1957
March
1 Continuing a long tradition of AEW Aircraft development by Grumman, ranging from the Avenger and Guardian to the Hawkeye, the WF-2 Tracer was designed to replace the aging Guardians and Skyraiders providing AEW coverage for US Navy aircraft carriers. The Tracer was developed from the S-2 Tracker anti-submarine warfare aircraft and first flew on March 1, 1957. The fitting of a large radar dome to the Tracer entailed significant modification from the standard ASW Tracker including the removal of the large single tail fin and replacing it with two end-plate fins on the tailplane.
The radar fitted to the Tracer was the new AN/APS-82 manufactured by Hazeltine, original builders of the AN/APS-20 which was the first AEW radar ever used. The AN/APS-82 introduced many technological advances including stabilized antenna and Airborne Moving Target Indicator (AMTI) which allowed the radar to detect low flying targets against the clutter of radar reflections from the surface of the ocean. 88 WF-2 and E-1B Tracers were built by Grumman for the US Navy with operations extending from 1958 to 1977 when the E-2 Hawkeye completely replaced the aircraft in service.
May
5 The chassidim of Kfar Chabad have fulfilled their Rebbe's request. Without the aid of philanthropists or foundations, they have raised 50,000 Israeli pounds, and today, one year after the tragedy, the new building of the vocational school is completed.
Tomorrow, as the citizens of Israel celebrate their eighth Independence Day, the chassidim of Kfar Chabad will hold a farbrengen and relate, again and again, the story of the three-word telegram that saved the village: Behemshech habinyan tinacheimu. By your continued building you will be comforted.
June
Bob completes fifth grade.
David completes seventh grade at Herricks Junior High School.
12 David’s thirteenth birthday.
Miriam finally has to explain to David that his Jewish friend in the scout troop at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, the other Jewish kids he knows, the Jewish family across the street, and other Jewish families on his block still practice the religion Jews practiced when the Christian Testament was written. Then she has to explain why no one told him this and why the Episcopal Rector, Henry Kupsch, who was born Jewish, had told him this was not the case when David asked him about a story he told about being paid to light candles on Friday in the Brooklyn neighborhood he grew up in. Howard is furious about this. He defies Miriam for the only time in his life when he insists she and David never explain this to Bob.
The reason Howard and Joseph were determined to raise David and Bob as Christians was based on their own life experiences as brilliant and innovative American engineers, who were also Jewish. All of their professional lives, people did not see them as unique individuals but as instances of the group Jews. Because American engineers did not so view Christians, Joseph and Howard were determined to raise David and Bob as Christians, so that when they became adults, people would always view them as unique individuals; not just two more instances of the generic group, Jews.
David finds out Howard and Miriam had told the school they did not want him in tracked classes. He says he will do no school work and defy all adults if they do not reconsider. Never was there a child like this, say Howard and Miriam who are extremely upset.
September
David starts eighth grade in new tracked classes for gifted and talented students. He takes Ernie Gerung’s math class, Mr. Ciampi’s English class, Mr. Trigger’s science class, and Mr. Ventura’s Social Studies class. The English class reads Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book, which is a true revelation.
9 Jennie Marshak’s 70th birthday
"One day in the fall of 1958, Steven Engel visited his son's classroom in the Searington Elementary School in the Herricks school district. Engel, a Jew, was not prepared for what he saw his son doing.
I saw one of my children with his hands clasped and his head bent," Engel, now 75, recalled recently from his home in Great Neck, where he has since moved. "After, I asked him, `What were you doing?' He said, `I was saying my prayers.' I said, `That's not the way we say prayers."
The prayer in question was Regents-sponsored, school board-approved and nonsectarian, and students were not required to say it."
The prayer said each morning, (as recommended in 1951 by NY Bd. of Regents, with its use optional): was "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee and we beg Thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country."
David reads the Book of the Tao, the Dhammapada, the Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali, and the Bhagavad Gita in the Lin Yutang, Wisdom of China and India edition. With this information to supplement and put in a current world-wide perspective the words of Jesus in red letters, David figures out that his almost complete alienation from many of the most influential adults in the Herricks Union Free School District, and the Episcopal Church of Holy Politeness he is attending, is not due to something wrong with him. He also learns about the value of compassion and the evil that is caused by human ignorance.
October
4 The Soviet Union inaugurated the space age. Sputnik 1, the first satellite launched by man, was a 184-pound (83.6-kg) capsule. It achieved an Earth orbit with an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 584 miles (940 km) and a perigee (nearest point) of 143 miles (230 km), circling the Earth every 96 minutes and remaining in orbit until early 1958 when it fell back and burned in the Earth's atmosphere.
November
3 Sputnik 2 carried the dog Laika, the first living creature to be shot into space and orbit the Earth.
1958
"One day in the fall of 1958, Steven Engel visited his son's classroom in the Searington Elementary School in the Herricks school district. Engel, a Jew, was not prepared for what he saw his son doing.
I saw one of my children with his hands clasped and his head bent," Engel, now 75, recalled recently from his home in Great Neck, where he has since moved. "After, I asked him, `What were you doing?' He said, `I was saying my prayers.' I said, `That's not the way we say prayers."
The prayer in question was Regents-sponsored, school board-approved and nonsectarian, and students were not required to say it."
The prayer said each morning, (as recommended in 1951 by NY Bd. of Regents, with its use optional): was "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee and we beg Thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country."
© 2004 H. David Marshak, All Rights Reserved
