Some of you will be amused by the fact the kids of that era considered the following seven qualities, or requisite categories, for their school leaders: brightest, wittiest, most popular, most cheerful, best athlete, best looking, and best dresser.
The brightest guy, as well as my very best friend, was right up at the top, Joe Beberman. Carl Smith was my archrival, we competed in every category grade school had to offer. To this day, I can’t figure out how Carl could have won any of it… I had him beat all the way… it had to be a rigged election. I mean, the class officers election did appear to be honest—Barbra Wolf, if she was around today she’d probably have been elected our first woman president. Elain Surgen, for sure, would become secretary of state.
And why, you wonder, do I return like the Lone Ranger… to a simpler time of life? From out of the west, he and his sidekick, Tonto, came riding back into almost all of our lives… Once a week, each and every week, they rode in and we—kids and parents alike—gathered around our radios and renewed our pleasant emotions together. It was always the same. There were the good guys and the bad ones. And each week, my dad and I rooted them on. And though dad would fall asleep before the show’s climax, it really didn’t matter; we always knew everything would work out for the two of them.
