Sept 16, 2023 Note. I need to correct quite a few code related issues. This is made very much easier because I use the editing program, Adobe 2021 (The update of the old Dreaamweaver series which was really great and I grieve at its extinction from the world of computer coding. But I shall weep no more for it seems that soon The Great Controversy begins.
The Battle of the Heavens. Thank goodness for the internet - otherwise we would all be in blindness as the Controversy unfolds. The main stream MEDIA, both in its printed and its visual and audio forms, here in the U.S.A. and also most all of Europe - is part of The Army of the Satanic Forces now mobilizing - against God's Children on the Earth and those protected by the Wings of Our Lady in the Sky. Only time will tell the future fate of this Earth we all call home.
nenadcuicschooldays.html
2023-Sept_16, 8.29 am, extensive additions and photos added and being added and all being updated now.
karate.diplomas.series.photo.version.html now changed to nenadcuicschooldays.html in honor of Tom Brown.
Rev 2023_Now_30_2023_10.25pm
2023-Sept-16 All that is below is in very rough draft form. But I chose to post as I do and then as I correct since all life is also a process of seeing our errors and then correcting them - as we move along on this train of life.
Easern Military School (folded many decades ago), 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.
2023_nov_30 10.49pm Recollection: I am loathe to remember this and to tell it at all. I will probably have enemies for life of a few who had been friends. But it is a simple thing that happened and it was the result of something that happened in Australia shortly before we came to USA.
I had been at Eastern now for about a full week. It was a military school for 3rd through 12. And it was demerit time. Yes, I can some demerits to pay for. I had no idea what a demerit was all about or the reward that came with one. I was in the lowest class, 3rd grade, though it could have just as well be the 1st. as I could neither read, write, etc.
There was a man, I think they called him the counselor. A young boy like me would go into the room and get a "spanking" as payment for the demerits he had earned. I had no idea what all this was aboutl. Because in the boys home, the last being Box Hill, we were never punished and never hit, physically. Why would we. There were few adults in the "home" and not much to do. So, as small children - we played games, etc. One fun game was to build tall grass huts. Because there was a large grass field which was part of the home facility and that's what children would do. School? I remember very little of it beause there was not much to remember. This "home" was funded by charity donations and this time was not long after the war and it was hard times for everyone.
So when asking another boy waiting to pay for his "demerits" I asked him what it was that "they did." "They hit you" he replied. As few things have ever done, that was a real swivet for me. [A state of extreme distress, a panic.] All that I could remember came back to me. The beating I had got. Not at Eastern, but at Norwood. Near blacked me out. I'm so old now. What difference does it make to let it come out. The one that counts is dead anyway. And the other, my half brother is burried too. But I never remember and unkindness on his part. Just a sort of indifference, a sort of detachment, you'd expect from a brother five years older than you.
Please don't hit me. Please don't hit me. Around and around the big room I walked in a circle. Then some jig-saw walking. Please don't hit me. The counselor came over to me and nealt down and said, "No one is going to hit you." And no one did. I can't remember what I did next, where I went.
9/16/2023 To tell or not to tell, the story of the why. That is my dilemma. "Please don't hit me". "Please don't hit me". Even now, 69 years later I still see the picture, the images of that event. Or at lest I shall think about it for a while before deciding what to do. For some still live - and should I let the dead rest in their grave - even though that day explains so much of what it was that happened to me and why I am what I am today. I don't know. Maybe a story out of Hamlet. To tell or not to tell what happened that day in Australia just a few weeks before we headed to America.
On my last visit with her, in fact in Belgrade, we were alone in her small apartment at the retirement home. It was a nice place, quiet, many trees and many paths to walk and remember the days now just memories. Just talking about the past, old recollections and reminiscence that old people often do when they get close to the exit doors. Nenad, her youngests brother had dies here too. It was a place afer all where people spent their "last days." It was the Nenad whose life it appeared that Himmler had saved by reprieve.
"I know it was a terrible beating I gave you. I ..." No! I stopped her from saying anymore. I was not that eight year old boy anymore who had left the boys home finally and had come "home" - who was constantly smart mouthing and stressing her out - constanly adding to her already heavy enough burdens. I was now 61 - living with my own regrets that I just couldn't kick. Wanza L had helped. He said to me one day, 'Look here Nenad, there aint't nobody ever something he wished he ought not have done. There ain't nobody like that." I knew what she was starting to say. I also knew what carrying a load you wish you wern't having to do meant and what it did to you. Wanza L was always kind to me. He too had travelled down that road. I could tell. I can always tell those whose carrying the buring inside. Who aint wished a bit of the past would just go away.
