After More Than 25 Years, I’m Withdrawing My Support from the Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association. Here’s Why.

An Open Letter to Stuyvesant Alumni

Today is Giving Tuesday, and in recognition I am making annual donations to many of the non-profit organizations that I support. The Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association (SHSAA) has long been one of these organizations, but in 2017, for the first time in more than a quarter century, it is not. This year I am withholding all monetary support from SHSAA and instead supporting Stuyvesant by donating to the Stuyvesant High School Parents’ Association. I’m also encouraging my fellow Stuyvesant Alumni to do likewise.

I consider myself beyond fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend Stuyvesant High School. I grew up in a middle-class Brooklyn home, the child of a public school teacher and a salesman. Thanks to Stuyvesant, I was able to avail myself of one of the best possible high school educations. Of the many things I learned in my three years there, perhaps the most meaningful is that I should seize any opportunity to surround myself with the brightest, most passionate people I can find. Nearly every great thing that has happened to me since is due to a combination of good luck and the application of this lesson.

I’ve long looked for ways to repay my debt of gratitude to Stuyvesant, and because I’ve lived far from New York for most of my adult life, charitable giving has been the most effective way for me to do this. Twenty years ago, this led to me to get involved with an effort to establish an endowment for Stuyvesant, called the Campaign for Stuyvesant (CFS). I pledged a contribution that was the largest I had ever given to a charitable organization, and arranged for an even larger charitable bequest. Significantly, as it turns out, I did little due diligence.

Several years later, when I learned of the acrimony between CFS and Stuyvesant’s administration, I started asking questions. Unhappy with the answers I received, I pulled out of CFS before completely fulfilling my pledge. At the time, I made it clear that while I was departing that effort, I would happily jump back in when all of the organizations representing Stuyvesant and its alumni were working together.

So I was thrilled when, a few years ago and more than a decade after I withdrew from CFS, I started hearing talk that the multiple charitable organizations purporting to represent the Stuyvesant community would be coming together under the auspices of the long-standing Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association. I hoped that this unified organization would both serve the alumni community and provide a means for alumni to give back to Stuyvesant, including a renewed endowment effort.

This time, however, I asked questions first, and what I learned troubled and angered me. Lack of transparency about the terms of the merger and the governance model of the unified organization. Lack of clarity about the organization’s finances, both fundraising and expenses. And when other alumni, some of whom had decades-long track records of working on behalf of the Stuyvesant community, including serving on the SHSAA board, pressed SHSAA leadership for more disclosure and accountability, they were treated with hostility and contempt.

The most frustrating part is that this could all have been resolved easily if SHSAA leadership had answered some relatively simple questions, been more transparent regarding its changes and financial operations, made some modest, reasonable improvements to its governance model, and committed to meaningful, ongoing communication with the alumni community regarding these efforts. Instead, they chose to stonewall, and to attack the motives and integrity of anyone who attempted to challenge them. This shabby treatment of alumni continues to this day, as recently more than a few Stuyvesant alumni have been banned from SHSAA’s Facebook group for attempting to raise these issues and hold SHSAA leadership accountable among the community regarding its policies and practices.

You might hear from the current leadership of SHSAA that it is within their rights to run the organization as they see fit, and that they are following the best practices of other (mostly university-level) school alumni organizations. This is both questionable and beside the point. From what I’ve observed, SHSAA is an unresponsive organization that is not effectively serving the interests of Stuyvesant High School and its alumni community. In its present form, it is not an organization with which I want to be affiliated.

This is why I’ve joined a group of alumni, gathering virtually under the name Concerned Stuyvesant Alumni, that is calling for all Stuyvesant alumni to withdraw their support from SHSAA and find ways of supporting the school and the alumni community that do not involve SHSAA. This is a painful and regrettable step, but until SHSAA implements meaningful reforms, it is a necessary one.

I remain hopeful that one day SHSAA will live up to its promise and become an organization we can support enthusiastically and without reservations. As proud Stuyvesant alumni, we deserve nothing less.

Sincerely,
Daniel Glasser
Stuyvesant High School Class of 1981

Apropos of Nothing: An Appreciation

Excerpted from “Itzik & Mickey: Stories from Brooklyn and Beyond“, published 2014 by Off the Common Books.

I was well into my teens when I discovered my father’s hidden past. One evening, in the basement of our Brooklyn home, my father and my older brother opened a box of aging papers marked “PERETZ FAMILY CIRCLE” and began to read aloud. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, my father had been the author of a newsletter about and for his extended family’s regular gatherings, at that time mostly first-generation Jewish immigrants in their forties and fifties and their children. I don’t remember many specifics of the stories – just some digs about an older relative’s poor personal hygiene – but I do remember literally rolling on the floor laughing so hard that my jaw ached.

In the late 1940s my father was in his early twenties, a high school graduate (barely), and a veteran of World War II. He had yet to meet the woman who would become his wife of forty years, my mother. And he was trying to make a go as a comedy writer. Humor was for him a salve against the sadness, tedium, and low-grade insanity of ordinary life; it was also something of a calling. He used to tell a story about when he was in the army and won second prize in a talent show for his act, telling jokes. First prize, he said, had been won by a man who simply walked across the stage dressed in drag. Eventually, as my father’s life became filled with the milestones of adulthood – marriage, children, a hard-earned college degree, a fitful career, home ownership – his dreams of being a professional comedian and writer were packed away like so many typewritten pages in a box. But he never stopped telling stories and trying to make people laugh.

