"Sure I went to MIT . . . and I walked right past it!!!!"

After having survived the Armenian Genocide, and having moved to the good old USA, Grandpa Peter used to laugh about the fact that he was the oldest boy in first grade . . . 10 years old!!!  (As he knew no English when he arrived, they placed him with the first graders in Watertown, but once he learned English, he skipped 5 grades!)  Upon graduation from Watertown High School, Peter, known to Marash Girl as Daddy, was offered a scholarship to MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  When Peter announced the good news to his family, his brother Paul said, "Are you going to leave me alone to care for our aging father and blind mother?"  Peter didn't have the heart to do so, and thus, rather than attend MIT on scholarship, he worked with his brother in their own shop, Newtonville Electrical Company, Inc., in Newtonville, Massachusetts, repairing refrigerators and oil burners for the rest of his life.  But that didn't mean that he never got a college education . . . he did more than that!!! He purchased and carefully read through the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica, and when he finished reading and digesting those volumes, he purchased the Historians' History of the World, and read through that series of books on world history. . . and on and on and on!!!! He got more than a college education, and he did it  all on his own!!!!

"There Is No God. Prove."

"There Is No God.  Prove."  So began the otherwise blank final exam in Humanities Five, Introduction to Philosophy.  "Thank you, God," grinned Marash Girl as she began, hammer and tong, or should I say, pen and paper, to attack the question.  Her answer?  Her answer has been written throughout the Bible, throughout many a hymnal.  God exists.  She wrote two pages, asserting her belief, and the reasons for her belief, and . . . the final grades were posted.  She was the only student in the class to receive an "A" on the exam.  "Why was that?" everyone asked.  Do you know the answer, dear reader?

N.B.  Marash Girl may have written about this experience in past blogposts, but suffer her one more time to remember the graciousness of her Professor Aiken at Harvard University.

M.I.T.?

Today Marash Girl received a letter in her mailbox from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology addresssed to her father Peter Bilezikian who passed away a number of years ago.  Ironic, she thought. Looking at the return address on the envelope, she remembered that her father, upon nearing graduation from Watertown High School,  had been offered a scholarship to M.I.T.  Born in Marash, Peter had arrived in the United States knowing no English.  Having no schooling, he entered the first grade as a 9 year old, and graduated to the 6th grade in one year -- he would laugh when he told us that!  Acing his school work, he found himself graduating from Watertown High School in 1932 with a full scholarship to M.I.T.  And he wanted to attend.  But he had been working with his brother as an electrician and repairman while he was in high school.  "Are you going to go to college and leave me to take care of our parents all by myself?" his brother asked him.  Of course, Peter's answer was in the negative, and so he gave up his scholarship to M.I.T. and joined his brother establishing their business -- first on Bowers Street in the corner of a building owned by their uncle, Rev. Vartan Bilezikian, and then on Newtonville Avenue in Newtonville Square:  Newtonville Electrical Company, Inc., Newtonville, Massachusetts.  But Peter actually did attend M.I.T. at night, although he had worked all day with his brother at the shop.

Whenever folks would ask him if he had gone to M.I.T., he would laugh and answer, "Sure, I went to M.I.T. . . . I walked right past it!"

Books in a Latino apartment in Spanish Harlem in the 1960's?

Books in a Latino apartment in Spanish Harlem?  Not if you were Puerto Rican, the only member of the family with education in NYC in the 1960's!  In those days, even though you had made it to a fancy private school in Massachusetts, and later to Yale University, you would never insult your family by taking books into the home.  It would be like telling them, "I'm better than you . . .", (in Spanish, of course!)  And Marash Girl learned this first hand from her dear departed friend, Ramon Santiago, may he rest in peace.

Alan Wolfe: The Calling of a Public Intellectual

Alan Wolfe accepts his place as a  living luminary of Boston College.
April 14, 2016, Gasson Hall, Boston College
 Photo by Marash Girl

All the Answers

Yesterday evening, Marash Girl was conversing with an artist friend, a friend she had met many years ago at an Armenian picnic at Camp Haiastan.  Reminiscing about his days in New York City as an artist, he apologized for his lack of humility in years past:  "In those days, I had all the answers and no questions!"

