Whaddyamean, ‘Awesome’? Give Her Bronx Cheer
Like a lot of reporters, I sometimes have this image of myself as one of those thick-skinned sorts who isn’t fazed by anything. But on a visit to Mater Dei High School on Tuesday, a student said something that left me flabbergasted.
My next-to-last stop in my daylong series of interviews was in Tanya Reminiskey’s seventh-period journalism class. I asked students about Mater Dei, and I invited them to question me. One student asked where I attended high school.
“In the Bronx,” I replied.
Olivia, a student in the front row, blurted out, “That would be so awesome!”
I was aghast.
“Did you say going to school in the Bronx would be awesome?” I had to ask the question to make sure I hadn’t been struck deaf or possessed by demons.
Olivia must have been taken aback by the tone in my voice, because she didn’t say anything. A student seated behind her, a guy named Tyson, came to her defense. “Well, maybe for a day,” he said.
For the sake of Tyson, Olivia and every other student and alumnus of Orange County schools, let me set the record straight--there are many words in the king’s English to describe going to school in the Bronx. “Awesome” is not one of them.
Consider this: When I left New York City four months ago, students at many high schools were being let into school one at a time. That’s because it’s tough to squeeze two kids through a metal detector at the same time.
Things weren’t quite that bad when I attended Harry S. Truman High School in the mid-’70s. In fact, Truman was considered one of the more attractive schools in the Bronx. It was new, a seven-story testament to learning, with air conditioning, state-of-the-art facilities and even a swimming pool.
It was also two bus rides away from where I lived. But that wasn’t so bad. I remember a couple of my friends from the neighborhood who had to ride a bus and two trains to go to school.
The bus trips were long, but they could be thrilling at times. I remember transferring to the QBX-1 bus at Tremont Avenue and Bruckner Boulevard one morning and seeing my science teacher slumped down in his seat. I thought he was dead. Turned out he was just hung over.
Then there was the afternoon when about 500 homeward-bound students tried to board a bus made for 80. Fearing for his life, the driver climbed out the window and fled. A student jumped into his seat, intent on ferrying the passengers home. I don’t know what happened next. I had fled too.
Think about that the next time you’re car-pooling.
Now I suppose there are some similarities between schools in the Bronx and in Orange County. The kids are about the same age. And maybe lunchroom shakedowns of loose change and Scooter Pies happen here too.
But despite the California traditions of alfresco lunchrooms and junior varsity baseball in February, students in the Bronx did, and still continue to, experience a boundless joy that Orange County kids will never know.
Snow days.
They were a veritable heaven on Earth. For kids, it was nirvana--impassable roads, few cars and padlocked school gates.
Alas, Orange County kids will never know the feeling of anticipation that descends on 8-year-olds as they huddle before the radio at 6:30 a.m. listening to the school-closing announcements. On one such morning, my glee was unbridled when the announcer intoned, “ . . . in District 8, P.S. 100 . . . “
After the announcements, two sorts of cheers went up in New York households--kids’ cheers, and Bronx cheers. The kids’ cheers would arise, obviously, from kids. The Bronx cheers would arise from parents.
For those of you who don’t know what a Bronx cheer is, stick out your tongue and blow real hard. You’ve just heard a Bronx cheer.
On snow days, my mother, like multitudes of others in New York, would promptly wrap me, my brothers and my sister in 18 layers of clothing and dispatch us to the snowbound streets. I hate to gloat, but playing in the snow is something no kid should miss.
On my block, where there was a large hill, and in parks throughout the city, snow days meant trash-can-lid sleds and cardboard-box toboggans. The best ones were refrigerator cartons--you could get about 14 kids on them. Problem was, the maniac kid on the block always wanted to steer.
So with Maniac Kid at the helm, we’d go plummeting down the hill, shrieking--usually something to the effect of, LOOK OUT FOR THE TREE! Looking back, I imagine the sight of 14 kids crashing into a tree and flying through the air, arms and legs wriggling, must have been pretty funny.
Hurt, you say? Fuhgeddaboudit, as they say back home. Snow is soft. It’s also cold and wet. And nothing felt better than going home, soaked to the skin and chilled to the bone, and warming up with a mug of hot chocolate.
So I guess I should apologize to Olivia. She was right. On snow days in the Bronx, going to school--or not going to school--was indeed awesome.
