The Police Gazette

When I was in elementary school I was not much on paying attention in class. I had all sorts of distractions at my disposal. The window by my desk offered a full view of Wm. Kelly Park in Brooklyn, and though it was empty during the school day, the subway tracks ran alongside of the park, with trains passing every few minutes. I used to watch those trains and daydream about the people on them, and where they were headed.

But, by far, my favorite distraction were the many books and magazines I smuggled into the classroom. My two favored literary choices in 5th grade were the latest Mickey Spillane novels my Dad used to read, as well as the Police Gazette.

While the former had all the suspense of a good murder mystery, along with a voluptuous secretary named Velda, the Police Gazette had all the lurid details of whatever horrifying crimes were making the current rounds. In addition to this attraction were the many "true" crime stories from New York City's past. I always preferred the ones from the turn of the Century. Being removed from the events by several decades made them seem less horrid, and more like entertainment.

So, I would fold the Gazette up, as best as I could within my loose-leaf book, and be transported to places far from the boredom of the classroom. It was a good system, at least for a while.

I had already been admonished by my teachers, and parents, about Mickey Spillane being inappropriate for a 5th grader, but the Gazette, well that was news, or at least current events in my opinion, and so it was fair game to read that in lieu of paying attention during "Social Studies". To me they were about the same. But not everyone agreed with my 11 year old thoughts on the matter.

The whole thing came to a head one day after recess. I had carefully folded my Gazette into my book and placed it in my desk, a two person affair with a space beneath the writing surface for storing books and pencils. Then I went to recess, with little idea of the betrayal which awaited my return.

As I re-entered the classroom that morning, something didn't feel quite right. Mrs. Denslow was looking at me with that sly, slightly amused look she always had when dealing with recalcitrant little boys such as I. But wait! As I passed by her I spied a copy of the Police Gazette on her desk! Could it be true? Mrs. Denslow, she of the halo braided hairdo, read the Gazette just as I did? I had always thought of the Gazette as a "man's" magazine, indeed I had first taken up reading it in the barbershop, where it lay alongside of Playboy and Esquire.

I gave Mrs. Denslow a knowing look, as if we shared some great secret between us. Summoning me to her desk she asked if I knew what the Gazette was. I happily replied that I did indeed, and I had the very same issue in my desk. I also added that I was very happy that we shared the same taste in reading material. That's when it hit me! Someone, most likely my desk mate, a refined young lady, had turned me in while I was at recess.

Mrs. Denslow explained to me that I was in class to learn, not in a tonsorial parlor, and as such, the Gazette was not really proper for me to be reading. She would have to call my father about this. We had already been through the Mickey Spillane episode, and I guess that she thought the issue of appropriate reading material had been duly addressed. My father was summoned to school for a meeting with Mrs. Denslow .

The next morning, about a half an hour before school began, my father and I met with Mrs. Denslow in my deserted 5th grade classroom. There is nothing more threatening to an 11 year old than being in the classroom alone with your father and your teacher. No good can possibly come of it.

Mrs. Denslow got right down to the issue, informing my Dad of my transgression, and reminding him of our previous encounter concerning Mickey Spillane. She was of the opinion that I should not be reading either those books, or the Gazette. My father agreed that these were not appropriate for class, but drew the line at her "suggestion" that I not read the Gazette in the barbershop. In his considered view, "What went on in the barbershop" was sacrosanct, and that included the Gazette.

I'm thinking about this episode now because I am just finishing the last Chapter of a book which recalls every lurid article I ever read in the Police Gazette. Like those stories, this one takes place in New York City, at about the turn of the century. Now, Mrs. Denslow was my favorite teacher in elementary school, and she may have been right about the choices I made concerning reading Mickey Spillane at such a young age. But, after all these years, I still have to disagree on the Gazette. Through its pages I developed a love of New York City and its criminal history. And that fascination has remained with me to this very day.

"The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry

O. Henry, along with the likes of Mark Twain, marked a new type of journalist; ones who became serious writers; a tradition which has continued to the present day. With such luminaries from Mark Twain on through to Jimmy Breslin and Norman Mailer, journalists have become, increasingly, some of the leading writers of their times. O.Henry was no exception. With his incredible feel for irony, and knowledge of human behavior, he wrote of the daily struggles which faced the generation of his time. Jim and Della are emblematic of that struggle, and the love for one another which enabled them to make it through the rough times. The irony in the story is apparent, as well as their love for one another. The illustration I have posted here is the "Adoration of the Magi" by the Italian Artist, Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510). This is a perfect Christmas story, which I have enjoyed for many years, thanks once again, to a grammar school teacher who really had a heart, and made a difference. Mrs. Denslow, this one's for you.

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

"Spooky Hooky" with the Little Rascals (1936)

When Spanky has Porky put an absence note on the teacher’s desk at the end of the school day, so that they can go to the circus the next day, they have no idea that their teacher has made plans to take the class there as a surprise.

With the school locked for the night, the boys must brave the dark to retrieve the phony note.  With a dark and fierce storm raging; at least it seemed that way to me when I watched it as a kid; the boys enter the building, waking the janitor, and scaring him half to death before doing the same to themselves. The scene with the skeleton really caught my attention at age 6.

Naturally, the boys are outwitted by their common enemy; adults; and when they catch cold due to their exploits they cannot attend the circus the next day due to the very real colds they once strove so hard to pretend they had. As for the stereotyping in these films; I've said it before, and I’ll repeat it now; the common enemy of the gang were the adults.