Look Radja, I read me a book not long ago. It was about life in Germany those years right after the war. I never knew how bad it was. What you went through. I didn't make things easier on you either. Then she said in a nice way but plainly to be understood. "It wasn't easy for either you or Chuck. He had to spend his first five years in Berlin with bombs constanly falling from the sky, and never sure if he was going to get to eat every day. You spent your first six, seven months in a make shift hosptial, disease everywhere, and the military wouldn't give any drugs to the DPs - becasue it was ordered that they were reserved for the wounded American soldiers. You only survived because the head doctor told me if I could collect enough milk in bottles each day from the other mother's in the camp - there was a chance I might make it. She said it was touch and go because she couldn't be there everyday because she was working for Red Cross to transport the refugees to Paris. But they also paid in cigarrettes and it was enough that I could pay some of the Serbian woman to come each day and feed and take care of you while I was gone.
Then she said a bit that made all the difference to me. "I had to go all over Europe in those days (after the war. You had it rough. But you were one of the lucky ones. I saw so many starving children, everywhere. So much misery. And small ones like you - especially when you were two and three - they were being stolen from their parents all the time. You couldn't take your eyes off your child or he'd be gone.
I knew all this was true because I had studied that time, the war, so very much. Towns and villages in Poland, the NAZI's would come in and kill everyone, everyone. Drive them into a buildings and burn them alive. This was common, everyday thing. In Ukraine - most all the Jews were slaughtered. Because they were Jews. The big book, The Holocaust. It goes into such individual details. You read stuff, the details, that stays with you the rest of your life. Sometimes you wish you ought not to have read the book in the first place. The NAZIs force all the towns people out to the farm area where they have bull dozed a huge ditch. They tell everybody to lay down flat on their belly, face down, next to the ditch. Everybody knows what's going to happen. This young girl, about twelve, she starts to cry. A boy her age, they know each other. He wispers to her, don't make any noise, he then crawls over to her and lays on top of her covering he best he can with his coat, its winter outside. The shooting starts. She hears the noise of the guns, starts to cry again. Shuush, he says in Polish. Then as the SS gets closer and the shooting louder this kid raises one of his arms. And the Beast shoots him in the head, then again. And walks on to the next victim. She stays frozen still. Not a movement from her. Hours go by. She pulls her self from the dead boys corpse. That's how we know the story. Why did he do it? You think to yourself, "That can't happen." You can buy this big book of real life horrors to innocent people from Amazon.com or Abebooks.com for just a few dollars and the shipping is free. If that is important. But this is gentle stuff I'm telling you. You want to read real real life horror but also valor at the highest level a people can do? Read The 900 days: The Siege of Leningrad by Harrison E. Salisbury.
I already knew why Radja had reached her limit. But not as an eight year old, smart mouthed kid with a mean streak of anger in himself. The pressure of all those years in NAZI Berlin, never knowing when the gestapo would come and take her away. Most of her family executed, lined up and shot. You better believe you can reach the point where you've had enough and a little brat finally send you over to the deep end.
It's late again.
Later. 2023_Dec_1, 12_55am
-----
2023_dec_3 @ 3pm
About the end of the second week at Eastern, I was taken by Radja to meet these two woman at this apartment. If my memory is correct we took a taxie to the train station which took us to Manhattan. Then it was another taxie up 5th. Avenue and then a right turn on 96th street to the doctor's large apartment. The apartment was very large because two smaller apartments had been combined to make this single one with a very large living room.
The introductions were made and it was clear to me that Radja and Ruth already knew each other quite well. Later on when Ruth and I lived on 97th street and radja would come to visit me - talk about a woman named Pushkin or Pushka would ensue and again obviously Ruth knew this Pushka from her stay in Germany.
After the proper intros - Radja left, in fact rather quickly it seemed to me. I stayed with the doctor and Ruth until Sunday afternoon when the Doctor took me back to Eastern. While I was at the apartment I got to calling Ruth, "Ruthie" which she actually seemed to like. She seemed to be a very kind person as did the doctor. Don't know why I called her "ruthie" but whatever the reason was - later when we all lived in Tarrytown, NY, and I got my very own dog, a collie puppy, I called him "Eddie."
