Flurries sent me to the shelter of the viaduct on Avenue Z. I wasn't happy about it until my buddy, actor-singer Johnny Feets, showed. He gave me a lift I so needed in this long winter. He and two of his buddies recently filmed a half-hour play for a cable access channel. It will air in March. He spotted the DVD of what may be the worst movie ever made: Charley Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen, starring Peter Ustinov as the famous detective, and an all-star cast, including Michelle Pfeiffer in one of her earliest roles. Anyone associated with this turkey was lucky to ever again find work. Feets scooped it up and hustled off to his modeling gig at Kingsborough Community College. Thanks, my friend. And thanks to the nice lady who purchased Anne Tyler's Ladder of Years and Joy Fielding's Grand Avenue. I also got a mail order for Adjustments from my buddy Howie, who was a year behind me at Lafayette High School. He went to college in Kansas and has remained out there as a businessman. He graduated in 1968. In those days half the team was Jewish. By the time I was assisting the program as a coach in the mid 70's, there were very few Jews in the school, let alone on the team. When John Dewey and its progressive program opened just down the road in 1970, we suffered a terrible brain drain. Lafayette was never the same. It was in the top five academically in NYC at least one of the years during my stay, no thanks to me, of course. Soon it was plagued by racial violence and indifference to education. One year it ranked first in violent incidents. It was threatened with closure but has rebounded somewhat. Of course, the makeup of the school is entirely different than what we knew. Things change.
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