ETCETERA
NIGHTCAP
End Of Innocence
By Harry Kirsbaum
he broke the news to us gently.
The details from 50 years ago
are cloudy, but it was about two
hours after recess at the Mackin Road
Units in Flint.
We must have been working on
times tables or reading, or learn-
ing something that all third-graders
learn, when Mrs. Eckstrom, matronly,
gray-haired and blessed with infinite
patience answered a knock at the
back door of our"one-room school-
house"to learn from Mrs. Roloff next
door that our president was dead.
She closed the door and sat
stunned behind her desk, probably
hoping we'd keep busy until the end
of the day.
It was early in the school year, and
we had yet to learn about the leaders
of our city or our city's founders, but
we all knew who was president.
She fought back tears when she
told us, then opened the door to let
us out into a new, darker world.
It only took me a couple of min-
utes to run around the corner to my
house, to find my mother sobbing
in front of the television watching
Walter Cronkite.
My brother came home a bit later.
When my dad came home, we spent
dinner glued to the television. It was
the first time I saw my dad cry.
To my parents, JFK signaled hope
that a better life was waiting for
them, that they could shed the fear
of the Holocaust and look, with some
type of optimism, to the future.
Flint was still reaching its peak in
1963, the jobs were plentiful and
there was no looking back. And on
that Friday morning, I attended a
school that epitomized growth.
The Units were a row of five houses
converted into one-room school-
houses that served about 150 chil-
dren from kindergarten through third
grade in our neighborhood.
Each teacher taught a roomful of
kids for one year, and then the entire
class moved to another teacher until
third grade.
Fourth grade was at a nearby junior
high school, and fifth grade was at a
newly built elementary school three
blocks away. The Units made us close
knit and, by fourth grade, it felt like I
had 30 brothers and sis-
ters to watch my back.
The Units shared
backyard space into
one large playground,
covered mostly in as-
phalt. Across the fence
from the playground
were five backyards,
which meant that some
kI
kids only had to climb
ik A
the fence to get home.
President Kennedy in the limousine on Main Street in Dallas
On any given day
minutes before the assassination
in our neighborhood,
scores of kids could be
could answer a knock at that back
found playing in the streets.
door at any time with devastating
But on that weekend, 50 years ago,
news.
I don't remember being outside.
On Monday morning, I walked to
We missed Lee Harvey Oswald's
school. We didn't need school psy-
shooting on Sunday — out running
chologists while Mrs. Eckstrom was
errands or something. But by the
in charge. From that day forward, she
time we found out, it felt like mad-
instilled hope and safety.
ness had been unleashed.
And when I was bar mitzvahed
We watched the funeral procession
five years later, my parents did what
and cried some more when John-
other Jewish parents in my neigh-
John saluted his dad.
borhood did — invite that matronly,
The world had changed in two
gray-haired, third-grade teacher. And
short days, and it was the first time
in the midst of the Vietnam War and
I thought about things that were
student protests, she attended — on
outside the realm of what 8-year-olds
April 6, 1968, two days after Martin
usually think about. I thought about
Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
a scary new world where my teacher
HERALD WHOLESALE
PREMIER BATH, LIGHTING & HARDWARE
1765 West Maple I Troy, MI 48084 I 248.398.4560
heraldwholesale.com
44 December 2013
I RD THUM
Hours: Mon, Thurs. 9 7; Tue, Wed, Fri 9 5:30; Sat 9 4
-
-
-
www.redthreadmagazine.com