I had never heard the name "Ruth" anyway as most of the time while living in Australia I lived in the two Salvation Army home for boys. Kent Home for Boys in Adelaide and then Box Hill School for Boys which was located in Melbourne. When Ruth and I lived on 97th St. very near the enterance to Central Park (in fact one block away and across 5th.avenue, in the park which had a very large "field" when Eddie would chase the pigeons the length of this very large field - then when the dog got way away (in the Harlem direction) I would call out loud, "Here Eddie Edie Eddie, here Eddie Eddie Eddie" and the dog would acome running back.
It seems today, 65 years later, very logical that I name the collie, Eddie. After all, what dog in its dogmind would come to the call of, "Here Ed,Ed,Ed." Why? I don't know. It would probably require a linguist to figure that one out. Why do young children, especially boys, what the "ee" sound at the end of their first name? Jimmy. Johnny. Timmy, etc. But then when they become teenage age the sound of their names must be corrected to, for instance,
"Jimmy crack corn an' I don't care / Jimmy crack corn an' I don't care / Jimmy crack corn an' I don't care / The Master's gone away." Would "Jim crack corn ..." make any sense?
***
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" of who would become my new mother, which was exactly what I was asked to do. Seems odd to me even now, 69 years later. Seems odd to me.
Janey (the doctor) told me that she was the one who actually "sponsored" Radja, my 1/2 brother Dankmar and myself to America. Which I believe because she was already well known in NYC was 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.
2023-dec-3 @ 4:20pm break for now. work on correcting problem with index page. Bottom half is not displaying following upload to server.
*****
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.
Yet Radja told me one day that a friend of hers, Ruth Preston, had been the person who arranged for us, Chuck, Radja and me, to come to USA and had gotten Radja the job at Eastern. Now I have found the photo of Ruth Preston and Radja sitting at a desk in an office in Munich. Ruth Preston DID work for Church World Service and DID now Ruth in Munich. And Radja told me at that time that she had gone to New Jersey to visit Ruth Preston at a nursing home there as Ruth Preston was slowly dying from Alzheimers. "Ruth Preston is the person who brought us over here (to U.S.A.) and I shall always be eternally gratefull to her." Thus the whole story shifted again, every so slightly. Yet it shifted. Both from what Ruth had told me and now a slight revision of the story by Radja. This latest version is the one I believe. Becaus for one thing, when Radja told me this there was a deep sadness in her voice.
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.
- post my 'Green Card'
- Frederick Zahn & Radja, 1945 at Funk Kaserne, Munich (above)
According to Radja, Frederick Zahan (an Australian who immigrated to USA as teen and served in 'signal corp' in Germany during the war - was my natual father. The above picture is the original. I don't know. On down this page is a photo of me taken when I entered the Watkinson Preparatory School for Boys in Hartford, Conn. I do know that Ruth Downing, who assumed being my foster mother after I "chose her" over the doctor - (Dr. Mary Jane Sherfey, MD, Psychiatry and research and author. Manhattan. That quickl soured the our relationship although at age 9 I was indeed confused at to my proper identity. Only Erik Erikson I think could have helped me 'adjust to the dilemma.'
There was never any actual legal court appointment of Ruth as foster parent while we lived on Manhattan Island. But she made great efforts to keep me from ever seeing, if he was, my natural father. Even hiring a very prominent Manhattan attorney to prevent his seeing me.
Nenad 3yo On the HMS Oxfordshire carying DPs (displaced persons, stateless, from Germany, Italy and Australia (those regions whom Ruth Downing directeed refugee resettlement for Church World service and another to be identified later, these large church organizations were "Umbrella" organizations funded by governments such as USA. Incuded among those organizations was The Salvation Army. The two camps my 1/2 brother, Dankmar and I lived in were first, Adelaide, and then Melbourn.
I am not in this picture.
- 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 - "please don't hit me, please don't hit me, "Don't worry, I won't." Then a couple of days later when Radja asked me if I wanted to go to live with Janey and Ruth, I said, "Yes."
- walt whitman - fall 1954
- Irvington elementary, living in Irvington in the big big doctors house
Irvington, NY, in the doctors Big House.
- Ruth has heart attack, Janey tells her not to come back, I am left alone in the big house in Irvington for about three weeks. Gertrude comes to feed me morning and evening. Left alone those three weeks were the loneliest times of my life. I did not know if Ruth was ever going to come back home and take me with her. I knew the doctor wanted me out, gone. Ever since I had told her that I was going to chose Ruth as my mother - our relationship had soured and then gotten hostile.