His impish wit occasionally got him into trouble. One of many examples – and my personal favorite – concerned a time when he worked in a record store. [Attention: If you are below the age of thirty, ask your parents what a “record store” was.] A customer came into the store and asked for a copy of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. My father cracked wise, “Do you want Ludwig van Beethoven or Harold Beethoven?,” expecting a chuckle in response. The customer’s face turned pale. “I don’t know,” he said, “I’m getting it as a gift for a friend, and he didn’t specify.” My father thought for a moment and replied, “I’ll tell you what. Most people prefer the Ludwig van Beethoven. Why don’t you take that, and if it turns out it’s the wrong Beethoven, you can bring it back and I’ll exchange it.” The customer pointed to a sign on the wall, “It says, ‘Absolutely No Returns or Exchanges.’” My father said, “Don’t worry, I’ll remember you, and in this case I’ll make an exception.”

As children, my brother, sister, and I loved listening to our father’s stories and improvisations, mostly because they made us laugh. We inherited and shared his love of The Marx Brothers, early stand-up comedians like Bill Cosby, and later, the television show Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Through all of this, we absorbed his philosophy that nothing in life should be taken too seriously and that any disappointment or failure would eventually be eased by mining it for its humor.

“Apropos of nothing.” This was often how my father started telling a story. Partly a verbal throat clearing, partly a call to attention, it signaled that we were about to hear about the world from his own, slightly twisted point of view. As he got older and his family nest emptied, he rediscovered writing and storytelling, this time with the benefit of a more mature and bittersweet perspective. He told his stories at numerous family simchas – celebrations – and the reconstituted Peretz Family Circle reunions, introducing younger generations to the then-mostly gone first generation and reminding the then-aging second generation of their youthful misdeeds. “The good old days – they were terrible,” he liked to remark. His growing body of work was cut short by his untimely death twenty years ago.

One of our last in-person conversations occurred on the weekend of my thirtieth birthday. My father showed me the draft of a story he had written for the occasion. It was about an accident I’d had when I was three years old, an accident for which he had always felt responsible but that I had long ago put in the past. I read the story as if he wanted editorial feedback and responded as such; it quickly became apparent that he had written the story as a birthday gift and as an apology. I had become enough of an adult to appreciate that my father’s stories were for him equal parts legacy and therapy.

My father didn’t live to see his grandchildren, to attend all of his children’s weddings, or to share his retirement with my mother. He didn’t get his long-sought little convertible with (of course) a stick shift. He never got to blog, to tweet, or to see his stories published. I have an audio recording of my father reading his story “Chocolate Pudding”; it’s one of the very few times my children have heard the sound of his voice. I hope this book brings them closer to their grandfather, his family, and his life.

Daniel “39 Arrests Without A Conviction” Glasser
August 2014

Love Connection, Jerusalem Style

Every night last week, young couples were scattered around the lobby of my hotel, engrossed in conversations. Their fashion choices were remarkably consistent. Her: Ankle-length skirt and a fashionable but loose-fitting sweater with the neckline at the, well, neck, her own long hair visible and usually tied back in a ponytail. Him: Black suit, white shirt, tie optional, large black fedora resting upside down on the coffee table or armchair separating them. Words were exchanged softly in Hebrew and/or English, body language betraying the seriousness of purpose. Not a hint of physical contact between them.

On the first night I thought the collection of couples was just a coincidence, but by the second or third night it was clear that this was some form of high stakes, Haredi speed dating. Most likely arranged by families, probably with professional assistance and guidance. It is as hard to fathom that this unprepossessing hotel lobby houses dozens of these weighty conversations every week as it is to imagine choosing a lifelong partner based on one of them. If a gray-bearded Chuck Woolery was there, waiting in the wings to debrief, I did not see him.

Spending Time with One’s Family: A New Twist

It’s a cliche when someone announces leaving a job in order to spend more time with his or her family.  Today I heard about someone who did that and, after a year, is now overwhelmed with family-oriented volunteer activities and needs to pull back from them.  So the question is, how do you spend more time with your family when you’re already spending more time with your family?

Another Sign that You’re Getting Old

When the father of the American Idol winner is younger than you.  Five years younger.

The truth about pepper & POTTER

An article in today’s New York Times talks about the old PEPPER & POTTER sign in Brooklyn near the base of the Manhattan Bridge: A Car Dealership Defined by Big Dreams and Bigger Letters.

My aunt and uncle have lived a couple of blocks away from that sign for more than 35 years and when we were kids we would frequently pass it on the way home from visiting them.  We’d whisper "Pepper" and scream "Potter".  It’s funny to finally learn the story behind what we always considered to be a private family joke.

Re-mounting Helen

The permits are ordered.  We’re climbing Mount St. Helens in September.

 

This trip is a reprise of a climb we did back in ’97, as well as another one in 2002 which I foolishly bailed on.  This time The International Playboy plans to join us.

 

Mount Rainier may be more challenging to climb and generally more majestic, but I’ve always found St. Helens more interesting.  It’s like choosing the great ethnic restaurant over the premium steakhouse.

 

Training?  So far, mostly the treadmill, plus one practice hike up Mt. Si.  If time permits I’ll do another Mt. Si practice hike in August.

Bookends

Last Saturday I got my full share of religious commemorations of life events.  The day started with Sabbath morning services in commemoration of my father’s Yahrzeit and ended with a Catholic baptism at which I served as the godfather. 

 

It appears that despite the latter ceremony I have not gained the ability to send people to the mattresses.

Types of Vacations

It has occurred to me that there are three types of vacations:

1. No phone, no computer
2. Phone, no computer
3. Phone, access to someone else’s computer

Anything where I bring along a computer is just a trip.

Signs of Aging

I bought one of these yesterday, which means A) I’m taking too many pills and B) I need help remembering which ones I took when.