Homes, Part 1:

In some ways, a person’s life can be defined by the various places where they lived. I have lived in six different houses in my life.

When I was born my parents lived in an apartment in North Bergen, but they left there when I was two years old, so I remember absolutely nothing about it.

I spent grammar school and high school living in a two-family house on the corner of a main intersection in Cliffside Park, an urban community in southern Bergen County. Six of us lived upstairs (my parents, grandparents, and 4 sons). Since there were only 3 bedrooms, I shared the “sun porch” with my grandmother who was dying of cancer the entire time, nor spoke to me at all the years we were roommates. That was not a particularly joyous experience.

Living in an urban community was convenient since we were able to walk to the stores, especially the “stationary store” where I bought comic books and science fiction magazines. The town library was within walking distance, and I walked there with my younger brother Stephen to take out books to read with little rocketships on their spines. I recall reading most of the Oz books written by L. Frank Baum, although I do not recall if I also read the ones by Ruth Plumly Thompson. The ones I read were very good books, and I would not mind having them in my collection now.

The less said about Epiphany Grammar School the better, but I will give you a flavor of my years there with one story. All 8th grade students participated in the school spelling bee and I won it. My cousin Rita, who lived downstairs from us and was my best friend in childhood, won the girl's bee. However, for some reason I have never understood, the nun running the bee disliked me intensely, even though I was probably the quietest student in her class (as well as possibly the smartest, if I can say that without sounding egotistical). She immediately declared that was only the practice round and the spelling bee would be held again. I won the second time though, and she had no choice but to let me compete in the diocesan championship.

Somehow I survived grammar school and attended Bergen Catholic High School, which was a very competitive school at that time. Over 1,200 boys took the entrance exam, with only 240 being accepted. To enhance the caste system, freshmen were placed into homerooms by how high they scored on the entrance exam. I was fortunate enough to be placed in the "A" homeroom, which means I scored in the top 2% of all boys who took the exam.

BC was at the other end of the county from where I lived, so I spent nearly an hour riding the school bus twice each day. That made it inconvenient to stay after school for activities, so I never really participated in high school at all, nor had the opportunity to make any friends there. Thus my memories of high school are mostly nonexistent.

I did well at BC, and with my SAT scores I could have gotten accepted into most colleges, but because of economic reasons I had to attend a school within traveling distance since I was forced to commute to college instead of living there. I attended Seton Hall University, which was only about 40 minutes away. My memories of college consist primarily of attending classes, then driving immediately to the local A&P where I worked for 4 years to pay my car expenses. College was primarily a job rather than a social or bonding experience. If I were to list the greatest regrets of my life, not having the opportunity to live at college would be one of them.

During college we lived in Whippany, which was my first experience in the suburbs. We had to drive everywhere, but we actually had a yard rather than a house sitting right on the curb. No more playing whiffle ball and football with my brothers in the street, but instead basketball in the driveway.

After grad school I decided getting a doctorate in mathematics was not the most exciting thing I could do, so instead I decided to try teaching since I foolishly thought it would give me lots of free time to write science fiction. Fortunately, I turned out to be a better teacher than a writer, plus I enjoyed it immensely. I taught at Paul VI catholic high school since I was not certified to teach, but that’s where I met Jean so it worked out.

During the years I was teaching at Paul VI, I spent a lot of my free time with two brothers (Stephen and David) and two mutual friends (Rich and Craig) playing sports and going into NYC for concerts. We saw every major rock and roll band of the 1970s, such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues, Yes, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan with the Band, Paul McCartney & Wings, some of them numerous times. Those were the happiest years of my life up until that moment. Little did I know life would only get better afterwards.

Those were my first three homes. Next time I’ll discuss the three places I’ve lived since I’ve gotten married. Stay tuned, same bat-time, same bat-channel for the exiting story!