Jackson Heights Life

was there myself an brother bob,richie rubino

Just a note about Dr. Jaffe. He was the Principal throughout my years at PS69. A quiet and authoritative presence and I remember
him as kindly. His daughter was Rona Jaffe who wrote romantic novels one that was made into a movie -both called the Best of Everything. For reasons that I can't really account for I remember the names of teachers from PS 69 more clearly than I do my high school teachers. So the list is Mrs. Gerity(not sure if that is the right spelling)in first grade, Mrs. Tuchman in second, Mrs. Brock in third(her husband Harry Brock, an FBI man was killed in the line of duty), Miss Sperry in fourth grade, Dr Plover for fifth grade and in sixth grade the wonderfully eccentric Mr. Isby and that's the best I can do. Was the Assistant Principal someone with an Irish name something like Ms. Lenihan? Then to JHS145 and then finally to Bryant HS. My friends were Doug Ehrhardt, Arthur Nadel, Alf Liljeros. I have not seen Doug since that time, Arthur and Alf have remained my friends for all those long years since then until Arthur's untimely passing about seven years ago. I am still in touch with Alf.

The PS 69 schoolyard was where I played stickball, I drank Mission grape soda at Moe and Archies and I  was a Boy Scout in Troop 217,Cobra patrol It was a good time to be a kid.