If History is His Story
Title
If History is His Story
Creator
Jacob Schlitt
Description
"If History is HIS story, then Memoirs is ME, MOI, with the emphasis on ME."
Date
2005
Format
application/pdf
Type
text
Language
en
Identifier
If_History_is_His_Story
Text
If History is HIS story, then Memoirs is ME, MOI, with the emphasis on ME. It is the writer’s effort to write about himself (or herself, or themselves if he (or she) has a split personality.) I have been trying to do this most of my life. (Maybe that’s why essays are called essays, from the French for trying.) Scattered in boxes and files are diaries that I have kept describing the events of the day. No matter when they were written, teenager, 20's, 30's 40's etc. they struck me, whenever I came across them, as pedestrian, and uniformly uninteresting. No insights; no exciting or unusual observations. Sometimes it helped me remember an event, but that’s about it.
I suspect I was motivated by the same urge as my mother who wanted to tell her story, and who had me buy a recording machine for her in 1949 for that purpose (a story I have told and will tell again as I keep writing.) (I love parentheses and will keep using them whenever I feel like.) It was six years ago that I became a part of the Brookline Adult Ed "Telling Your Story" group, but then I left it to take classes at B.U. But earlier this year I rejoined them, hoping it would motivate me to write on a regular basis. (New Yorker cartoon: little girl writing with chalk on the sidewalk tells her friend "I try to write a little every day.") It didn’t, and I haven’t.
I have observed that the subject matter of my writing is, by and large, depressing, sad, poignant. It makes me suspect that I have not had a happy life, if most of my memories are sad. Yet I told my friends and family when we gathered for my 75th birthday that the one word that comes to mind when I review my life is "lucky." I feel lucky having been born in America, and in NY, having gone to the New York’s schools, Stuyvesant, CCNY, having made wonderful friends, having married a wonderful woman, having had wonderful children, having had a wonderful career, and now living in a wonderful town in the twilight of my wonderful life in a wonderful new home with my wonderful wife of 23 years.
Still, when I wrote about my earliest memories, they were sad: being alone and cold in the Isaac Gerson nursery; the role of Lincoln Hospital in my life, growing up during the depression (that’s depressing!), the death of my friend Lenny Rubin etc. Even "The Prize" was bittersweet. But starting now, the show is really about to begin. I see I am repeating myself, having written a similar introduction about six months ago (and having forgotten that I did) and at that time I typed the letters I had handwritten to my kids in 1983. Ah posterity.
March 2005
At the moment, the overriding event is Mel’s dying. Somewhere else I have begun to write about Mel, reliving our friendship. My thoughts go back to "52" where we first met. The fact is that the seven of us who make up the guys in the Reading Out Loud did not magically come together in seventh grade and form a unit through junior high, high school and college. We all knew each other in 52, but I believe Sol and I were the only ones in 7AR, and that Mel, Phil and Bob joined us in 8BR. Both Alex and Sid were a class behind. My closest friends in 52 were Irv Plotnick and Sidney Reiter, and I hung out with them and their friends.. Phil and Mel shared an interest in Chemistry and were influenced by Mr. Mandel. Sol, Bob and I were interested in writing and had articles in the Knowlton Herald, and Bob hung out with Sid and Alex and Arthur Hurwith and this led to the Lexington AYD when we were in High School, and to square dancing. Another connection is the shuls and Hebrew schools we went to. Bob and Sid attended the shul on the corner of Southern Blvd. and Intervale Av. Alex and I went to the Fox St. (Hungarian) shul, and Mel went to Rabbi Katz on Hewitt Place. I don’t know where Sol or Phil went. Phil talked about going to a shul in the summer where he had his Bar Mitzvah. I don’t think it is a coincidence that all of us (except Sol) went to Stuyvesant.
May 13, 2005
I have spent the past hour trying to organize my writings, with little success. I reread the file titled Autobiography which contained my effort in 1983. The above was typed a few months ago but was not printed out (no hard copy). I real;ize I keep repeating myself so what I need is an outline. If it is all going to come together, I will have to take what I have done, create a sequence, and fill in the holes.
I see I have two outlines, neither strikes me as adequate. Here is a third:
1. My parents: their childhood, coming to America, their life in NY, their life together, my mother alone, her story, her family, learning to read, her struggle to survive, to express herself (wire recorder), her death.
2. My childhood, my neighborhood, friends, school, summers, work, girls, radio, discovering NY, reading, relatives, movies, Tony’s coat,
3. High school and college, living through WWII, memories of the war, politics, newspaper division, theatre, super at the Met, “writing”, draft board 19, Reich and Schrift.
4. Work after college, subbing, ILGWU, Love and marriage, The Army, Carol, leaving the ILG, JLC, leaving Fox St., finding Sterling Place, Laundry Workers, March on Washington, my bicycle.