Her friend's apology reminded Marash Girl of her long ago conversation with Dr. Charles Stark Draper  during a political convention in Texas -- yes, the man who, according to the description on the internet,  'founded the Draper Labs in 1932  at M.I.T., a lab which developed aeronautical instrumentation, and came to be called the "MIT Instrumentation Laboratory".' Marash Girl had only one thing in common with Dr. Draper:  she had attended classes at Newton High School with his son, Jim.  That fact was enough to give her the courage to sit next to the eminent scientist, albeit on the back of a bus, traveling from one convention event to the next. On that bus ride, Marash Girl asked Dr. Draper (although today she doesn't remember exactly what she asked -- probably an embarrassingly  bungling "freshman" question like, "To what do you owe your success in life?" ), the question which he answered without hesitation.

"To my mother.  I was home schooled.  My mother taught me the most important lesson I could ever have learned --  she taught me the importance of asking the right questions."

Cost Analysis in a New York City Elevator

Marash Girl in an elevator on Wall Street in New York's Financial District, noticed the cup of coffee being held by the only other occupant of the elevator:  I hear Starbuck's is raising its price for a cup of coffee.

Man on elevator carrying a paper cup of Starbuck's coffee (which he had purchased across the street:  Well, after all, they have to pay for increased rent, increased wages, increased cost of coffee, increased cost of cups, increased . . . .

By then Marash Girl had reached the 8th floor, and bid farewell to the cost analyst who was going on up to the 20th floor, most probably continuing his analysis, even though he had lost his audience.

After all, he was on Wall Street.

Girls' College at Marash, Ottoman Empire

Fotoğraf : Board misyonerlerinin kız okulu , or Kīz Kolej, Maraş

Marash Girl received a link to this photo in her email this morning.  It is a photo of the school that Marash Boy's mother Azniv attended in the early 20th Century, and the school that Marash Girl's grandmother Yester Bosnian Vartanian attended (she must have boarded at the school as her home was in Aintep), before becoming a teacher.  Marash Girl had always heard reference to the school, and now, for the first time, a lifetime later, she has the opportunity to see a photograph of the Girls School (a rarity at the beginning of the 20th century), albeit in an ancient photo.  She wonders if either her grandmother or Marash Boy's mother are in the photo!

Translation of Turkish below to follow!

Değirmendere , Maraş ilinin Göksun ilçesine bağlı bir köydür

■ 20. yüzyıl başında kısmen Ermeni yerleşimi

■ 20. yüzyıl başında Değirmendere'de 140 Ermeni yaşıyordu

Learning a new language?

When Marash Girl taught English to speakers of other languages, she noticed that the Russians remembered with ease all the long words and the Chinese remembered all the short words . . . never in the reverse!  Now if the Russian students had grown up bilingual (speaking Chinese as well) and the Chinese students had grown up bilingual (speaking Russian as well), there'd be no problem for either of them.  But then, of course, they could have grown up trilingual, including English in the mix, and they wouldn't have had to be in her class!

Walking through the hallowed halls of MIT

Walking through the hallowed halls of MIT for the first time, Peter looked up and saw an older gentleman walking towards him.

"Hello," greeted Peter with a smile.

The older gentleman stopped in his tracks, stared at Peter, and said, "Do I know you?"

Or so I neighbor Peter tells the tale . . .

But that was back in the 1960's.  Have things changed since?

Show Me The Way To Go Home!

Anyone who knows Marash Girl knows that she doesn't touch alcohol; everyone who knows Marash Girl knows that one of her favorite songs,  is Show Me The Way To Go Home (words and music by Irving King), a song that she'll belt out at any given moment!  Why it's a favorite, she does not know; when she started singing it, she does not know, though she suspects it was on the bus during F.A.Day Jr. High School field trips.  All she knows for sure is that she has never heard the song sung by professionals, nor has she ever seen the music . . . never, that is, until today, when she was listing sheet music for sale [sheet music that she had recently purchased from a century old music store.] The lyrics to the chorus are exactly as she sings them! The piece was copyright in 1925 in England with a USA copyright of 1952, which is probably just around the time Marash Girl first heard the song!

