Bertram Levine

Dear Levine Family

It all begins with my father and mother deciding that I had learned enough to walk the distance from our home to the schoolyard of P.S. 186 in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York, where the kindergarten was located, rather than continue the burden of holding my hand to get the task done. One day, without notice, when we has entered the school's fenced in playground, he called out, “Listen, you kids.” Once he had their attention, he went on, “Anyone of you live on 80th Street?” The only who said he did was one Bertram Levine. “Well, then,” Dad went on, “you two be friends.”

Let's leap a few year. World War Two had begun. Bert got into the US Army Tanks, an officer I believe, in command of a tank. I, owing to my previous summers having gone to sea as a bell hop on ocean lines, was not drafted, because my younger brother was taken before me. Bert was envious. “Gee,” he wrote, “and here I am, doing nothing.”

Well, we didn't go to war together, but that was the exception. Neither of us was as proficient as the rest of the young boys on the street who played punch ball (a form of baseball on the asphalt pavement that separated the rows of private houses on either side.

But we played endless hours more fitting to our level of skills with others in the alley way that led from the roadside to the garage inside the front fence. My mother welcomed our friendship and we shared many a lunch at a common table.

Our friendship continued and strengthened further when we achieved our first by lines together. As volunteers we published a one sheet, mimeographed paper which pleased all who read it. Our role was to write the stories; the synagogue typist prepared the stencil and ran off the copies (on colored paper, if I recall correctly). The faculty protested only one usage, namely, that we had named our publication, “The Beth-Am Templar.” I do not recall what we renamed it. I do believe however that we put it out quite a few times after it was replaced by something more acceptable.

As an official of the NYC Athletic Association, Bert's father, Ben, was able to provide us with many free tickets to sporting events. The ones I recall best were track meets and hockey matched in the original Madison Square Garden. Mainly we watched track and field events. Whether I ever saw Glenn Cunningham run there, I don't know, but certainly I would never known they existed if it had not been for Ben. I know him and love him for treating me as he seemed to treat Bert: He had a lot of confidence in us as human beings. Nobody in my family had ever offered me sip of his alcoholic drink. From my recollection of the shape of the cup, I guess it was a cocktail. All I had was a sip; I liked it so well the next one didn't reach my lips for about 20 years. How often Ben enjoyed them I will never know. Sometimes, looking down on the track meets, I'd see Ben standing at the finish line of one of the foot races, stop watch in hand, to time the various distance running races.

Bert had great aplomb. My own reaction when I first encountered a large, unleashed dog was to avoid crossing its path. Not so with my friend. The family's pet police dog, Buzzy, rose head and shoulders above us when he stood up. Bert would carry the food out to him at a distance from the leash pole and then trot around in a tightening circle so small that the pet could not reach it with his teeth: instead, Bert shoved it toward him once the chain had grown so short that drooling pet was unable to get far from the pole, if at all.

Then there was the “TSF” the abbreviation for the here to for little-known group known as “The Secret Five.” As I recall, we met regularly at one anothers' homes but for the life of me, I cannot think of what we might have talked about. I remember that one of our members wad Carl Schmulowitz, a violinist whom I lost track of before he joined a professional group; Artie Joseph, was another, but I have lost track of him…

I find myself disappointed that this is all I can summon up about the childhood we shared. I would certainly ask you to inquire of him whether he was fond of one of our female classmates. I know that we went to New Utrecht High School for part of the four year course, but believe that the family moved to Manhattan before he was graduated from it.