When I finished my undergrad degree and had no clue what I was going to do, I took some time off and dipped my toe into the teaching pond after a few months. It was fun (didn’t pay much then still kinda doesn’t). My first job was a fill in at a small Catholic elementary school in the Bronx. Our Lady of Mercy, 6th grade class, the annual salary for the position was $6900 per year, of which I received 1/2 since I didn’t start till the second semester. The after tax “take home” was approximately $112 (we did get paid weekly back then)…$112 for a very long day with 6th grade kids on the fringe of the South Bronx….and yet it was fun…

In the fall I was offered a full time position at St. Nicholas of Tolentine HS, also in the Bronx for the massive raise to an annual salary of $7700 per year. The problem was that while I was having fun an toying with doing this as a job for at least a while, my undergrad degree was a BS in Mathematics (I had turned down an offer from the NSA, which financially was a major error, but it was 1974 when they made that offer, I was still wearing my hair (yes I had a lot) long and was completely put off by the secrecy and the vibe at Fort Meade, MD where the NSA was at the time (and maybe still is). I was not certified to be a public school teacher so the parochial/private sector was my only foot into the opening door.

When I accepted the job at Tolentine, I thought it a good idea to work to get certified and a friend from my undergrad days at Manhattan College pointed me to a program he was involved in…the MAT program at Colgate University where you would not only get your Master’s Degree but would also get your NYS Certification for 7-12 Mathematics teaching.

I drove up, met with an incredible gentleman, Ray Howes, and decided to do the program when he told me I could do the residential part in the summers and he would allow me to do a significant part from home, he even offered to come and see me teach at Tolentine, which would satisfy the student teaching part of the certification. [As a gentle rural based man, he was almost terrified when he made his VERY occasional trips to the Bronx during the one semester to observe]

After I was “excessed” at Tolentine since the asst. principal wanted to go back to teaching and I was the last math person in the pool, (she was free, I was costing them $7700 is how it was explained to me) I took a year off from the MAT program [teaching positions were few and far between back then even for Math folks] and did a gut wrenching 18 months on Wall Street as an operations analyst. Finally I was able to get another teaching gig and was able to finish the Colgate program in the subsequent summers (class of ’78).

It’s hard to describe Hamilton, NY if you’ve not been there. It’s a university town in what the urban-suburban folks like me would refer to as the middle of nowhere. Yet is it incredibly placid, and unbelievably beautiful. I was young, before children, and enjoyed playing golf and their course at Seven Oaks was (and is) spectacular. As an student the cost was $5 per round and I played a lot while there during the summers I was there.

I met some folks who I am still friends with today and zoom ahead to 1981 when I started in Greenwich, one of those folks, also a Colgate alum (both undergrad and MAT) was teaching in Greenwich also and had been there for 3 years prior. He and I played racquetball and shared more than a few beers (Utica Club, Labatt’s from Canada, .50 Heineken night at Hickey’s) while there and I was delighted to reconnect. He also loves golf and we played frequently in the summers while also teaching summer school in Greenwich to supplement the income since we both had young families.

Life sometimes provides a serious intermission in things and we went different ways for about 20 years, reconnecting seriously in 2004 when he convinced me to take a position in the district he was now working in (and was about to become the dept. chair). THAT is a story for another time….but what it did was reconnect us on the golf trips. A few years in he suggested we take a trip up to Seven Oaks…and we did. It was as pleasant an experience as I remembered (memories sometimes do not equate to reality but this did) and that became an annual one day 10 hour round trip up for a round of golf and lots of conversation in the car.

In the past couple of years, we have turned it into an overnight trip with the goal of getting 3 rounds in (yes, even last year during the Covid summer lull we managed to do that)

We just did it the other day, and it was as wonderful and peaceful as I remembered. I have been having a very tough time processing retirement and the upheaval that will happen with the selling of the house and the move to South Carolina (gotta read some earlier recent posts and it will fill you in on that) THIS was just what the doctor would have prescribed…I played really well, we had a great time, lots of laughs, a few beers, (me a couple of martinis) and met as we were sitting a the bar after dinner, a relative of Charles Adams (yup THAT Charles Adams) and she told us that she and her husband had, two years earlier, bought the house the Charles owned in, of all places, Hamilton, NY and used as the inspiration for the Addams family house in his drawings (and subsequent TV show)

This is the house today that she and her husband invited us to swing by to see (that story alone of how they came to purchase it would make this writing far longer than it even is now)

I am now back home and feel sooo much more at ease with the coming events. Hamilton, NY, Colgate University and Seven Oaks Golf Club will all always have a special place in my heart, I hope to keep this annual tradition going even from SC….Some places are just magic. This is one…

I’ll close with a pix of the scorecard of the round yesterday morning….something I’m very proud of.