Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
I was not a good student. I could learn enough by practicing ~ just enough ~ to keep Miss Morrow from complaining to my mother. Perhaps my time with the dog won me mercy. At recitals, I would make a run for the door just as my name was called, then dash down the street and wait for my mother, father, and sister to come out from the recital when it was over. Mom and Dad never chastised me for my stage fright, perhaps because of their satisfaction with Nitsa, who was Miss Morrow's best student and an excellent pianist.
I continued to take lessons until the age of twelve when I became active in the Boy Scouts and the teenage organizations at Bay Ridge's Christ Church. After that, I had no time for lessons but I played popular music from Broadway shows for my own enjoyment. It never occurred to me to play for others. Basketball and other sports seemed to be the way to recognition and success, especially with teenage girls.
Then, one Sunday afternoon, I happened to sit at a piano in a dark corner of a local church. I played some tunes softly while waiting for friends to finish their participation in a meeting. As I played, a girl peeked through the door and walked quietly to the piano. Within minutes there were four or five girls standing around me asking for a song from this or that show. Suddenly I, a total failure on the basketball court, was a complete success with these lovely girls. Music became a passion and I started to take lessons again.
I discovered books on one warm spring Friday afternoon. I was walking home along Ridge Boulevard following my piano lesson at Miss Morrow's apartment on Seventy-fifth Street.
As I crossed Seventy-third Street, I noticed a slight, gray-haired woman standing at the entrance to a building I had passed too many times to count. She smiled and beckoned to me to come closer.
"Hello," she said. "Would you like to see the library?"
Intensive training governed my behavior. Extending courtesy to women, especially to older women, was high on the list of the expectations my mother made clear to me at a very early age. So, I walked to the bottom of the steps leading to the door of the building, and at her silent urging climbed the steps and entered. As I passed through the door I saw a large counter immediately in front of me. The floors were of two-inch-wide wood strips, grayed by age and wear. To my left and right there were rooms filled with row after row of bookshelves. To the right of the counter, stairs lead to a second floor.
The woman guided me up the stairs to a large room. It included a small section with low shelves filled with books, and furnished with low tables and short chairs. A larger section of the second floor contained normally sized tables and chairs, tall bookshelves, a counter, and a desk. Books on music and art were in this larger section.
"Do you like adventure stories?" she asked. "Look at these books," she said pointing to a bookcase with three or four low shelves. "Pick a book and bring it to the desk." She sat behind the desk and busied herself with books and papers.
I watched other children taking books from shelves, browsing through the pages, and returning them to their place. I did the same and came upon a book with a blue jacket. On its cover was a drawing of a huge, four-engine bomber pursued by fighter planes. The title was, Stratosphere Jim and his Flying Fortress. I opened the book and read the first page; it was a story.(4)
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