R.F.E.D.

My elementary school class is planning a reunion. Phone calls and emails have snow balled. Most of the class is now on a list and there are constant public emails about logistics and private ones about what we've been doing since eighth grade. The feelings are intense. The entire amount of time that I spent in grades one through eight can go by now in what feels like no time at all. But those years of elementary school were substantial. Personalities shine through again even in the minimal contact of emails. And memories rush back.

Glenn Kaye, who's not on the list, was probably my best elementary school friend. He switched out after fifth grade and we stayed in touch through high school. I remember him often.

In second grade we had a library corner from which I was reading the latest, hottest book about George Washington. There was a long list and Glenn was next. He would frequently prod me to finish, but alas I was a slow reader and asked him to stop badgering me. One day I opened the book and found a mysterious note inside. It said: R.F.E.D.. I knew that this was Glenn's work and asked him what it meant and he said, "read faster every day."

I remember one day in fifth grade we were assigned an in class essay. When the teacher collected Glenn's paper she looked it over in awe. Then she told him that it that she would submit it to the school paper. When the paper (really a newsletter) arrived at our home my mother read it and proclaimed that there was no way that Glenn wrote this himself. But I saw him write it. It's possible that it was heavily edited, but all these years later I'm sure Glenn wrote it all himself.

Together we attended an after school art program and Glenn taught me more than the teacher. If not for him I might still be painting sky as a blue stripe in the sky. I remember him correcting me by pointing outside and telling me to see where the sky was. I realized it was visible in all spaces not just up high. Glenn also told me that hands were exceptionally hard to draw realistically. And he critiqued Picasso, talking about how crazy it was that Picasso and others could put oil paint on a spoon, fling it against canvas and get a million dollars for it. Maybe ideas like that were from his parents. Still, he was a smart one.

Glenn taught me how to play Spotlighting, a game that he led me to believe he created. Each of us would take turns following a person around and mimicking their movements, while the other watched. It was fun, but didn't earn us new friends.

Glenn introduced me to the work of Jean Shepherd. He lent me Shepherd's book In G-d We Trust, All Other's Pay Cash, and told me about his other works. He told me about the late night WOR radio show. I read the book, listened to the show and was hooked. We were probably Shepherd's youngest fans. Years later when I looked at the books again I understood a little better what Shepherd was talking about, including his book's title.

From sixth grade on we were in communication by phone and would sometimes visit each other's homes. Early on in sixth grade he shared with me how he found himself putting his hand on his head when he ran during gym, forgetting for the moment that he was in public school and no longer wore a yarmulke. When the Yom Kippur War broke out he asked me what I was doing to help. I defensively asked what he was doing and he replied that what he was doing was asking everyone else what they were doing. I slept over with him at his grandparents' house in Boro Park, where he had his bar mitzvah. I recall his critique of Anson Williams' singing, that to him seemed more like reciting, on the Mike Douglas show that Friday.

I remember so much about my time with Glenn. I wonder where he went after Bronx High School of Science. I wonder what happened to those parents who he called by their first names. I wonder how time can at once move on and stand still.