My wife Eva and I had our good friends Dave and Marion over for dinner the other night. Dave and I ended up talking aout our old high school, Thomas A. Edison Technical and Vocational High School in Jamaica, Queens. Now I pulled our old 1968 yearbook and we reminisced about our teachers, friends and fellow classmates. I remarked, "What ever happened to a lot of these guys?" Dave said he heard some died in Vietnam, some from drugs, while others from various diseases. The ’60s were a most differcult time and a lot of us were trying to make our way and some of us did at Thomas Edison. I remembered we were taught skills in the building trades and aquired additional academic knowledge but we were given more than that. For example, I had this most remarkable social studies teacher named Mr. Feinstein, who taught us that in our political world there is not only black and white or right and wrong but there are also shades of gray and we need to take notice of that. We also need to be well informed about the world around us so we can make an honest opinion. He also pointed out that it was not so important to remember when a certain event took place but why it did. He went further on to say we all need to get involved in our community and never forget to vote. I never forgot what he said.
Our Principal, Mr. Francis X. Carlin, said to us graduates, "Every irresponsible act of prejudice, lawlessness,or selfishness is a rent in the cloth which cannot be mended without loss of time and inevitable scarring of the finished garment." I only hope our youth today in our high schools are as lucky as we were back then to have such inspiring and dedicated teachers to instil such high ideas.
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