About two weeks after Ruth had gone to the hospital I got a beautiful card from her in the mail. It had a photograph on the front of a red rose and some kind sentiments written inside. I don't like even now to remember it - but on reading that card I started crying and could not stop. And every time I looked at that card I could not hold back. But I saved that card for many years. I had become so given up that I tore the card in half one dat and put it into the box with the photographs and other stuff from the past that Radja had given to Ruth for me to have when I got older.
Many years went by and every time time I would open this memory box and I looked at this one card - again I could not hold back my tears, my crying. Finally some time when living in Chattanooga and working I did discard it. But I regret it today. But then I don't.
The same thing happens to me when I listen to a piece of music that I had listen to when B went to prison for a crime which he did not do, but because of what he did not do, he spent some time in prison. But, although he got 10 years. because of over-crowding in the prison system, six months later he went to the top of the waiting list to freedom and he was released on parole and never did he fail to report to the parole officer. Yet that was a time which I cannot erase from my memory; and time does not fade the pictures of that time.
It is true what they say, forget the past, forget what you cannot change. Don't let regrets of yesterday color your days today blue. Jesus has erase that past - and all that stuff. But I do live with my regrets - I just don't dwell on the past as I used to do. And only rarely do I listen to the music that so much is associated with that time. I thank the Lord that this music is not of Mozart, Beethoven, or Tchaikovsky. For then my loss would be total. But that music piece that tugs even now at my soul is a beautiul rendition of Rock of Ages.
The doctor, Janey, temporarily moves in with Ruth Slinger who had herself also a big and fancy apartment. I don't know just what she did for living but money she also had plenty. I also knew, sensed, that she did not like having me around. Her focus was Janey. Janey still had some sort of attachment for me.
Finally, after about three weeks - one day Ruth appeared at the doctor's big house. Ruth told me to get my belongings (which was very little, mainly the box of memories) and "pwes vominoso, vominose", let's go.
The Slinger woman, who could not stand having me around . . . [children sense such things, and with Janey, I new some things she had permitted with me where just not right. But she is dead and I am old and what what does it matter now.] . . . 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.
Those three weeks alone, and not knowing whether Ruth would ever be coming home again, and figuring that I'd be alone again, like I was so many years in Australia, I cried and cried constantly. I couldn't stop. I had never cried like that before that I can remember. Never had. And then about the third week I did get a card from Ruth, it was a beautiful card, large red rose on the front and a few words inside which I just can't remember what they said. And I tore that card in half - I don't know why. What does a 10 year old know. Nothing has ever hurt me so much as those three weeks alone. And I kept that card. And now and then I would look at it again and the pain had not abated. It never has. I never did I cry again, or could until Peggy, my wife, came down with cancer in 1998 - 41 years later. And then it was really rough for three days. But she came through alright.
-Then about the end of the third week Ruth came back to the big doctors house and said to me, "we're going to a hotel in Manhattan for a while." I knew then how very much I loved her. Not because she was my mother, because she was not. But because she came back for me. And I knew I wasn't going to be alone again. It's just that simple.
- 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 preparatory school for boys, 7th grade 1957 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 6th grade
- 2nd summer at 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, days in St. Luke Hosptial recovery
- month stay at Jewish Hospital
- then St. Louis Academy - I excel academically
Bernard School
University City High School, very short stay
- quit, 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 advance 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, differential and partial equations tuff from Jane Capeheart 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 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 and partial diff. 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 of 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 k, and we become long time 40 years + friends. He goes on to NASA after getting his PhD in engineering. we stay in contact and solve the worlds problems.
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 trip. 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 [obviously directly affecting the RAS] 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. Experience is my teacher.
Like I quite taking any dose level of thorazine about 16 [now over two years] 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 on LSD and then started having an occasional flash back and realized that I might cause permanent brain 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 hashish 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 it, LSD, 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 the SSRI 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 always 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.
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.
memory note, fire extinguisher
Sept 15, 2023 Rev
I am not sure, even today, many many decades later, just where all the anger came from. What I do remember is when it suddenly stopped. - living in apt. on Montgomery st. Memphis. Working for Allen & Hoshall Engineers. The typewritter and the SUDDEN INSIGHT if I smashed it onto the floor. Perhaps there is something to the theraputic (sp) processes as regards to having "insight" into the cause of ones mental ailment. Only I didn't achieve any revelation, either from god or my subconscious. Rather suddenly I realized that if I smashed the typewritter onto the floor (a real nice Royal) I would be out of the typewritter. I think this was 1971, the year I went to work for A&H as per Dr. Harte's suggstion to "take a year off". I'm still not "cured." But in some way the anger is fully under control. Let's see, 2023-1971= 52 years. Just the self-realization that losing my temper in a fit of anger would accomplish nothing. I loved that typewriter. Perhaps that is what did it. I don't know. Maybe if I had a way to dissect my id, or ego, or that nuisance the Super-ego. But my life changed again. Took another direction.
