My Rockaway Grade School Days
Topped Them All, Hands Down

By Ira Ellenthal

email: iellenthal@gmail.com

Six decades later, I look back on my elementary school days at P.S. 106 in Edgemere with something resembling awe because, well, I felt kingly.

In the seventh and eighth grades, 1950 and 1951, I ran a taxi service of sorts that burnished my image and enhanced my popularity.

Using my much-traveled black Schwinn, a hand-me-down from my brother, I used to pick up my sister,10 years my senior and recently-married, at the corner of Beach 27th Street and Edgemere Avenue and give her a lift to school where she taught third-grade.

Imagine her, a respected teacher, riding side-saddle in lady-like fashion, and me, a proud student in the same school, standing tall on the pedals and pushing hard to gain as much speed as possible as we traversed the seven blocks into the schoolyard. Even the dismounting process contained a measure of ceremonial elegance: with a gentle upper-arm squeeze, helping her off in front of the “little building” where her classroom was located, and me guiding the bicycle to the lock-up rack near the “big building.”

The admiring glances of the other kids, especially the younger ones, were impossible to ignore.

Oh, the headiness of it all, at 12 and 13 experiencing eternal moments that some never encounter during a lifetime.

Not that my popularity needed embellishment.

Early on, I was a good athlete, extracting the most out of limited physical assets, and I was also highly regarded by my teachers and classmates; in fact, I was far more likable than I was at any point later on in what has been mostly a very good life. Plus, I basked in the reflected glory of having a brother who was fighting valiantly with the Marine Corps in Korea.

Without effort, I also managed to be elected class president every term until eighth grade when, after discovering that the role would require me to run a guidance counseling session on Fridays, something I wanted no part of, I fixed the election by convincing a few friends to vote against me. For the first time, perennial runner-up Susan Genzburg finally made it to the top and I settled into the do-nothing role of vice president. Promise me this: Susan must never know.

For everyone else, graduation was a thrill; for me, the proverbial big fish in the little pool, an unwanted ending that practically assured a difficult transition to the high school experience. And, truthfully, it was, and not until college did I begin mounting a comeback.