Rant #1,374: The Write Thing To Do

Seemingly eons ago, I was a little, little kid having my first educational experience at P.S. 165 in Flushing, Queens.

I went to kindergarten and first grade at that school, before my family moved from Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, to a new development called Rochdale Village in South Jamaica, Queens.

Little did we know what the next seven years would bring, but the prior six years--the length of time we lived in Kew Gardens Hills--were pretty memorable, too.

In between getting beat up by one of the neighbors, Carla Maybloom, on a fairly regular basis, I went to school, and did pretty well there.

The school was a good one, and it is still around, and it still is a pretty good one.

I was in kindergarten in 1963, and for the first time, our school put out a literary magazine called "The Adventurer."

Kids from all of the classes had a chance to write for the publication, and when I was in first grade, I had my first published work, something about voting.

But that was in 1964.

In 1963, I was still in kindergarten, and I didn't have anything published in the very first literary magazine.

I had completely forgotten about this until this past Friday, when I came home from work and found that my mother had unearthed the first edition of this literary magazine.

For some reason, she kept the first edition--heaven knows where the edition that I wrote in is--and she unearthed it rummaging through some things.

She gave it to me, and I thumbed through it, and alas, I could not find my name in it at all.

But I did find another name, of somebody who, like me, eventually moved to Rochdale Village.

She had contributed a short piece about a polar bear.

The person is a couple of years older than me, but I recognized her name immediately.

I speak to her on occasion on Facebook, and contacted her immediately.

I scanned the pages--her page and the cover--and emailed them to her immediately.

The problem was that not only was my email acting kind of funny on Friday evening, but the quality of my scan wasn't that great, either.

The years since this was published--nearly 52--had weathered the pages, and the scan I made was very light, reflecting the wear on those pages, even though they had been stuck in a drawer for decades.

The person I sent them to couldn't see her contribution of all of those years ago, and thought I sent her the wrong page!

So I did some electronic magic on the page.

I managed to darken it a bit, and the words came popping out a bit more.

I resent the scan, and she found exactly what she was looking for--and everyone was happy.

I wish I could see my contribution from the second edition of this magazine. She told me that she designed the cover for that one--a World's Fair theme for 1964--and that she would look for it.

I hope she can find it. It would be fun to see it again after all of these years.

But looking at the edition I do have, yes, it looks pretty antiquated the way it is set up, and in today's world, I could produce a better-looking compendium right from my own home computer.

But you can't beat the fun and the hard work that is on these pages.

I wonder how many of these people became writers like myself, or designers, doctors, lawyers, moms, and dads, or now, even grandparents?

It is just so much fun looking back at these types of things, and class photos, just to think that these kids all grew up. We are now the AARP generation, but at one time, we were just kids.

I was happy to make someone's day out of the blue, and maybe one day, it can happen again.

It really is the melding of the old with the new, and in this case, it really turned out great!