It's Good for the Boys
Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 12:00PM "The last time I saw you was two years ago" Sean, the social studies teacher in charge, from a Florida Jesuit high school said, as he and Kate, the math teacher and their sixteen male students here to attend the Model United Nations meeting, a nation-wide event and in Canada, boarded the mini-bus on the West 45th side of the Marriott Marquis hotel. I responded with, "That was before I had my liposuction and breast implants" as some eyes widened and others giggled and I knew, at least from 8 AM to noon, though this was Friday, January 13, it was to be my lucky day. For Sean's opinion of me was thus, "Whatever comes out of Jane's mouth is good for the boys."
Moreover, this was my fourth tour with them. These students would be acting as diplomats, representing a nation, or a non-governmental organization, or deliberative body and in simulated sessions of the Security Council and General Assembly, they would debate, deliberate, consult and develop solutions to world problems such as this year's "how to achieve nuclear disarmament" meetings of which were held mostly at Columbia University. The National Model United Nations Conference in New York City however, was the most revered one since some of the decision making was made in the actual United Nations headquarters.
Then Sean made his first request. He wanted to go to "the TODAY show, for on this date sixty years ago it made its debut." I balked. " "What for?" I said. "Popular culture is so transient" oblivious to the fact that this show was the fifth longest running American one of all time, still broadcasting live from a windowed studio in Rockefeller Center where its first anchor, Dave Garroway's aim was "to put you more closely in touch with the world we live in" which I, since I rarely have watched it, must ignore. In addition, as a commemorative gesture, orange, red and yellow light temporarily bathed the Empire State Building and Niagara Falls, mimicking sunrise and more to the point, the emblem of this show.
"Ah, come on. My dad introduced me to Dave Garroway. We watched him all the time" and since Sean was the man who signed my check, I relented.
I had vague memories of the first years of its broadcast. Dave Garroway had broad shoulders, good posture and he wore black glasses. He hung around also with a chimpanzee who was hard to control. That's about it for total recall. Yet there are two different faces who I could reassemble if both of them I was asked to draw. They had made their TV appearances almost contemporaneously, just the year before, in 1951. They belonged to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They were standing trial and soon to be found guilty for passing classified information on how to build an atomic bomb to our then enemy, the Soviet Union.
Both sets of my parents' eyes were glued to the screen and its unrelenting TV coverage. They were also incessantly reading newspapers. Yet the significance of the Rosenbergs' action and the controversy it involved, including interventon by the Pope and Picasso, centered around the trial's decision that a just punishment for the deed they had committed was death, a concept too complex an idea for my simple young mind to decode. And when they were executed, in New York State, in 1953, I was unnerved. Its Sing Sing prison was chosen because it had what the Federal government needed, an electric chair.
With their parents dead, the Rosenberg children were orphans. They were soon adopted by non-relatives, Ann and Abel Meeropol. They assumed their last name. Abe was a songwriter. He wrote music under the pseudonym Lewis Allen, the two names he would have given to his two sons if they had not been still born. It was he who had also written a poem called "Strange Fruit" and when he put it to music, it was immortalized in song; Billie Holiday made it an anti-lynching anthem.
So we parked on the south side of West 49th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, beneath a "No Parking" sign, a Department of Transportation directive easily ignored. I told Michael, our young Shanghai born driver, "If the police come, tell them you had an emergency. A female pregnant passenger's water broke. She and her party were rushed to the hospital and you promised them you'd wait here until they returned."
Then we all got out and walked by the studio window. There a New York scene, circa 1952, was being reenacted. Eight male and female NBC employees were standing on the sidewalk, dressed in period attire, peering in at the studio, presumably fascinated by whatever Tom Brokaw, Barbara Walters, Hugh Downs, Katy Couric, Meredith Viera, Jane Pauley, Bryant Gumbel, Willard Scott and Ann Curry had to say or would soon utter. Behind such impersonators, aligned to the curb, was a shiny blue 1952 Dodge or then again maybe a Desoto and a few feet in front a tan luminescently waxed 1952 Chevrolet, chassis shining like a a backdrop through the studio window.
Sean said "Okay, I've had enough" and soon we were back sitting on the coach when one student, with a pen and paper in hand implored, "How would you go about creating nuclear disarmament? " Without stopping to think I responded, "First, I'd castrate all the leaders of those countries pursuing such a course. Then I'd learn their language, defer to their religion, try to understand their customs and habits while asking the guy-in- charge, 'Tell me. What's wrong with your economy that makes you want to bomb your neighbor?'"
The student, after jotting down what I had said, grinned broadly. "All except for that first part, that was exactly what my committee had decided."
Reader Comments (10)
Jane, This is great. One of your best. Castration might be a bit severe....
Jane, I am shocked, shocked I say, that you would tell your driver to lie. (I will file that away for future use.)
Jane, I love it! You humor has the kind of bite I love! Castrate is good!
As I recall, the model United Nations was one of the greatest class-cutting inventions of all time. For a couple of days you could be say, Ghana, instead of that poor kid trying to grasp the basics of algebra.
Absolutely!
Let's not forget what's important.
Precisely why I hate shows like Entertainment tonight!
Why should anybody care who Jennifer Aniston is sleeping with???
Is it worthy of our concern?
The Desoto has been replaced by the Prius.
News anchors have come and gone.
But what's the half life of uranium?
Billions of years?!
Jane, no matter what I read that you have written, I ALWAYS learn something and I am always amused! Thanks for raising my level of info and for keeping me in the loop. Love from your laughing cousin Jill
Ah yes, Dave Garroway and his sidekick the chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs. Wasn't J. Fred replaced by Jack Lescoulie?
The early days of the Today Show was telecast from the RCA Exhibition Hall on 49th Street. That space is now occupied by Christies Auction Gallery. Thinking about Dave Garroway and connecting to your poignant mention of the Rosenberg case I think of the humorist Mort Sahl's riff on a Dave Garroway interview with the warden at California's San Quentin Prison, home of California's death row - California the land of the freeway used a gas chamber. Garroway asked the warden why he worked as a "corrections" official for so long and the warden answered: "I like people, Dave."
Castrating warmongers? Check out the lyrics of the Colonel Bogey March...
Jane thanks again for lighting up a winter day
Really good blog, Jane. Has your strength and humor. I like the way you connect the Today show and the Rosenbergs. And as always very attentive to the needs of your group. Nice.
Jane! I love reading your stories! So fun following you, I can just hear you talking to those boys. I have to admit I've heard worse from you to the kids! LOL!
Be well my friend!
Hi Jane...Your tomes are always thoroughly engrossing.. I can hear your voice as I read the words. This was;a great distraction on a very cold winter day................