Rant #2,404: All Those Years Ago

Happy Friday.

On Fridays, I often take I time trip back to 50 years before today, when I was a kid, ready to turn into a man, and the music that we all listened to way back when.

I am not going to do that today, but I am going to go back 50 years, to May 8 and May 9, 1970s, because those two days were significant dates in my life.

And for many people, today, 50 years ago, May 8, 1970, was one of the most important days of their lives, too.

So let me set this up for you. We are talking about 1970, the beginning of a new decade (some would argue that 1970 was actually the last year of the 1960s, but I am not going to get into that here), and I had just turned 13 years of age a few days before that on April 28.

I lived in Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, in a relatively new development called Rochdale Village. I was going to junior high school at the time, I.S. 72, which was right in the development's environs and had become a powder keg of negative activity for the community, a community of whites and blacks that we had thought was our own personal Garden of Eden a few years earlier.

The community had turned into something more in line with a Tower of Babel at that time, and everyone who lived in it was on pins and needles constantly, waiting for the next shoe to drop.

Whether it was the latest teachers strike or the next death--Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, even a local service member who was stabbed in the parking lot right outside my bedroom window--the place was turning into one where most people seemingly wanted out.

But in 1970, thousands of families called the development home, and I had just turned 13, and was preparing to be a man by studying over a period of months for my bar mitzvah at one the local synagogues, the Conservative temple right outside the development.

I hated Hebrew School, fought my parents, the school officials, and myself every step of the way, but I went, learned my Haftorah, and was prepared to lead the congregation on May 9 as I went through the Jewish ritual.

And during this period, the New York Knicks were lighting up the sports world in their drive for their first championship.

By 1970, other New York teams--primarily the baseball Yankees and the football Giants--had put up many championship seasons--and during this period, the Mets and the Jets, won their league's championships in rapid succession.

But there was something about the Knicks run to the NBA finals that galvanized the entire city. Maybe it was because Rochdale Village was a forward-looking neighborhood, something different for the time, a brand-new integrated neighborhood where whites lived in the same buildings and right next door to blacks, but whatever the case, everybody--even non-sports fans--were into this team, and all of its stars, from Walt Frazier and Willis Reed and Bill Bradley down to the last guy on the bench.

The Knicks had pushed their way during their 60-win season to the NBA finals against Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and the Los Angeles Lakers--a team abhorred even then by New York basketball fans--and right when I was ready to have my big day, the Knicks were about ready to have their big day.

But wait! Other things were happening in the world. The Kent State and Jackson State events--where students were gunned down as they protested the Vietnam War--was putting a damper on everything. The New York City schools closed on May 8 in remembrance of these tragedies, but the Knicks and I were going to have our days in the sun, no matter what.

And that is the operative term--"no matter what."

I wrote the following recently, and I am going to put it in edited form right here. It intertwines these two events that I have been talking about in an interesting way.

No, you can't make this stuff up.

"I was living at the time in a relatively new neighborhood, Rochdale Village in South Jamaica, Queens, which had risen on the remains of the old Jamaica Race Track. We were an interesting community back then, a 75-percent white and mainly Jewish community plunked down right in the middle of one of the longest-established black communities in the United States, and there were good times, as well as bad times there, as the two races tried to co-exist.

I had just turned 13 years of age in late April, and being Jewish, my bar mitzvah would be coming up several days after I had my birthday on April 28. My bar mitzvah was set for May 9, and I had studied hard to learn my speech, or my Haftorah, that I would have to recite on the day.

I was not good in Hebrew School; to say I hated it would be an understatement. But being the first child, the first male child, the first male grandchild in my family, well, I had a lot to live up to, and the pressure was on me to do my Haftorah letter perfect--in particular so my father's father, leader of the Orthodox side of my family, would be proud of me.

A few weeks prior to my bar mitzvah, the stress had gotten to me, For some reason, I was spitting up blood, something that lasted about a week and which the doctors had no idea why I was in such a state.

When that subsided, and the days grew nearer to May 9, I had gotten a fever, out of nowhere, which stayed with me for about a week. It was in the 100s, and I was confined to bed. My parents prayed that I would be OK for my big day, and when I was finally seen by my regular doctor, who made house calls. Dr. Geller told my mother that I had "a simple case of nerves," and that they would soon go away.

Being a huge sports fan, I was firmly attuned to what was going on with the Knicks, the only basketball team that mattered to me back then (the Nets were around, barely, and I would later become a big Nets fan, seeing dozens of games at the Island Garden and later, at the Nassau Coliseum, including the final title run/last games of the ABA in 1976).