[N.B. The sheet music is now listed for sale at OldCornerBooks.com.]

Whoops!  Forgot the most important thing: the lyrics to the chorus!  Here they are!

Show me the way to go home!
I'm tired and I want to go to bed.
Well, I had a little drink about an hour ago, and it went straight to my head . ..
Wherever I may roam; on land or sea or foam. . .
You will always hear me singing this song!
"Show me the way to go home!"

Apology Accepted

This past year, following a seminar on Turkey and Democracy at the Boisi Center (Boston College), Marash Girl was approached by a Kurdish woman, a graduate student at Boston College and a Turkish citizen who had suffered many indignities as a Kurd living in modern day Turkey.  The Kurdish woman hugged Marash Girl and, with tears in her eyes, apologized to Marash Girl for the part her people -- the Kurdish people -- had taken in the Genocide of the Armenian people  (1915-1923).

Labeling . . .

At a  parent-teacher conference in a Springfield, Massachusetts, elementary school, a teacher's first words to the mother of an 8 year old girl?  "What are you doing here? I thought you were in prison!"  It turns out that the little girl had told her teacher that her mother was in prison . . .  .   which was true . . . the child's mother works at a state prison . . . that is the mother's job . . .  and the teacher's assumption put into words?

Marking the 150th Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address . . .

All the dignitaries in Springfield had gathered, and as Karoun passed, curious about the reason for all the assembled, she learned that the assembled dignitaries had just concluded a 150 year commemoration of the  deliverance by Abraham Lincoln of his famous Gettysburg Address.

The Gettysburg Address? Marash Girl asked her daughter.  The very words brought to mind standing next to her parents double bed early on Sunday mornings, attempting to commit this unrhyming address to memory.

All the other kids in third grade got to recite cute, short little poems; even Clinton Shaw got to recite Casey at the Bat (which earned him no end of credits with the 3rd grade boys -- especially David Seeley who was Claflin School's "Casey at the Bat" . . . ) but Marash Girl had to memorize the Gettysburg Address because of its historic significance -- the reunification of that which had been almost irretrievably torn asunder.

The Gettysburg Address . . . Four Score and Seven Years Ago . . . Marash Girl still remembers all these years later (although not quite four score and seven years later!)

Pajama Day?

A Takoma Park elementary school touts Pajama Day as one of the funnest days of the year -- a day when all the kids get to wear their pajamas to school.  "It's fun to see what pajamas other kids wear," said one of the students.  Yet that very same student admitted that she felt funny going to the YMCA for her swimming lessons, still wearing her pajamas.  

The stuff of nightmares -- that's what wearing pajamas to school meant to Marash Boy and Marash Girl -- the horror of suddenly realizing that you are in school, surrounded by all your friends, but you have forgotten to get dressed -- you are still in your pajamas -- that was our nightmare, one that we had often enough to remember to this day -- one never shared with each other before this day, the day we learned that our grandchildren were to go to school in their pajamas!  A special treat, a fun day, a special event for them; still a nightmare for their grandparents.

Marash Girl smiles to think of what her own great aunts would shriek at the slightest mention of such goings on:  Abow!  Amot!  Inch khent pun mn e! Inch aboushoutioun eh asiga!

Gun Safety, Play Safety, cont'd

Not only squirt guns . . . Marash Girl used to love to play with cap guns.  Caps . . . do they still have those toy metal guns with long red strips of caps that go off with a loud crack when the trigger is pulled?  Or lacking a gun, Marash Girl would delight in using a rock to set off the caps on the cement patio beyond the back door of her home.  

