MY GREATEST LESSON ON HATE

I grew up in a relatively "Jewish" neighborhood in the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  It wasn't a "Jewish" area per say, as the mainstay for Jews looking for kinder ground is Squirrel Hill, one of the largest Jewish communities in the country, boasting a record number of synagogues per square mile in the United States.  My neighborhood was wedged into a little area just north of Turtle Creek, just east of Penn Hills and a relatively nice area called Churchill, and west of Monroeville.  It had a Penn Hills zip code, a Pittsburgh area code, and yet was often referred to as Wilkins Township/Eastmont. 

My house as it looks today - trim those hedges already!

There were no fences between houses and yards, such that you could run the entire length of the neighborhood, up and down the hills, behind all the two story contemporary houses.  Our little cul-de-sac area of Eastmont was called Crestmont, a development of upper middle class houses tucked below an area of middle to lower middle class tracts to our north.  Jews had settled into this area, and for the most part, they numbered about two of every three houses in our three street area.  Thus, I grew up with a lot of Jewish kids in my neighborhood.  It was quite sheltered for the most part, and the Jewish kids hung out a lot together, playing basketball, or baseball as part of the EBA (Eastmont Baseball Association) and as part of Churchill Soccer.

One of my best friends grew up just two streets down from me.  He was nearly two years older than me because he was born in January of 1969 and I was born in July of 1970.  Nevertheless, because our parents knew each other quite well, we ended being part of the same group.  Dan was short but confident. Whatever he lost in height he gained in attitude.  He had dark short hair, yet still had freckles, and with his rounded head looked not unlike a Peanuts character if Charles Schultz had drawn upon some eastern European descent for Charlie Brown's features.  Dan never backed away from anyone and was always a good athlete, despite his size.  He had a sharp tongue, and was known for beating people down with his words, and then rubbing their faces in it when he showed them up in basketball.  In fact, for awhile, he was the best athlete and would challenge anyone to prove otherwise.  This probably came from the fact he had two older brothers.

There is a story of legend, which I witnessed, in which he invited a guy four years older than himself to his house for a shooting contest.  Dan must have been fifteen or sixteen and this guy was twenty.  The challenger could pick the spot on the court and I think they had five shots.  His challenger, known to be a good shooter, made two of five.  Dan intentionally rolled his first two opportunities to the hoop, then sunk the next three.  Needless to say, this guy walked away with his tail tucked between his legs.  That was Dan.

He was the first person I knew who went to a private Jewish school in the city, Hillel Academy.  Pittsburgh was no different than the rest of the country in that it suffered the deterioration of its public schooling. His parents were more religious than mine, and the only way to get a true Jewish education was to head into town, so Dan attended Hillel Academy for a good part of elementary and all of middle school.  In turn, this lead to his willingness to be seen as a Jew.  He would wear a yarmulke (skull cap) and even wearing tallith and tzit-tzit (knotted prayer garment) under his normal school clothes every single day. His family kept Kosher and on Shabbat he went to synagogue without fail every Saturday morning, walking to and from the local temple.  They practiced the Sabbath fully, refusing to turn on lights, to drive, to cook, or do anything but rest, and Dan would often take naps after lunch for a few hours.

In 1981, Pittsburgh was a beautiful place to live (it still is), but wasn't the most enlightened city.  It was a blue collar town of the declining steel industry merging with the emerging white collar businesses of banking, and because of its roots people had settled in like groups. In 1981, Eastmont Elementary school folded as part of merger went through that desegregated our school system and sent kids all over the city until one large high school, now Woodland Hills High School, could facilitate all the children from the different areas in the eastern suburbs.  My parents joined in sending me to a Jewish day school in the city, but to a more conservative program than Hillel Academy.  It was quaint, small and solid in terms of education.  What it lacked for in social life could be made up for in youth groups and the like, not that I was one to join by myself.

