Well it’s my birthday. 67 years old. I think I’ve written this before but I want everyone to stop, take a deep breath; nobody move, where has the tone gone? In my mind I’m still a kid, still growing up. I think I’m still young. The way I look today in the mirror, is not the way I look in my minds eye. In my mind 37 seems about right.
But then I stop, take stock and think about all that has happened over the past number of years. For example, just the health issues; prostate cancer, heart stents, open heart mitral valve surgery repair, a couple of kidney stones and I realize it can take a long time to accumulate these ailments.
And what about the family? Married almost 39 years, two children, two grandchildren and that seems to have happened over night. There are a lot of other accomplishments. I have as mentioned, filled up the pages. On this birthday I do feel proud of my family and very blessed.
Turning back to school year 1974-75 I think of all the decisions I made that effected my life. At the beginning of that School year it did not appear as if I would go on to law school. It appeared as though I would student teach and then get a job upon graduating as a high school social studies teacher. In fact, I pretty much had a job lined up inNew Rochelle as my father was close friends with the superintendent there.
The first semester of my senior year was dedicated to finishing up my class academic requirements and running the student government. In my last semester of college, when things are supposed to be easy, I was doing all the student government obligations and student teaching at the same time. For ten weeks, I left my dorm in downtown Boston at 6:30 am to be at Norwell High School by 7: 30 am. Norwell Mass. is a suburban town south and east of Boston on the road too Cape Cod about a 45 minute car ride from my dorm. As I remember, I carpooled with a fellow student teacher who wasn’t the most reliable. There were times when I was able to barrow a friends old Chevy Impala to get out there. If not for that I may not have completed my student teaching requirements.
For those ten weeks I taught two eleventh grade social studies classes and one tenth grade class. The cooperating teacher I worked with, whose name I have forgotten was excellent. She threw me into the deep end and said go for it. She was there to help me and steer me in the right direction but for those ten weeks those classes were mine.
So I would leave my dorm at 6:30 in the morning and not get back until about 3:30. I would then do all the things necessary to run the student government. It was, as I remember, exhausting. I was very sleep deprived during that time. Dorm life was typically a lat to rise and late to sleep environment. Having to get up at 5:30-6:00 AM to get ready to go to workout was counter intuitive to dorm life. I did it, but it was not easy.
Like I said, I was all set to teach high school until my Dad stepped in just around graduation and suggested I still consider going to law school. Mind you, while I had applied to a couple of schools I had not been accepted anywhere. But through a friend of my Dad, Dr. Donald Goldberg we heard about this brand new start up law school outside of Chicago named Lewis University College of Law. It had not graduated a class and would not be accredited by the American Bar Association if at all until it graduated its first class. What that meant is that I could possibly not be allowed to practice law anywhere else but Illinois if it were not accredited by the ABA. Simply put attendingLewis University was a gamble if I ever wanted to practice law in NY.
But it was my only option. And if I wanted to go there,I had to take a four week pre law class the month of June 1975 in order to see if this unaccredited law school would accept me. So a few days after graduating from BU my year old Dodge Duster in hand I headed out to Glen Ellen Illinois for four weeks
to see if I could pass this pre law class. Suffice it to say, I passed the course, was accepted in to the law school and spent the next three years 1955-78 as a lal student at Lewis University.
