I don't remember my bris but I was told that there was quite a fight between the two sides of the family on what name I should be given. My mother wanted I should be named after her father, Moshe Chaim. My father wanted that I should be named Moshe, after his grandfather. It is too bad that this wasn't resolved in advance. It was a portend of things to come or perhaps it was a reflection of the relationship that already existed between the families. Hey, don't go blaming me, I was only eight days old.

I have only fragments of memories of my earliest years:

Standing on tippy toes to look over the window sill to see the trolley cars go by with their long poles connected to the electrical wires high above the cars (This seems so similar to the way Roni stands at the window to see the school busses lined up at 3pm for the kids exiting the school).

Crying when my mother left me in the arms of a nurse as she left the room in the hospital. I was being prepared for a tonsillectomy at about two years of age.

Being upset in a photo studio when I had to sit still in a darkened room to have my picture taken.

Hiding under a table frightened by the noise of my parents yelling at each other.

Walking on Pitkin Avenue with my mother on the way to the cart where my father was selling nuts.

So happy when my father gave me some of the nuts.

Watching the horse and wagons go down the street and seeing the aromatic deposits that the horses left behind.

Running to my mother to complain that one of my playmates had called me a Jew. This was before I started school and I had never heard that word before. We spoke only Yiddish at home but I suppose that I knew enough English to understand that the boy was insulting me.

Sitting in my uncle Joe's car and playing with the steering wheel while he was inside the house talking to my grandmother. Somehow I jammed the horn so that my uncle had to come running out of the house to stop the noise.

Watching him start the car. He had to put a crank handle into the exterior front of the car,  turn it vigorously and run back into the car to start it.

Watching the coal truck deliver coal to the basement via portable metal chutes.

Watching the garbage truck making its daily collection. There were four men for the truck; a driver, two on the sidewalk collecting the pails, and one on top of the garbage in the open truck. The two men on the ground would together lift the heavy pails to the man on the truck and he would add the contents of the pail to the mound that he was standing on.

Wrapping a few pennies in a piece of paper and throwing them out the window to a man playing some music on his violin in the back yard.

And in later Years:

Watching the grocer cut a chunk of butter from a large tub and adding up the bill with a pencil on the brown paper bag into which he packed the groceries.

At school, during recess, buying a knish from the knish man for three cents.

Playing with the record player, a Victorola, that had a hand crank to wind a spring that caused the turntable to rotate. We had only Yiddish and Cantorial records.

Playing cowboys and Indians with black and red checkers. Guess which color was the Indians.

On warm nights falling asleep on the fire escape.

Playing games with the kids on the street;  hide and seek, chase the white horse, kick the oil can baseball.

Lying in bed Shabbos afternoon reciting T'hilim with my grandmother until I fell asleep.

I have very little memory of the relationship between my parents during their brief time together. When I was about three my father, who was separated from my mother, left New York to follow his parents in search of a better economic life. This was around 1931-1932 in the middle of the depression. But I was taught that my father was a bad person, that he had abandoned his son, and that his parents were evil people. I was cautioned to be careful because they might want to kidnap me. I don't know if there was any truth about kidnapping. It doesn't make any sense to me unless there are facts that I was never told. In any case I was fearful for my safety.

My immediate family was loving and never mistreated me physically but they did resort to threats to make me behave. But I didn't behave. I don't remember any specifics but I remember the "Canchik", a whip, that they hung on the wall as I reminder to me of what would happen if I didn't behave. They never used it but it scared me. The one thing that I do remember is my poor attendance record at school. I can only relate that this remained a problem until I graduated from Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin. Try as hard as I can I am not able to put myself into the mind of that young boy (me), and understand what was bothering him

At the age of around seven or eight  I came down with pneumonia and I was hospitalized at Bethel Hospital, today known as Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center. Another traumatic experience for a child. In the 1930's this was a serious illness, I guess it still is, and I was hospitalized for about two or three weeks. I then went to a rehabilitation camp for children. It was my first time away from home for such a long period but I survived. There was schooling part of the day and I learned the multiplication table for seven while I was there.