You can bring in at this point Ned Depew's email and attempt to get alumni of Scarsdale together and how that let to Stephan Colan seeing that him mention this "Hungarian boy" whom he knew when living in Tarrytown, but he remembered his name, Nenad . . . and because of that "chance connection" I came to learn a great deal of my past that had been denied to me. Perhaps that was the source of my anger. When more or less "out of the blue" I am suddenly living with these two woman, Ruth, a psychiatric social worker, and Janey (Mary Jane Sherfey, MD) a psychiatrist doing research (at that time) and living in one big fancy apartment. And when they, I guess it was both, gave me a watch (which I had never seen one before) I sent outside of the building and threw it onto the concrete several times, smashing it to pieces. In a way, today, I think just now that perhaps I felt then that I had been "had" as the American saying goes.
At 13 yo living in Brentwood, Missouri (outside of St.Louis) my very serious attempt to kill myself and almost did - had nothing to do with this "feeling of rejection" and everything to do with feeling I was a complete failure, academically. And I was. I could barely read, still can't spell and Ithank the Lord for MS Word and WordPerfect (the much better of the two).
Here is the thing that back then I had no way to connect the pieces because there was no Stephen Colman in my life. Since it is now 1:45am I will just jot down the main pieces and finish up tomorrow.
Ruth, in her positon as Director for Resettlement for Germany, Italy and Austria, made a deal with Radja who was also working for Church World Service as interpretor - that if she, Ruth, could adopt me if she could get all three of us to America. That was the deal. Ruth wanted desparately to be a mother but was frigid as so many of these woman who want to by-pass the normal tool to make that happen, the man - but still want a child, a natural strong desire in normal woman. But they are frigid (in other words, like a Frigidaire refrigerator, they are COLD. And typically as with a chemical equation you can't balance - try as they do - without the man in their life - they are disconnected from one of the elements necessary to experience accomplishment and transcendent state that often comes through being a true mother.
And this feeling I always had that I was the two legged cat in her life. There had to be that "distance" in her life - that 'space' that protected her from being "too close." What would happen if she got "too close?"
Well, the Freudians have a genuine field day with that. They cobble together what I feel is a lot of bull crap. The psychologist call Freud's fantasy world of psychoanalysis his world of "constructs;" and because so much of Freud "goes against the grain of common sense" they think ", , it must be me, that I,m just not smart enough to comprenend what the estemed Dr. Freud is saying."
. . . to be continued when I wake up today.
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.
enclose this in div and should I move it all separate section do't know yet.
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?
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Sept 15, 2023 This is the logical place to put all the Whitfield School experience. So I need to move it from the various places and place here. I can go ahead and put the picture of me after I got the "bounce" from Whitfield school.
.1958_on.way.to.Watkinson.School_12pc.reduced.727pxW616pxH.jpg)
I remember meeting these guys on the train and what a bunch on great characters they were. But I don't remember ever seeing them on the TV. Several of the teachers at Whitfield DID recognize them and were surprised.
This was school picture.
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Public School No. 6, 6th Grade, Manhattan. This next episode follows Whitfield because I was "bounced" from Whitefield and had to enter PS-6 in Manhattan at 6th grade becasuse I had not completed 7th at Whitfield.
Note. I am not sure. I think this is me at the Tarrytown or Irvington house. This picture of me does not square with the above school picture of me when I started at Whitfied.
2023_Sept_15, Friday, Learning to Love learning.
This is photo of me shortly after returning to the apartment 5E on 12 E. 97st, between Madison & Fifth in Manhattan from getting the "bounce" from Watkinson Preparatory School for Boys. After a few days I was enrolled into PS-6, at the 6th grade because I had not completed 7th grade at Watkinson. Frankly speaking, this was the best thing that could have happened to me. The teacher at that school was so good that it seemed to me that all the other students there enjoyed the classes as much as I did.
I will give you an example where if you get the student to thoroughly enjoy themselves in the learning process - they never forget what they have learned becasue they never forget the EXPERIENCE they had.