The characters were all stereotyped to one degree or another. There was the arch typical bully, the good girl, the fat kid, the black kid, the little kid, the maiden teacher; hell, even the dog was stereotyped. So, forget the political correctness for about 6 minutes and enjoy the film for what it was meant to be. And whatever you do, don’t listen to Spanky. He’s always getting the gang into trouble!

Shelton High - The School That Tried to Kill Love.

I suppose that by now you have all heard about Shelton High School in Connecticut, where a senior named James Tate asked fellow student Sonali Rodriguez, if she would attend the prom with him in June. The good news is that she said yes, but the sad news is that Shelton High School is not allowing the young Mr. Tate to attend the event, citing his violation of school policy in the way in which he asked Ms. Rodriguez to attend the prom.

If you haven't heard the story, then briefly, this is it. In the dark od night, Mr. Tate, along with 2 friends and a 12 foot ladder, posted 12 foot high letters over the entrance to the school, spelling out "Sonali Rodriguez Will you go to the prom with me? HMU Tate." The HMU, I'm informed, means "hit me up." The letters were easily removed, with no damage to the building, or any students.

I called Shelton High today, hoping to speak with someone about this issue. It seems so heavy handed a response to young love. After making 4 separate calls to the school I was unable to reach a single live human being, Security included! This prompted me to google about a bit, to se what I might learn about Shelton High School.

What I have come up with is a question. Why did Shelton High School allow a teacher to resign, without penalty, after a report of "inappropriate contact" with a student this past March? And then why, a mere 8 weeks later, are they so eager to summarily dismiss young Mr. Tate from the prom, a young man with no prior history of disruption, for this minor infraction?

Below is the story of the earlier incident involving a teacher in march. Read it, and then decide for yourself if the lack of punishment concerning the teacher, is in proportion to the punishment meted out to the young Mr. Tate. As a matter of fact, one might infer, from the lack of discipline concerning the teacher for such a serious offense, that anything else is permissable.

Here is the phone number to Shelto High School, for those who wish to weigh in on both of these issues. (203) 922-3004.

Shelton High announced yesterday that they were sticking by their guns on this, in spite of public pressure from around the world, as well as local politicians, who have even introduced a bill in the legislature concerning this isue. Read the article below, and then decide for yourself if Shelton High Schools real problems dwarf the 12 foot high letters posted by young Mr. Tate.

From the New Haven Register, March 24th, 2011;

SHELTON — A Shelton High School teacher who is the subject of a police investigation has resigned, the school district’s human resources department confirmed Thursday.

“We have had a resignation and it is being treated as a police matter,” said Jim Brant, director of human resources for the district.

Police on Wednesday issued a statement indicating that they are investigating a complaint from the school system regarding a high school teacher.

The complaint involves alleged “inappropriate conduct,” according to police, who said no charges have been filed. Police received the complaint this past weekend, after school officials received information from outside sources about the conduct of a male high school teacher.

The alleged misconduct involved students, police said. Police are not releasing the name of the teacher.

"A Tribute to Dr. Hovick" by Sarah Ruth Hoffman

Each of us can have either a positive,or negative effect, upon one another. It's up to you. The following tribute to Dr. Hovick, a Chemistry Pofessor at UNCC,proves the point. I am so proud that Sue and I have raised a daughter who would bother to write this, that I just had to share it. Thanks, Sarah, so much for being you...

"I took all of my general chemistry courses at UNC Charlotte in the summer of 2007. I had two professors, each for half of the summer. They used to say "Inch by inch, chemistry's a cinch. Yard, by yard, it's hard." They were correct.

My first chemistry professor was Dr. Hovick. He always wore a dirty, long white lab coat and shorts.

I had never taken a chemistry class in my entire life and had no idea what to expect. On our first or second day, he showed us a black and white picture of a dalmatian in the snow shade. He told us to look at the picture and figure out what it was supposed to be. None of us could see the dalmatian. Once he pointed it out to us we couldn't unsee it. He then told us that learning chemistry is like finding the dalmatian in the snow - and that his job was to describe to us what we were looking for to help us see what he can already see.

He told us that history, art, biology, sociology, chemistry and all other disciplines are just different ways of looking at the same world, and that the "BIG picture is the assembly of all these points of view." I know because I still have my notes!

He did everything he possibly could to teach chemistry to anybody who would listen. He spent a considerable amount of time empowering us, telling us not to give up, and that chemistry IS hard and not to feel bad for not getting it right away. He would bend over backwards to get his students to understand what he was teaching. He answered the same questions over and over again, but using different methods every time until each of us understood. And he never once showed any sign of anger or frustration. He wouldn't go home until he knew that we all understood the day's lesson!

To help us understand molecular geometry, he took us outside to a black walnut tree where we observed the clustering patterns of the fruit.

I remember how he would gladly discuss ethical implications of course material and tell stories to help us put concepts into perspective. When he wasn't teaching he was answering questions and talking to students about chemistry and related topics. He didn't hide in his office like so many professors do. He even came to school on Sundays to review material and help us prepare for exams.

That was in May and June of 2007. I just found out today that he passed away unexpectedly 4 months later. He was only 42.

The most important thing I learned that summer is that every student stands on the shoulders of the great minds that came before. Dr. Hovick was one of those great minds. It was a privilege to be one of his students during his final complete semester.

His lab coat now hangs in a lecture hall named after him."

Sarah Ruth Hoffman