Alumni Reflections

When the Sixties Began

Here is our first ever Alumni Reflections Essay written by Robert Meyerson ‘62:

Like so much that has fallen back into the dim recesses of the past, no one knows when it began exactly or who started it. On the one side was the administration, starched collars, buckle shoes. copies of Cotton Mather's Collected Sermons under one arm and under the other a razor sharp slide rule, fitted anachronistically with bump stocks and taser blades. No one had the faintest idea what was tucked away in their pant cuffs, but it couldn't have been good. On the other side were innocent Science High Seniors, wearing tassel propeller beanies. itching to graduate and recreate the world after their image, but like neighborhood dogs wanting to leave their mark behind, maybe even their behind mark, mixing their metaphors and going ape. These Seniors had been suckled by surrogate Mad Magazine mothers, schooled by jokes in poor taste, then irreparably disordered after alumnus Roy Cohn of Sen. Joe McCarthy fame, later mentor to Tyrannosaurus Rump-, slithered into the Bronx Science auditorium, leaving behind a trail of slippery brown-green slime to appear at the Science Forum earlier that year and triggering for the first time in Forum history a chorus of boos, but nothing worse (yet) – Science Seniors had barely emerged from the Fifties, for crying out loud, and didn't use the F word, or the C word or even the Sword -- modesty prevents me from further explanation - at least not at the Science Forum Graduation ceremony was held at the Paradise Theater on the Grand Concourse, near Fordham Road, a structure representing a kind of homage to the great age of Hollywood blockbuster movies of the 30s, but still holding up well after all the years. It was at the Paradise that we saw Vincent Price, a horror movie regular and a Yale grad no less, starring in The Tingler, the story of a mad scientist are there any other kind?) who wanted to know what happens to the spine of a person who died of fright. Maybe he wasn't so mad as just tunnel-visioned, not having anticipated what could happen as a result of his lab work, a commentary, perhaps, on the dark side of scientific advance that was brewing in New Mexico and maybe even the Bronx. Of course, at one point in the movie a Tingler that had been harvested from some poor dead schmuck escaped from the lab, no one knew where. And while the characters in the movie were speculating on its whereabouts, the theater lights suddenly went on blinding us all. A faux excitable movie usher, wearing some kind of oversized police-type cap, raced to the front of the theater, told us to remain calm, that someone reported that the Tingler was loose in the Paradise, but they were sure to find it. Yeah right. We were high school students, we didn't believe in that shit. In fact we didn't believe in anything. There were a few boos but it was unclear if they were boos for the crummy usher's performance, boos for the movie or boos for boos sake.

But Graduation Day at the Paradise proceeded pretty much according to plan which, by the way included the school song. The Principal, Dr. Anaximander Truffel (what was he a doctor of, anyway?) gave the usual boring speech about what a great education we had received, and what even greater achievements lay ahead for us. Awards were handed out to the top student in this and that. The salutatorian and valedictorian, maybe in the reverse order, gave some pretty good speeches, the subject of which has drifted away like so much cigarette smoke into the Bronx troposphere, or maybe just into the last aisles of the Paradise Theater. In between Sal and Val the featured guest speaker, Madame Curie, accompanied by her cat Schrodinger, gave a rousing speech. Even though it was in Polish the Seniors were so keyed up they cheered at what seemed

the appropriate spots. Then the graduates filed up the steps, one by one, to the stage to receive their diplomas, all 750 of them (was it possible. Maybe not. Maybe Dr. Truffle just read their names aloud. Then the other of the Torians gave his/her speech and we all were psyched to sing the school song.

This was the moment we had all been waiting for. We knew that the boring old school song, which would bring tears to anyone peeling onions was about to get a face lift. It all started only a few months before when someone, no one knew who, decided to insert the innocent words "O baby" after every stanza:

Science High our school whose towers, reach for truth and light
All for thee our hearts and powers, solemnly u-nite
O BABY

What? What! Who said that? Where did that come from?

Harken how the chorus heightens, as your praises so-ar
Thru the years your glory brightens, Science evermore
O BABY

There it was again, no mistaking it, only more voices this time! The teachers and administrators in charge went nuts. They had never heard of such a thing. The cherished school song was being trashed by bums, hooligans, goons, muff divers, ne'er do wells, ruffians and not a few Commies to boot. The nerve! Poor Mr. Hy Loew, the music teacher who composed the lyrics and the tune, was frozen in place. Another teacher, showing leadership learned in the Pacific, decided to call off the rest of the performance. This was not to be tolerated.

The administration, meeting in a hastily called secret session, decided it couldn't take a chance. The song would not be sung at another school event until the perpetrator was brought to justice. But the perp was not to be found, not even in rumor, and no one was talking. In fact, that first outbreak may well have been spontaneous. But if at graduation the Seniors couldn't sing their dearly beloved school song what could they do? A Plan B was whispered about: roll marbles down the floor! No one really thought they would stoop to such tricks, but the Administration did. After all, they had taught us punks for years, knew how sneaky we were when they weren't looking. At the moment in the pre-printed program when the school song was to be sung. Dr. Truffle hastily thanked everyone for attending and wished the 1962 graduates of The Bronx High School of Science the very best of luck.

For a moment all that was heard was silence. The puzzled graduates looked around in astonishment. One deranged grad anarchist shouted "eeny meenie, tots a teeny, olive galive Google deeny” and then, like a shot heard round the theater, pandemonium broke loose. Shouting, even screeching was heard, as well as the almost obligatory Bronx cheer. Some students even stood on their chairs, lips blowing that vulgar sound on the backs of their hands. Others hooted. A lot of What The?" was heard. Then panic. People rushed the exits. Madame Curie and little Schroedinger sought out the egress but the Madame and her little pussy cat were trampled in the pandemonium. The Madame did manage to get back up on her feet but poor little Schrodinger was lying on its back and it couldn't be determined if it was dead or alive. Dr. Truffle fearing the worst, left without his pork pie hat. The Seniors took their rage into the streets, streaming out like mad dogs, hyenas, maybe even bonobos. Right at that moment the graduates' hair started growing long, cigs turning into joints, intimacies crossing racial barriers (Irish with Italian, Jew with Jew), with grads picking up signs protesting the rise in postage rates, and then demanding an embargo on Portuguese wine. At least one grad became a Weatherman while another a meteorologist, and a third a meaty urologist. A fight broke out on the Grand Concourse between livestock and grain farmers, cowboys and Canadians, Yankee fans and Yankee haters as Yankee Doodle rode by backwards on a pony, insouciantly apostrophizing pasta. A contingent of Austro-Hungarian war veterans marched in formation looking for the fastest way out of the Empire. Later I even saw a man who danced with his wife (but maybe that was in Chicago) as the graduates scattered to the winds.

Some might claim that the Sixties began with the Kennedy Assassination in 1963, or with those of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. 5 years later. Others placed the marker in the middle of the decade when Civil Rights, the War in Vietnam, LSD and the election of one Tricky Dicky all coalesced to produce a very volatile generational mixture. We can even push the timeline out further: Woodstock, 1969. But we '62 Grads know better. The Sixties started on June 20, 1962 when Science High, the School that Towers, was stopped dead in the water, pool less, without paddles. The floodgates opened up, disclosing a whole new world order, or so we thought at the time, and we were right, O Baby, were we right.