Take classical music as an example. (I wish I could remember this teachers name). He always brought in a small collection of 33-1/2 lp's. And he would say, in such a suspenceful way, "class, listen now, we are going to hear a short piece from Joseph Haydn.
Then when all the students were silent the teacher would play the selection. And it would last about 7 minutes. Then, he would say, 'OK. Let's listen to some Mozart.' and again the class would he the segment of music but this time from some guy called "Mozart".
Then when Mozart had finished he would stand up from the desk and say to the class, "OK class, all those who liked Haydn the best please stand up. "OK, now those who liked Mozart the best please stand up." And then he would directly engaged the students by, for instance, "OK Judy I saw you stand up for Mozart. Would you like to tell the class why you like him better than Haydn.
And so, this was the way he taught. And he did the same during that week with poetry. For instance, he would play a recording of Robert Frost's "Whose woods are these I think I know . . ." And then next would come, for instance, which turned out to be my favorite, Abou Ben Adhem (1834) - and then again, asking the class "Those who liked Robert Frost the most - please stand up."
Then he would ask the student to try to memorize the poem what they chose for their favorite - and those that wanted to - would be able to recite it to the whole class. Again, ". . . and perhaps you can tell up why you chose that person as your favorite poet. What else can I say, this teacher had a genius for teaching young student and they learned. What a contrast with Whitfield Preparatory School for Boys.
I think it was from THAT experience that I learned for myself that the key to teaching young people is to NEVER be critical of them. NEVER be judgemental. If the student has made an error, a mistake, you look into that mistake and see all the right things, he or she did, and point them out first and THEN say, for instance, "I think if you could work some more on the spelling of those words I have circled - your paper will be even better. But, Peter, you really have done a good job. (If he has. If you give a false praise - that child is going to know it - and you will lose his trust in you - he will see you as a PHONEY.
This method is how I taught many students in the marital arts, Judo and Karate for near twenty years. But you as the teacher have to believe in this positive approach, whether it be in teaching algebra or karate or gymnastics - you have to understand and believe that the key to successful teaching is making it fun to learn.
As I near 80 years old now, my favorite activity is still - learning new things. In two years of self-study I have learned a significant amount of cardiology and also web programing (html, css). The two things I love most in my life are: 1. My wife, now of over forty years, 2. Learning through reading and doing.
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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.
Sept 15, 2023 Put the new copy of green card here
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.
THIS IS POLITICAL SO PUT IT INTO THE FREUD COUCH SECTION VIA MAKE A DIV HERE
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.
YES, NENAD, BUT CORPORATE AMERICA DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT JUDGEMENT DAY
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.
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ATTENDING HIGH SCHOOL AT UNIVERSITY HIGH, FOR A SHORT WHLE THANK GOODNESS
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.
Theme . . . Summary & Analysis Abou Ben Adhem recited by Graveyard Poetry
Graveyard Poetry provides powerful performances of classic poetry that are intended to make poetry accessible and understandable. We believe that, when taken out of the academic setting, poetry can be something that anyone can enjoy
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (Robert Frost)
@evanpatten4101
2 years ago (edited)
My 6th grade teacher loved Robert Frost and used to quote his poems periodically in class. This makes me think of him. He was a good man and treated me fair but stern. I was a child of poverty and I got the feeling he was trying to guide me as all good teachers do. He will forever be in my memory. Thank you Mr Gordon of Lee Middle School - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sWcq2-ZA5oDaffodils by William Wordsworth
I came across this really great kid singing Owen Mac, An Irish Heart when looking for another of my really great favorite poems from my childhood, Daffodils by William Wordsworth.
I mean if you'd rather watch Netflix or listen to Rachel Maddow than things like this child offered free on youtube.com then perhaps we should let the Russians go ahead and Nuke US. Oh, about the Russians and children singing, I almost forgot: Sound the Trumpet I mean, Lindsey Graham, do you really want to kill these children here singing "Sound the Trumpet" by Henry Purcell. I don't believe you do. I really don't. I think it is easy to get wrapped up in propaganda and forget that we are all related because our God created us all.
Lindsey, You ought to go to Moscow, either by yourself or with your family and see for yourself what a beautiful and magnificent city is Moscow and how generous and kind these Moscowvites really are; just as with Americans; Moscovites have a " Live and Let Live Attitude". What have you got to lose? We fear the things we don't understand. And if you are hesitant, take Col. Mcgregor with you and enjoy Moscow Nights. and see and hear for yourself how very much the Russian people want to be your friend and how much you share in common with them.
*****
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.
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
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