Dad grew up on his grandparents’ truck farm. It’s a fad now to promote “farm to table”, but in the early twentieth century farms were right in the city. Philip and Johanna Spitzer were born in the old country. They were first cousins. Explains much of the mental idiosyncrasies of my family. They were in an area called Hollis, Jamaica, Long Island. Brooklyn, King’s County, is actually on Long Island.

                I have occasionally enjoyed teasing my friends in Brooklyn by saying they live on Long Island.

“We do not! We live in Brooklyn!”

“Your office is on Long Island, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So what bridge or tunnel do you take to get there?”

“We don’t.”

They still don’t get it. They cannot separate the political and geographical concepts in their mind! The funniest part of the story is where the farm was. While I cannot place it exactly, it could very well be under the runways at JFK airport!

                Dad loved animals. When I was born he had Ceasar, a big husky. One time Caesar was playing with dad and tore open his forehead with his claws. Dad had this unbelievably noticeable spider web of a scar on his forehead. When I was 4 in 1952 Dad bought his own DeSoto checkered cab under the GI bill. So I know where I was when this very vivid memory occurred. I am sitting in the center of the back seat in the cab, Ceasar is stretched across my lap. I’m asking dad about what is going on, what is happening, where we’re going. I remember he and I were having a conversation. Ceasar was being taken to the vet to be euthanized. I know I did not really understand that time because I do not have an emotional dimension to the memory. Only the first of many times I’ve had to say goodbye to a loved one.

                Dad had gone to City College of New York, the same school my intellectual mentor, Lewis Mumford, had attended. I’ll try to write a story about Professor Mumford’s experiences there (Note I call him Professor, NOT Dr. Mumford! That will become clear when I tell his story!) Dad was a very good student with an excellent academic record. He wanted to be a veterinarian. In those days there were very few vet schools and they were regionalized. Cornell was New York state’s. He was rejected. They already had their quota of Jewish students! For many years now friends have refused to believe that the number of Jews admitted to universities was once limited. This past year Standford University admitted and apologized that they had discriminated against Jewish student admission all the way into the 1950’s, ‘60’s, and ‘70’s.

                One of Dad’s CCNY professors suggested that if he went to the New York University School of Agriculture in Cobleskill, NY (see picture…from Brooklyn to THERE???) for two years to add a BS in Animal Husbandry, Cornell would have relent. They didn’t. So he enrolled in the Columbia University Teachers College and got a Master of Science in Science Education. He taught in New York high schools. I cannot imagine the heartbreak he suffered because of it. It was never discussed. but all 3 of his college degrees were on the wall.

  I once asked what he did for two years,

 “I shoveled stalls and bred bulls.”

 I have the yearbook. You know how yearbooks predict the future of classmates? “Leon Spitzer will be the best veterinarian in the state of New York.” I choked up the first time I read that. I truly cannot imagine how that felt to him at the time. After all, he was the Dad who taught us to love animals (Ask my five rescues!).