THREE HAIKUS

1

The beach at sunrise

The sand under soft blue mist

Two hands bind morning

2

Afternoon is gone

The tree bends to the pale light

Footprints fade to dark

3

Sundown by the bay

The letter now floats away

She walks to the night

Marjorie J. Levine © 2023

STREET LIFE

Bessie and the EXPENSIVE COFFIN THEORY

My grandparents, Bessie and Max Levine, lived in Brooklyn in this building: 

Once on a month on a Sunday, they would drive from Brooklyn to visit us in our little small house in Valley Stream:

Our house had a piano and Grandma Bess would sit on this piano bench and give her theories about everything. 

She loved to bitch about the relatives in Red Bank. She complained about everybody and everything and she told us when she "dropped dead" not to bury her in "no expensive coffin." She said: "They are crooks. You buy a fancy coffin and when you are at the cemetery they lower you into it in the grave for show. Then everybody walks away and when nobody is watching later they take you out and plop you into the ground in nothing and cover you up with the dirt and resell that coffin. It's a big racket."

She died in 1967. I remember a day before she was buried we went to see her at I.J. Morris Funeral Home. She lay dead in a beautiful coffin and I stared at her dead body in there. I could hear her calling to me from the beyond: "Marjala mamala get me out of this here thing. I don't want no fancy coffin and dumped later in the dirt." I must have been standing there for some time because my mother came over and I said: "Remember what Grandma said about how she wanted to be buried in a cheap wood box?" My mother looked surprised and said: "Yeah, she did say that. I remember her saying that when she sat at the piano bench." Then she told me to "Shut up and go sit down."

I was thinking about that today and I think Grandma Bessie could have been onto something. I miss her. She was a wise woman.

Today I was thinking about the time Bessie told me about this talking dog she saw on TV. On command, the dog would say "mama."

DRIVING HOME ON THE SOUTHERN STATE PARKWAY

and the sun always sets in the west:

INTO THE BEST GOOD FIGHTS I EVER KNEW

During my long teaching career, I took on the NYC Board of Education several times. There were many principals who went after teachers for reasons that had nothing to do with competence. It was an abuse of power and many teachers know about that nightmare. 

The first big fight was in 1988 and it was regarding a few letters about me for my file written by a vindictive principal whose entire assertions were not factual, and were irrational, totally illogical, and without merit. 

The UFT thwarted my grievance against the principal's unfair and inaccurate letters about me after I lost at Step 2. I appealed that decision to not pursue this issue because I was determined to go all the way to fight the absurd allegations. I presented my case at an appeal process and I was granted the right to go further. We went to Step 3. 

I was strong and I would not be stopped. I was going to go the distance and fight like Rocky to the bitter end and remain standing like my life depended on it. I was on fire. 

I gathered all the documentation that I needed and presented my case to the NYC Department of Education like F. Lee Bailey fighting for the appeal of Sam Sheppard. I went the distance. And I won!

That same principal wrote up another teacher for daring to drink milk and walking around with two handbags on her arm!

A few years later I was told that principal who tried to railroad me was removed from the school in handcuffs. Go figure.  

And years later, I had the distinction of being perhaps the only teacher who after retirement continued to fight another injustice. It was the right thing to do. And I won. Again.

THE DAY THAT STICKS WITH ME

 One of the more vivid and ongoing chapters of my childhood was that I was the go to kid to be teased and picked on.

Certainly in elementary school I was always the last to be picked for everything. I got it. I was a slow runner and lazy at every game. Lori chided me during kickball with "Exert yourself Marjorie" and I thought "I am." And which ever team got me, there was always a girl in the group to taunt me with: "Ew, you got Marjorie." I was the "Ew Girl." 

So I suppose I fell into that role of never being popular and always the loser... and at Camp Baumann I was miserable. I was literally sent off to a camp every single day that was torture. I hated swimming, I hated sports, I hated arts and crafts. The girls ostracized me. The boys abused me during every bus ride there and back. I am surprised that at the end of the summer I still had hair on my head. 

4-H camp. Those were the most awful 2 weeks away. I was filled with homesickness and those girls in my bunk chose my bed to short sheet all the time. I was so lonely one afternoon, all alone in the cabin because I had no idea how to structure free activities, that I wrote my mother a letter telling her to come get me. She did drive to Riverhead with my father and they convinced me to stay. 

A kid on my block, Robin, once gathered her snark and said about sleep away summer camp: "There's a freak in every bunk." And I was always that freak. At one camp, the girls gave me the name "bird dog." I sort of got it. I was fat and ugly, with acne to boot. I slid into that role like second skin. 

And high school continued to define me within that part. I was ugly. I remember not wanting to even see my own reflection in a mirror. This kid Chris would ridicule me right to my face and call me ugly. I was a real bully magnet and the poster child for misery. Even my own mother made fun of me in multiple ways all the time but this piece is not about that saga... however being called a "bump on a log" and being told I had "no personality" certainly were a few of the things that did not come from the mouths of my peers. 

But, a few specific days live in my memory. 

I remember when I was about 16 I had a double blind date and I was picked up first. When we arrived at the other girl's house and I got out of the car to get the other girl... those two guys drove away, making a fast getaway.... I concluded I was too ugly for even one night.

There was one specific time, probably the most hurtful, that sticks with me. It happened on New Year's Eve of 1963 going into 1964 at the Concord Hotel. I had planned my outfit well in advance. I wore a blue velvet and white satin dress with a green silk sash and had my shoes dyed green to match the dress. My mother told me I would be sitting that night at a table with other teens, all of whom were total strangers to me. My sister sat at a pre teen table and my parents sat at a table with other adults. So there I was, at a round table with 3 other girls and 4 boys. The girls were pretty, very blond and giving off a real Sandra Dee vibe. The boys looked like Frankie Avalon or maybe Fabian. And I looked sort of like a fat ugly version of Annette Funicello with acne. I opened my eyes real wide for our family photo that night because the previous night in the first family photo my eyes were closed. 

For some reason, all of those teens at my table decided to abandon our table number 10 and join table 11, which had some empty seats. So all 7 of them filled those empty sets and left me sitting all alone. I thought I should at last try to sit with them so I got up and boldly asked if they could fit me and my chair in. One of those boys brazenly said: "There is no room" and the girls laughed. 

I sat back alone at my table and and I cried... I was so overwhelmed with sadness. I was so hurt. I was not going to sit there and eat alone. My face must have been soaking wet because when I left that table and I went to the other side of that dining room to tell my mother I was going back up to the room, she did ask: "What happened?" But I quickly fled out of that ballroom and went upstairs. 

When I was back in the room, I put on the TV and watched "Not As A Stranger" with Frank Sinatra and Robert Mitchum. Every time I see that movie on TCM... I remember that night.

Oh, I saw one of my tormenters, Chris, at a 30 year high school reunion and asked him why he tormented me so much back then and without missing a beat he said: "Because I was an asshole." I liked that answer. 

And oh, those teens from that night? Who knows where they are now. They are probably all dead.