By 1983, Dan's parents decided to run with the new school system, and sent Dan to Turtle Creek High School.  Turtle Creek lay to our south, and was primarily a very poor area.  The high school had been remodeled somewhat and was actually in good shape as a temporary home until the completion of Woodland Hills High School.  My Jewish school had no high school, and as soon as I completed eighth grade, my parents faced a conundrum, that of accepting the horror stories that parents were telling about the new merger, kids beating up other kids, not enough staff or planning, etc. and sending me to join Dan at Turtle Creek, or staying private.  I stayed private, going to Central Catholic in the city, and surprisingly found that as Jewish teen I experienced little tension there because I wasn't a Christian.

Dan's House (you can see the hoop still exists)

As my neighborhood group became teenagers, Saturdays became the day we all played basketball at Dan's house.  His driveway was a good size and made for perfect two-on-two or three-on-three match-ups.  Games would begin after lunch, particularly during the summer, and continue until dinner time and sometimes go on after that.  Big kids, small kids, everyone in the neighborhood knew that on Hawthorne Drive, it was a given that there would be a basketball game you could join.  All you had to do was come.

The Neighborhood (you can see Eastmont Park at the top)

Dan never spoke much about his high school experience.  In fact, he spoke little about anything that wasn't sports related.  That's just who he was.  However, pretty soon, some of the guys I had grown up playing baseball with in the EBA started showing up Saturday afternoons to join in our little games.  Guys like Sean (awesome pitcher), Randy (I knew his little brother, though he never once came over to play when we were little despite several invitations), Glenn (his father scared the pants off of me - he had been both a coach and umpire in the EBA, and the first game I ever played he threw some parent who was mouthing off out of the game).  There were also Carlos and Carl, two twins who had been on my baseball team, both pretty good athletes, both really nice guys.


No one cared who played, especially if the games were more competitive.  Even the less religious Jewish guys from Squirrel Hill occasionally came out to the suburbs, now that they could drive, to play basketball on Saturdays. Most of us became friends, or at least friendlier.  Somewhere in the middle of this Glenn stopped coming and Randy's appearances became less and less.  No one knew why.  We all just figured they couldn't make it because of other commitments.

It was only years later, probably at the point we were both in college, that Dan mentioned to me how horribly he had been teased on the bus to Turtle Creek High School because he was Jewish.  People had thrown pennies at him, called him Jew-Boy, and generally treated him as a leper.  I mentioned Dan wasn't a big kid by any means, so I suppose while he considered fighting, he probably figured that wasn't going to get him anywhere.  He did stand up for himself though.

In the end, Dan decided to invite those bigots over to his house to play basketball.  I don't know if he challenged them personally as would be Dan's forte, giving them a tongue-lashing and daring them to try to beat him in hoops.  Maybe he just extended an invite.  Either way, these kids, Sean, Glenn, Randy and probably some others, all came.  These same guys joined our game, and Dan, wisely so, never told us one thing they had done to him.  Had we known, we would have told them all to go to hell.  At best, we'd have refused to play with them, and worst, maybe it would have even become a brawl.

Dan was wiser than us all.  He already understood this.  Hate is easy to facilitate with more hatred.  People who hate are used to that equal response - it's what they are familiar with.  What hate doesn't understand is kindness.  Hate cannot find a home in acceptance. 

Sadly, in the end, Glenn's family wouldn't let him come play regularly.  Not sure Randy's would either, but for me, it became clear the reason his brother Eric and I never became closer friends.  You can't change everyone.  For Sean, who would continue to play and become just one of the guys, and even go out with Dan's sister for a bit, things definitely changed.  I look back now and hold him in very high regard.  It takes a certain bravery to be willing to see things differently.  We were all better for it.

Dan still remains one of my best friends, and my only close friend from the neighborhood.  He's still a huge sports fan, still has as sharp of a tongue as ever, and still talks trash about basketball.  It's not so surprising that he now teaches and does research at a top University near Washington D.C.

For me, he was already a teacher back when I was a teenager, and it's a lesson I have never forgotten.