom we love more than we love ourself. For when we so loves we give pause to consider THEIR future as well as our own. Value the life, what ever the trials and tribulations in life may bring, value the life." I never thought again to kill myself. For I had someone who(m) I loved more than myself. And she, I knew, felt the same way.
I decided to go home. At the house I wondered how Ruth would take my quitting highschool. Having not much else to do I wrote Ruth my letter which is here posted in hopes she would not feel betrayed or too disappointed.
Then I went upstairs to my room when I had my easil set up and painted the face of sadnes which I saw what I remember was a National Geogaphic magazine. But I am not certain. I did not conjure up the image from my mind as other of the landscapes I have done are from immagination only. I had painet a few figures and a couple of faces but they really didn't interest me and I did not keep them.
The next photo was taken during my train ride from New York City, Manhattan, to begin bording school at the Watkinson Preparatory School for Boys in Hartford, Conn. In the train section that I was traveling in there was this group of jovial men congregating here and there. I drummed up a conversation with them and we hit it off real good. This group was involved with some TV entertainment. When I showed the photo to some of the teachers (Masters) at the school they recognized who this group was. This was in fall of 1958. I was twelve and seven months of age and had now been living in the United States for four years. I still had much of my Australian accent. Around the school I became 'Aussie' which sounded OK to me. I think now, 2023, I have been completely cleansed of all remenants of the Australian twang having been thoroughly washed of my sinds in a full emersion Baptism. I don 't credit my Presbyterian Baptism with much because they do the performance with a, how to say it in French, a we we approach doesn't cleanse you of much of anything and in fact might have done just the opposite.
.1958_on.way.to.Watkinson.School_12pc.reduced.727pxW616pxH.jpg)
I arrive at Watkinson and stay a while.s
It didn't help that the local newspaper in Harford, Conn, where the school was located, at had run an article not long after I had arrived there about the school and that one of their new students "was a German." I was also Serbian. Just born in Germany as a DP refugee, none of which was my fault.
But my class mates, mostly the off-campus ones (it was a bording school) and the boys my age - we all shared two large bed rooms, we actually got along because they got to know me. One of them who we all called "Scotty" because he came from Scottland (Edinburgh in fact.) His father was a business man who travelled forth and back from Scottland but mainly stayed in the U.S. On one of visitors days I got to meet him. Nice guy who didn't seem to have anything against me.
There was also a boy from Nigeria who was 16 so we were in different classes. I didn't really get to know him. But he was the best in the whole school in dancing and bouncing the soccer ball around. It was really amazing what he could do with that ball and his feet. Because of him the school won several matches with other richy rich Harford private schools for the rich boys.
Which brings back a memory I call my retribution moment. The day students were the real problem. Not all, but about four of them who couldn't stop calling me "a little Hitler" and crap like that. When I confronted them finally and said basically "shut your mouth or back it up" because I had learned a few thigns living on 97th street just a few blocks from Harlem; and Willy, a black kid my age and best friend (We had gone to Washington DC together with my foster mother) and also living on 97th but one street over from Madison Ave. Lexington Ave., direction, had taught me a few things about handling myself. So did my Puerto Rican friend who lived over on 98th. St. He and I in fact got arrested, sort of, for shop lifting. But the cops called our mothers, they came down to the store, and no big deal come of it. Neither he or I had ever got the JD card (Juvenile Deliquent Card.
So these rich boys would back off but only for a while. And the Latin "Master" as we were required to refer to the teachers - couldn't help himself from making fun of me for my terrible spelling. And he really boiled over when I would get one in by asking him, "If Latin is a dead language - why are you teaching it to us?" I don't think he liked me at all and I sure didn't think much of him.
But there was one BIG exception at that school. And I will never forget him to the day I find out if the great unknown something was real. Mr. Chang. He taught the 7th grade math and science class. He was young, about 30 and he had come from South Korea, I think he said from Taegu.
Taegu was the city where one of my Judo instructors came from, Kwon Soo Bo, 6th Dan in Judo and 3rd I think it was in Tae Kwon Do. He was so kind. He took a picture of my laying in the grass near the Jewish Hospital, over in Forrest Park. He wanted to really see Lincoln's home before he went back to Korea and asked if we could go there to visit. I said, sure, no problem. It was Springfield, best as I remember. The part that I remember the most on that visit was when we were standing in line to get into Lincoln's house. It was going to take a while for the line to thin out. He saw an out-house in the back yard of Lincoln's house and started to walk over to it. He got about 100 feet and burst into laughing. He figured out finally, no that's not the place to do it.
