Nice Jewish Boys Don’t Fly Airplanes.

During my childhood, I spent my summers at a bungalow colony in the Sullivan County Catskills. The resort was nicknamed the Jewish Alps or the Borscht Belt. An area most popular with New York City Jews.
Famous for its luxury hotels and top name entertainment where many famous
performers got their initial start. Singing duet Steve and Eydie Gormé, and comedians such as
Alan King, Shecky Greene, Red Buttons and Jackie Mason to name a few. Primer hotels such as Kutsher, Grossinger and the Concord were considered the “Las Vegas” of the East (minus the gambling). In addition to the hotels, were vacation bungalow colonies, and that is where my family enjoyed summers.
From 1965 to 1970, every July and August we resided in bungalow number 29 at the Krauss
Bungalow colony in Lake Kiamesha. Lazy summer vacation, sleeping in late, spending time at the pool or playing a game of “ringolevio” with other children. My mother and I stayed at the colony and dad came up from the city on Friday night after work. Other relatives came to visit and stayed with us occasionally. Mom’s niece Sheila and her husband Jack. Stevie and Barry as well. Dad’s sister Sylvia and uncle Dave,aunt Florie and
uncle Julie along with my cousin Randy.
When I wasn’t playing ringolevio or swimming, I passionately built and flew a balsa wood
airplane model which cost a whopping ten cents at the colony’s concession. Easy to
snap together balsa strips with red plastic fasteners. The tiny plane was propeller powered by a state-of-
the-art rubber band that I, the aeronautical engineer and pilot preflighted by winding it up until
taut. Like a signal officer on an aircraft carrier I launched my aircraft into the sky. I would do
this repeatedly until the “sleek streak” would get lodged in nearby tree branches or land on a
bungalow rooftop. “Mom, can I get a dime to get another sleek streak?” I’d ask repeatedly
since these mishaps were a common occurrence. In the six summers I spent at Kraus, I think I might have gone through over a hundred of the little balsa wood planes. The trees filled with the wreckage of crashed planes and the rest landed on rooftops often too cumbersome to retrieve. I was just a child, between the ages of five and ten and many of the bungalow residents thought my aeronautical disasters made it clear that I WAS NOT destined for a career in aviation.

Just before Christmas 1976, I traveled to Montreal, Canada to visit a friend I met while vacationing in the Catskills. To get to Montreal, I would board an airplane for the first time. The flight was out of LaGuardia airport. The same airport where I first became fascinated with airplanes, pilots and everything aviation. I spent countless hours watching the
planes takeoff and land, something my father considered a waste of time; comparable to
watching grass grow or paint dry. Now,I was actually going to fly as a passenger on an
Eastern Airline Boeing 727. My favorite plane at that time.

I had a window seat and my face was pressed against the porthole from taxi to takeoff and
through the rest of the flight. I was flying on a commercial jet and the destination was “hockey land” Canada. Way better than Disneyland if you asked me at the time.
From the time I stepped onto the plane I was like a kid in a candy store. Wow! What
would it be like to actually pilot this thing? I had butterflies in my stomach from the excitement and anticipation – and I was just a passenger. Flying and hockey together, bliss, pure bliss.

As the plane pushed back from the gate, I felt a shiver up my spine and my palms were sweaty. As the engines started, I felt the vibration throughout my body. Taking off, feeling the rush, I imagined how the astronauts felt when launching into space. I fantasized what it would be like to sit in the cockpit. As the plane took off from runway 13 (yes, I still remember the runway markings) I imagined myself at the controls of this machine. My heart was
racing, I was on cloud nine.

At the time, the only thing that mattered to me was to become an astronaut, an airline pilot or an
NHL hockey player. The latter was purely a fantasy and I admit I was being unrealistic in my
vision of one day playing in the National Hockey League. I mean let’s face it, athletic talent
wasn’t something I was born with and although still growing was well shorter than my peers. Yet, I still couldn’t help imagining being a superstar like Gordie Howe or Bobby Orr. Okay I know
deep down it was a far-fetched fantasy, but I couldn’t help dreaming.