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The years following World War II were not kind to my family; in fact, they were devastating.
We managed to stay together during the good earning years of the war. Still, as early as 1941 my father’s alcoholism was affecting both his job prospects and our home life. His salary went to booze, and the arguments between my father and my mother were escalating in intensity.
The final straw came in 1946, when my father came home drunk and began slapping my mother around. She fought back, hitting him with the heel of her shoe, cutting off his earlobe. I watched the whole scene, dumbfounded.
With my parents separated, the children were scattered to the winds. The oldest two went off on their own; the two in their early teens moved in with relatives in Pennsylvania. My brother and I (6 and 8, respectively) ended up living in a series of furnished rooms and apartments with our alcoholic father.
For two years my brother and I lived almost completely unsupervised. I had to drag my brother to school most days. In the evenings, while my father was at the bar, my brother and I listened to radio programs and did the little bits of homework we were assigned.
Finally, in October 1948, my father lost his job. He came home from his last day of work and shoved our clothes into two pillowcases, gave us bus fare to get to our mother’s place, and vanished from our lives.
Life with my mother was close to unbearable. Two adults and three kids lived in an apartment with one bedroom, a kitchen, and a sitting area. Plus, for years I had been my own boss, fending for myself and my brother, so I found it difficult to accept anyone telling me what to do.
On top of that, our lack of money was crushing. We lived essentially on the $19 per week my brother made when he returned from the Navy.
I needed independence – and an excuse to stay out of the house. I played the alto horn in the school band, and I learned that The Salvation Army in Newark near my mom’s new home had a band in which I could play and get extra practice.
I remember showing up on the doorstep on a bright autumn day in 1949. From the moment I stepped inside, I was showed an understanding and an acceptance that until then I had experienced only on rare occasions.
I was encouraged to practice my instrument, to study hard in school, and to work hard (I became the janitor of the facility at 15). Although all of my siblings quit high school at 16 to work, and nobody in my family had a college education or ever talked about the possibility of getting one, the bandmaster at The Salvation Army, Kenneth Van Brunt, told me over and over that I was a smart kid, and should go to college.
I see a boy who started out with two strikes against him, but who was encouraged to dream big.
As a result of that encouragement, I was accepted at NYU to study linguistics and languages. Surprisingly, no one ever suggested I try for a scholarship. But I got outstanding grades my freshman year (I graduated Phi Beta Kappa), and the counselor at NYU called me in and told me that even though I had not applied for a scholarship, the University was giving me one. Tuition was $1100 per year. They gave me $800. The Salvation Army gave me $200, and I paid $100.
Upon graduation, I spent a year working as an office administrator for NYU in Madrid. I then returned to the U.S. and taught Spanish at NYU and earned a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to work towards an M.A. and Ph.D. in Classics at Columbia University.
I taught Classics for several years at Union College in Schenectady, NY before deciding to go to law school. I then joined General Electric Company as in-house counsel to its Industrial Sales Division and eventually became the General Counsel of the Electrical Distribution and Control Business, one of twelve key GE businesses whose vice presidents reported directly to Jack Welch.
I retired from GE in 2001 after 27 years with the company. The next five years of my life were devoted to The Salvation Army, serving as the Albany Area Services Coordinator. They had given me so much – hope when I needed it most; opportunity when I had none; my wife of 56 years, whom I met at a Salvation Army music camp at age 16, and the three daughters and nine grandchildren we have together – and I wanted to give back.
Today, in addition to having a small (largely pro bono) law practice, I still work closely with The Salvation Army, helping inner city kids cultivate their musical talents. I also assist at a group that encourages struggling men to shed habits and ways of life that drag them down – something my own father could have benefited from in his life.
And as I look back over the years, I see a boy who started out with two strikes against him, but who, through the love and care of very accepting and generous people, was encouraged to cultivate whatever talents he might have been endowed with, and dream big at a time when dreaming at all seemed pointless.
The truly remarkable and wonderful thing is that my story is not unique.
I could tell of countless others whom I have known (and still know) who have found their path of hope and accomplishment through life as a result of the warm, loving and accepting ministries of The Salvation Army. If there was ever a reason to donate to The Salvation Army, my story is it.