Now Kwon Soo Bo was a little guy. A lot of Koreans are. Well we were at the Dojo one day, the branch in St. Louis where he was contracted to teach. And over comes this really big heavy set guy, maye about 25 but at least 240 pounds of real body mass. He worked out constantly with the weight lifting equipment in the Dojo.
So he comes over to where Kwon Soo BO and I were sitting and talking and bows to Kwon and asks him if they might Randuri (that is peacefully compete). I knew what the guy was up to. And he only had a 1st Kyu, Brown Belt on the virge of becoming Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt. He was feeling his oats and Kwon knew it. So they bowed off and after a few minutes of circling around, feeling each others vulnerabilities, Master Kwon started bouncing this guy around like he was a rubber ball. And finally the guy motioned with his hands, OK, OK. But Knwon wouldn't let up until he floored this new contender and the guy said, Matah, or something sounding like that. It has been a long time ago and I can't find it with google and I don't read either Korean or Japanese.
At any rate, he and I kept up a regular letter writing for years. After I had been working a number of years as an engineer he asked him I would like to marry one of his daughters. "A nice young girl" he said. I wasn't against the idea, in fact I had really thought I'd wanted to marry an Indian (Asian) girl when the time came. So I leveled with him since I understood some of the Oriental customs. I told him was born illegitimate and actually had no idea who was really my father. I didn't need to say any more. A few weeks later I got his reply and he thanks me for being "very honest" and said I was an "honorable man." And that was it. I never heard from him again even though I had sent him a follow-up letter and then a Christmas card in case he wanted an opening.
Getting back to Whitfield Preparatory School for Boys, Hartford.
Well, these pussies who were antagonizing me - I mean they were still crying if their mothers didn't come and tuck them in at bedtime. And the headmaster, Mr. Newell had called me in and told me that the other boys were complaining that I was "picking on them," Like its just me and I'm picking on all of THEM? And he never asked me MY side of what was going on. I knew the score right away then. The parents of these chicken s*%ts, probably their fathers, had called the headmaster and told him what, as they saw it, was going on. The headmaster knew the score if he didn't take some kind of "disiplinary action" severe enough to satisfy these rich parents who might not re-enroll their sons next school season if Mr. Newell didn't do as they "recommended." So, he tells me he is going to get written permission from Miss Downing to "paddle" me if she wanted me to stay in Whitfield. Again, he never once asked me what my side of the story was. I was learning the American way of Justice real fast, I knew Ruth would not agree to that so I was going to get the "bounce" which is what they called at Whitfield "getting kicked out."
Well it just might take a few weeks. So I was going to even the score one way or another. The school had a soccer match coming up for the lower grade with another prep school in Hartford. We all had to participate in these events, no exceptions. And I didn't want any either. And the day came and the game was to be at Whitfield.
So it took almost the entire game's length but I made sure that I landed a real good kick to each of their shins that they would never forget. And I did. And they went balling to the coach who did nothing because he didn't want to be short a player. And anyway, he knew I was not going to be around much longer. And I wasn't. In fact it was that same coach who accompanied me back to Manhattan on the train and to the front enterance where Ruth and I lived on 12 E. 97st. Apt 5E, between Madison and 5th. complete with door men and elevator operators.
Interestingly my legal at the time was not Nenad Downing. It was Nenad Cuic. And I still had my "Green Card" and still do, 65 years later.
- memory flash back. At Camp Songo, Main, I could not visit Canada on overnight trip because I could not leave US. So I was told by the camp director.
karate.diplomas.series.photo.version.html
This certificate in TaeKwanDo was received while living in Memphis and I was attending the vocational school to learn radio and TV repair.
Shodan, All Japan Karate Association
I was awarded this certificate in either 1965 or 1966. If must have been near December 1966 because shortly then Nash killed Hilman Robbins in Memhis and Jerry had written his Sensie in Japan recommending this award. After school closed I continued to teach at various church gyms, at the university and then in Chattanooga I taught large classes at American Legion in downtown Chattanooga.
Ni_Dan All Japan Karate Association, Per Jerry Brown, Ni_Dan June 1, 1968
Diploma from correspondence course. A lot of hard work on my part went into getting this small certificate. Today you can do it via the internet if you can afford the internet connection. In most enlightened countries such as S. Korea, Japan, Russia, China, and many Eastern European countries - internet is subsidized to the public because governmet in these other places consider than an educated population is an investment in the future of the nation.
But here in the USA the prime directive is MAKE BIG MONEY for the Super Rich and their Mantra is PROFITS ABOVE ALL CIVIC CONSIDERATIONS AND ABOVE ALL MORAL AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS. This LOVE of MONEY is one of the main reasons that the USA has become a "made in America for Americans" cesspool.