5. Moving to Washington, AFSCME, Looking for a job in DC—EEOC, USCCR,
6. AFGE, Poor People’s Campaign and Gov’t Employees Fast Day, the marriage ends, Marvin Rogoff,
7. Starting a new life, Boston, NERO, Fran, David, Looking for a job in Boston—DET, Fair Labor, Looking for roots—Vaslui, Kishinev, Yiddish, Retirement, JLC and WC and JCRC, Aging
I suspect I was motivated by the same urge as my mother who wanted to tell her story, and who had me buy a recording machine for her in 1949 for that purpose (a story I have told and will tell again as I keep writing.) (I love parentheses and will keep using them whenever I feel like.) It was six years ago that I became a part of the Brookline Adult Ed "Telling Your Story" group, but then I left it to take classes at B.U. But earlier this year I rejoined them, hoping it would motivate me to write on a regular basis. (New Yorker cartoon: little girl writing with chalk on the sidewalk tells her friend "I try to write a little every day.") It didn’t, and I haven’t.
I have observed that the subject matter of my writing is, by and large, depressing, sad, poignant. It makes me suspect that I have not had a happy life, if most of my memories are sad. Yet I told my friends and family when we gathered for my 75th birthday that the one word that comes to mind when I review my life is "lucky." I feel lucky having been born in America, and in NY, having gone to the New York’s schools, Stuyvesant, CCNY, having made wonderful friends, having married a wonderful woman, having had wonderful children, having had a wonderful career, and now living in a wonderful town in the twilight of my wonderful life in a wonderful new home with my wonderful wife of 23 years.
Still, when I wrote about my earliest memories, they were sad: being alone and cold in the Isaac Gerson nursery; the role of Lincoln Hospital in my life, growing up during the depression (that’s depressing!), the death of my friend Lenny Rubin etc. Even "The Prize" was bittersweet. But starting now, the show is really about to begin. I see I am repeating myself, having written a similar introduction about six months ago (and having forgotten that I did) and at that time I typed the letters I had handwritten to my kids in 1983. Ah posterity.
March 2005
At the moment, the overriding event is Mel’s dying. Somewhere else I have begun to write about Mel, reliving our friendship. My thoughts go back to "52" where we first met. The fact is that the seven of us who make up the guys in the Reading Out Loud did not magically come together in seventh grade and form a unit through junior high, high school and college. We all knew each other in 52, but I believe Sol and I were the only ones in 7AR, and that Mel, Phil and Bob joined us in 8BR. Both Alex and Sid were a class behind. My closest friends in 52 were Irv Plotnick and Sidney Reiter, and I hung out with them and their friends.. Phil and Mel shared an interest in Chemistry and were influenced by Mr. Mandel. Sol, Bob and I were interested in writing and had articles in the Knowlton Herald, and Bob hung out with Sid and Alex and Arthur Hurwith and this led to the Lexington AYD when we were in High School, and to square dancing. Another connection is the shuls and Hebrew schools we went to. Bob and Sid attended the shul on the corner of Southern Blvd. and Intervale Av. Alex and I went to the Fox St. (Hungarian) shul, and Mel went to Rabbi Katz on Hewitt Place. I don’t know where Sol or Phil went. Phil talked about going to a shul in the summer where he had his Bar Mitzvah. I don’t think it is a coincidence that all of us (except Sol) went to Stuyvesant.
May 13, 2005
I have spent the past hour trying to organize my writings, with little success. I reread the file titled Autobiography which contained my effort in 1983. The above was typed a few months ago but was not printed out (no hard copy). I real;ize I keep repeating myself so what I need is an outline. If it is all going to come together, I will have to take what I have done, create a sequence, and fill in the holes.
I see I have two outlines, neither strikes me as adequate. Here is a third:
1. My parents: their childhood, coming to America, their life in NY, their life together, my mother alone, her story, her family, learning to read, her struggle to survive, to express herself (wire recorder), her death.
2. My childhood, my neighborhood, friends, school, summers, work, girls, radio, discovering NY, reading, relatives, movies, Tony’s coat,
3. High school and college, living through WWII, memories of the war, politics, newspaper division, theatre, super at the Met, “writing”, draft board 19, Reich and Schrift.
4. Work after college, subbing, ILGWU, Love and marriage, The Army, Carol, leaving the ILG, JLC, leaving Fox St., finding Sterling Place, Laundry Workers, March on Washington, my bicycle.
5. Moving to Washington, AFSCME, Looking for a job in DC—EEOC, USCCR,
6. AFGE, Poor People’s Campaign and Gov’t Employees Fast Day, the marriage ends, Marvin Rogoff,
7. Starting a new life, Boston, NERO, Fran, David, Looking for a job in Boston—DET, Fair Labor, Looking for roots—Vaslui, Kishinev, Yiddish, Retirement, JLC and WC and JCRC, Aging
Original Format
application/msword
Collection
Citation
Jacob Schlitt, “If History is His Story,” Autobiographical stories & other writing by Jacob Schlitt, accessed April 28, 2024, https://tsirlson.omeka.net/items/show/21.