The Knicks were the only team that mattered to most New Yorkers. The Mets were champs in 1969, but you had Yankees fans like me who rooted against them. The Jets also were champs, but you had plenty of Giants fans who could have cared less.

New York had the Knicks, and no other basketball team galvanized an entire city like the Knicks did in the 1969-1970 season. Heck, my mother, who didn't know a basketball from a baseball, knew about the Knicks.

Back to me ...

I was really as sick as a dog on the day of May 8. My Orthodox grandfather stayed at our small two-bedroom apartment that day, and he told me in no uncertain terms that even if I was as sick as a dog, "you are going to have your bar mitzvah on May 9, even if you do it in your bed."

I was in that bed the entire day. But I was the luckiest guy in the world, or so I thought.

We lived on the first floor of Building 9 of the development, a neighborhood which was situated near Kennedy Airport. In fact, or positioning was such that airplane pilots used our development as a marker during the Great Blackout of 1965, when electricity up and down the northeast went out, but we were still lit up because we had our own power plant right on the premises.

Due to our placement and a bit of luck, my small Zenith black and white TV was what I thought to be one of the greatest inventions known to man. My grandmother--my mother's mother--bought me the TV as a birthday.Bar mitzvah present, and setting it up at the other side of my bed near the window, I found right away that this TV was extra special, as I was able to get out of town channels very clearly without bending its rabbit ears this way and that. Not only did I get a station from Philadelphia very clearly, but I also got Channel 8 from Connecticut, the ABC affiliate that was carrying the Knicks-Lakers championship game live that night.

(Editor's Note: In those days, blackout rules applied, and local games could not be carried live by a network affiliate, so the local ABC affiliate in New York, WABC-TV, the flagship station of the entire network, could not carry the game from Madison Square Garden live, and could only show it on tape delay at 11:30 p.m. that night.)

I was still as sick as a dog, but really revved up the entire day, looking forward to the game. I was really into this, as I had pictures of the Knicks plastered all over the walls in my room, which was shared with my younger sister. Her side of the room had pictures of the latest heart throbs all over her walls--Davy Jones and David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman--and mine had Willis and Clyde and Dollar Bill.

I put on the game, still so sick that I could barely turn the channel to 8 (no remotes back then). The telecast came in clearly, and I didn't know what to prepare for, because I knew Willis was injured.

(Editor's Note: The Knicks' star center, Willis Reed, had suffered a horrid thigh injury in Game 5 of the finals. He was so hobbled that he missed Game 6, won by the Lakers, knotting the series at three game apiece. He was so bad off that there was seemingly no way that he could play in Game 7.)

And then the most remarkable thing happened. Willis came out of the runway, almost fell over a photographer in the way, but made his way out to the court. The crowd went crazy, I did too, and well, the rest is history. The Knicks won the game, and their first championship.

I managed to watch the entire game. When I saw Willis come out, I said to myself, literally, "If he can do it, I can too," and I did the next day, at my local synagogue, in front of my family and friends. I nearly passed out on stage, but I did it.

And if it wasn't for Willis, I don't think I would have been able to do it. To this day, I really believe that seeing him go out on the court made me look at what I had as a mere nuisance.

Don't get me wrong, I was still as sick as could be, But I did my haftorah flawlessly, and when everything was over, and people came to my house, I wasn't feverish at all. Dr, Geller was right--it was 1,000 percent nerves.

So those are my recollections of that very first championship, of that wonderful TV (which lasted a few more years, only to literally blow up nearly in my hands when lightning hit the line it was attached to when i was watching "The Match Game" one afternoon a few years later after we had moved to Massapequa Park), and of Willis and Clyde and Dollar Bill and Fall Back Baby and Dave De and the Minutemen."
Like I said, you can't make this stuff up.

I feel like it all happened just yesterday, but my goodness, it was 50 years ago!

And I still owe a debt to Willis Reed, who showed what determination and a little swagger--even on a bum leg--could do for you, given the circumstances at hand.

What an incredible time that was for New York City and for me.

You can watch the game yourself at https://youtu.be/_4IoO0TkPZg.

I hope that I was able to adequately describe what was happening back then to you, and I am sure many of you have similar stories revolving around that game, and Willis and Clyde and Co.

I will be thinking about that game and my bar mitzvah all weekend.

You have a great one and I will be speaking to you again on Monday.