Even now, August 2023 in the throws of a new Greater Depression - the Bogus Federal Reserve is determined to force the working people. the working classpeople into BANKRUPTCY in order to save with high interest to their big bank friens, J.P. Moron, et.al., too. A always gets a free ride from his banking buddings sinc they all congregate not with the Believing congregatons in our churces, -but with fellow playmates in their delux Athletic Clubs.
I was now living in Memphis (also, as a teenager it was known as 'Mucus, TN' on Edward Street which if you read the sections concerning my activities with Glenn W. Nash, Criminal Attorney at Law, I mentioned that early one morning, about 2 am the Memphis police came to that resident and arrested me for driving without a valid driver linense. This I include to establish the facts in this 'autobiograph' of sorts. I think the 'Units' refer to a semester that I completed. I think had not the art teacher been such an a** hole, but had been a little more decent with me, I would have stayed with the University City High School because although except for the French language course - all the others sucked and bored me to no end. I was interested in learning some basics in French because it had been Rada's specialty. And also, when I was put into the 3rd grade level at the Walt Whitman School in Manhattan in the fall of 1954, French was the language we 3rd graders were taking. I doubt seriously that today in most public schools you will see a foreign language being taught at such a young age. My main interests then, at that age of 16 was the Judo classes and art, particularly landscapes. So, I think I would have stayed. If the school had Judo classes after school hours - I think I would have stayed. Once I learned to read, at about age 11, and then with reasonable proficiency by age 13 (when my first 'real book' was The Time Machine by H.G. Wells I fell in love with learning. It has never left me.
In my opinion, the most important thing public education can do to lower the dropout rate of young people in that age group where that is common - is to give the students A REASON FOR COMING TO SCHOOL. Where the draw is to provide something which the teen cohort group you know will really want. But For - the ravenous greed and insanity of the Washington DC crowd - which robs the 'several states' of their money derived from the income taxes of their citizens - the states would be able to provide comprehensive after school (and also incorporated within the curriculum time periods) activities for all of their students.
They could provide for the older teens - lessons in TaeKwonDo/Karate/Chinese G(K)ungFoo, etc., and Judo for the younger set to the please and choice of the students. Archery, gymnastics, etc., learn to play Chess and become Grand Chess Masters typical of Russian and Indian (Asian) Children and also this chess game which is primarily aimed for those with an IQ +1 to the right of the median line on the Bell Curve will do more to inculcate 'critical thinking' into the minds of students that all the bogus 'critical thinking' courses now being 'taught' to students at various grade levels. This is because CRITICAL THINKING IS THE PRODUCT OF UNDERGOING A PROCESS WHICH BRINGS ABOUT A REORIENTATION IN THE WAY WE THINK. I attribute this significant insight to Tovarisch (товарищ) Andrei Martyanov, that is, Comrade Martyanov, and his four excellent military-society oriented books, including DISINTEGRATION, Indicators of the Coming American Collapse (right-on 100% though written a few years ago and more still to happen anticipated throughout this book of his; and his most recent book, now also on Amazon.com THE (Real) REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS.
Tovarisch Andrei Martyanov was REARED in the former Soviet Union and educated in Russian Military Academies where he obtained equivalent Master degree in the sciences, heavy in higher mathematics. By the process of having to learn and then DO the higher levels of calculus, solving higher order differential and partical differential equations your thinking becomes oriented to a critical thinking approach to solving problems.
In my opinion, in the USA children are RAISED to the expectations of those that surround them in their early years of life.
No less than an authority in such matters, The Columbia Journalism Review, seem to agree.
https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/raising-rearing-kids.php
Crops and animals are "raised"; children are "reared." But in America, the EXCEPTIONAL NATION above all others, who can argue against the observation that their children are raised as we raise crops and animals on large farms. In the case of the human children they are raised to accomidate the 19th century FACTORY MODEL of the obediant employee: work slavishly for low wages and be educated enough to find the urinals and chamber pots without needing a guide.
The problem is
continue later. .
General Equivalent Diploma, High School Level. Administered in Memphis, TN Dept. of Education
From the G.E.D. took a number of math courses at the State Technical School in Memphis, TN to prepare for ACT test in order to get admitted to either Tennessee Tech (where I took the ACT) or University of Tennesse. My preferred school was Tennessee Technological University because of their motto which I found to be rather charming. "I'm a rambling wreck from Tennessee Tech but one hell of an engineer. But circumstances beyond my control prevented that from being.
Was admitted to the University of Tennessee, School of Engineering, Electrical Engineering. Major area of study was in electronics.
Diploma, B.S. Electrical Engineering, University of Tennessee, 1974.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, Hosea 4:6