When Marash Girl arrived at Day Junior High School, guns were no longer a toy, but a reality.  There were junior high school gangs in Newtonville and West Newton, gangs that would meet at night and threaten each other, the gang members wearing black leather jackets, sporting slick hair styles known as DA's ("duck's asses"), and carrying hidden guns, guns that had been brought back from the war by their fathers, uncles, and older brothers.  Members of the gang shared a home room with Marash Girl, and one of them, Mugsy M., would bring items he had stolen from the 5&10 and distribute the "loot" to his classmates in an effort, perhaps, to win their favor.  As it turned out that, unbeknownst to the school administration, the gang members, and some non-gang members, "carried" in school as well as out.  One morning in 8th grade, during first period, a shot rang out that was NOT heard round the world.  The shot rang out in a social studies classroom when Jerry V.'s hidden gun accidentally went off ("he didn't know the gun was loaded") while he was inspecting its intricacies, shooting off his own finger, and instantly killing the boy sitting in the seat in front of him.  The gun had been sitting behind Marash Girl in home room just  10 minutes earlier.

This deadly accident occurred, not last week or last year, but many years ago, at Day Junior High School in Newton, Massachusetts.  Wikipedia records the event as follows: March 31, 1954: Newton, Massachusetts John Frankenberger, 14, was accidentally shot to death in a classroom at Day Junior High School when a pistol being held by a classmate discharged.

There were no parent meetings, no counselors, no outrage, no effort at gathering the guns.  Only sorrow and  funeral services for the innocent dead boy (who was indeed an innocent "by sitter" and NOT a member of the gang), sorrow for the boy (also NOT a member of the gang) who, bored in class, happened to be inspecting his gun.  And life went on.  We all went to school the next day and the next and the next.  

How would a change in the gun laws have saved the innocent victim at Day Jr. High School?  How would a change in the gun laws prevent the young people today from carrying guns into the classroom?

The Value of a Penny

Did you see that penny?

Yes.

And you didn't pick it up?

No, why should I?  It's only a penny.

You're fired, then.

What, for not picking up a penny?  You must be kidding!

If you don't value a penny, I don't want you working for me!  You're fired.

As told to Marash Girl by her father, relating an incident that occurred at Newtonville Electrical Company, Inc., in the 1960's between Peter and a young Newton Trade School intern electrician Peter was training.

From third grade to third rate --

More David Seeleyisms -- from third grade, Claflin School, Newton, Massachusetts

Perhaps inspired by the requirement to memorize and recite poetry once a week, David Seeley (see http://marashgirl.blogspot.com/2011/10/claflin-school-david-seeley-and.html) could often be heard laughing as he recited the following poetic similes!

Your eyes are like pools -- cesspools

Your ears are like flowers -- cauliflowers

Your teeth are like stars -- they come out at night

Can't remember what he said about noses.  If any of you, dear readers, had a David Seeley in your third grade class, or heard David Seeley's poetic efforts in third grade, or remember the rest of the similes in this poetic effort, please comment below!

Remembering Mrs. Miriam Goldstein

Remembering English teacher Mrs. Miriam Goldstein, Newton High School, Newtonville, Massachusetts.  She was not Marash Girl's English teacher, but rather her homeroom teacher, and she is remembered every time Marash Girl hears or reads a Psalm, because every morning, in homeroom, (along with the required salute to the American flag), she began the day with a reading from the Psalms and comfort to all in her homeroom.  Marash Girl remembers Mrs. Goldstein today as Marash Girl reads an email from brother James containing the following.

Psalm 121, King James translation

1	I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,          from whence cometh my help.
2	My help cometh from the LORD,          which made heaven and earth.
3	He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:          he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
4	Behold, he that keepeth Israel          shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5	The LORD is thy keeper:          the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.
6	The sun shall not smite thee by day,          nor the moon by night.
7	The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil:          he shall preserve thy soul.
8	The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in          from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Claflin School, Rotten Tangerines, and the Old Days

  And speaking (see yesterday's blog) of songs adapted to the chorus of the Battle Hymn of the Republic (below),

                

Marash Girl remembers David Seeley and the boys at the first Claflin School on Washington Park in Newtonville, Massachusetts, laughing and singing the following lyrics to the above tune:

                  Glory, glory hallelujah!

                  The teacher hit me with a ruler.

                  I knocked her off the bean with a rotten tangerine

                  and I went marching home!

N.B. Marash Girl's Claflin School 6th grade class was the only 6th grade class in the then history of Claflin School  that was not allowed to go for a week of camping to Peterborough, New Hampshire  (thanks to Miss Tobin, or was it David Seeley).  No wonder!