We have all been told that revenge is best served cold, or the best revenge is to lead a good life and there is merit to these pearls of wisdom. On the other hand, there is something hard wired into the human psyche to prove people wrong and this is especially true when someone tells you that you are not good enough or you do not have what it takes.
At the age of six, we moved from the city and apartment life to a suburban neighborhood where every house was filled with kids around my age. I had never played sports and had no idea how to defend myself in a fight. Being the only Jew in the neighborhood and being an awkward six-year-old did not help. It was Lord of the Flies, suburban style.
One of my earliest memories was a kid across the street pinning my arms and legs down and grabbing my private parts and declaring to all the other kids who had formed a circle exclaiming to the crowd; “look I am milking him.” Exacerbating matters, I was an extremely sensitive child who when criticized took it to heart and internalized things to a fault. I did not at that time understand that sensitivity and empathy were gifts. But if I was going to make it out of adolescence, I was going to have to ‘toughen’ up.” Unfortunately, this often emerged as unbridled anger where I spent a good portion of my adult years cursed with being consistently inconsistent.
As I got older, I went from having no athletic ability to becoming a decent football player and senior year in high school, I went out for the team. I trained all summer and was in great shape. Back in those days, you had two practices a day leading up to school opening and I had little trouble meeting the grueling demands of running the double hills behind the high school, running till someone threw up and withholding water until we were all at the precipice of heat stroke. This was simply the way it was back in 1970. People simply did not know any better.
During one of the ‘double sessions’ they had a drill where they formed two rows of large sandbags with a narrow opening down the middle. At one end of the bags, they gave the ball to someone and on the other side, put a player with his back to the opposing player and on the whistle, both players ran full speed at each other. In this one drill, I was the guy with my back to the player with the football. One of the assistant coaches, Ken Trimmer blew the whistle, and I flattened the guy with the ball, to which Trimmer said to the whole team: “Finkelstein I do not like your name, but I like the way you hit.” The next day or so, the junior varsity coach came up to me and told me I was having a great training camp and he saw me starting on the junior varsity. ‘But coach, I am a senior,” I replied. The next day I was called into head coach Andy Durborow’s office who informed me I was being cut. I tried to talk him out of it going as far as showing up at his house one evening, but he was resolute. For the record that team that I was not good enough to play on, won one game that season.
This was one of the great lessons of my life and the first time I learned that life was not fair. Somewhat softening the blow, a year later as a freshman at Waynesburg College, I was playing intramural football and the college’s head football coach asked where I played high school football which I replied by mumbling something under my breath. He told me they needed a tight end, and I should go out for the team. The validation was nice, but I politely declined.
I transferred to William Paterson College, today called William Paterson University, crammed eighteen credits a semester, while working 30 hours a week at my Uncle Hy’s supermarket and graduated with a BA in Sociology. Very quickly I discovered a degree in Sociology from William Paterson College did not have employers knocking down my door. After traveling the country for three months, I decided to apply to Rutgers for a master’s degree in city and regional planning. The problem was all through high school and college I rarely studied. I applied to the Rutgers University School of City and Regional Planning today called The Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. Not surprisingly, I did not get in, but the chair of the department, Dr. Jerome Rose offered me entrance as a non-matriculated student with the understanding that I take two courses and if I get two B’s or above, I would be admitted as a matriculated student in the spring. One of the courses I had to take was Land Use Planning, which was a law school course taught by Dr. Rose himself. This course was taught at the Rutgers Law School, and I was out of my depth.
I received a B and a C in the two courses which did not cut it, so Dr. Rose said to come back in the spring and take two more courses and then my application for admission would be re-evaluated. I took two more courses and got an A and a B, but that still was not good enough for Dr. Rose. He told me I had to take his Land Use law course again plus another course and Rose promised me that if I got two B’s or better, I was in, no questions asked. I took the law course plus another course and got two A’s.
So, I figured, I am in. This was between fall and spring semesters and so there was a short window for me to get my acceptance letter and register for classes, not to mention find a place to live. I waited and waited for the acceptance letter which never came. It is now the day before spring classes begin and Rose’s assistant, after several unreturned phone calls and says, “Dr Rose says to take two more courses and he will consider me for fall admission.” So, I drive over to the good professor’s office and pace outside his office. Finally, the person in his office leaves and I walk in uninvited. Before I can get out a word, he says that he does not think I am graduate school material, and I am not going to ‘bully him’ into accepting me into his prestigious program. This was my Andy Durborow moment, but I was no longer a sixteen-year-old kid intimidated by an adult. I stood up leaned over his desk and told him that if he did not accept me now and allow me to register as a matriculated student, that I would file complaints with everyone at the University and anyone else I could think of. I then leaned forward and pointed my finger and promised him that if he did not keep his promise, I would become his worst nightmare. I had shaken him because he stormed out of his own office leaving me just sitting there.
He comes back about ten minutes later and tells me he is going to accept me into the program, but if I get one C, “he will kick my ass out of the program.” I told him he had a deal and walked out, waited for the acceptance letter, and registered for classes. I later learned that the Rutgers planning program at the time was in the top three city and regional planning departments in the country with kids coming from prestigious undergraduate schools and he did not want a graduate of William Paterson College among them.
I studied my ass off for the first time in my life. I never got another C and graduated with an A- average. When certain assignments were given, there was a paper chase to the library to get obscure copies of documents like the master traffic plan for Cairo, Egypt. Since Rutgers and Princeton had a reciprocal arrangement with regard to taking graduate level courses and use of the libraries and research facilities, while my much smarter classmates knocked each other over to get to the library, I got in my car, drove twenty minutes down the road to the Princeton Library and got whatever I wanted. I loved the Princeton campus and in particular their library and its architecture. I spent more time studying at the Princeton Library than all three of the Rutgers libraries combined. As time passed, I realized that I was not among a group of Stephen Hawkings but simply people willing to put in the time, effort, and perseverance to get the golden ticket (diploma).
I ended up in health planning and health policy and my mentor a wonderful woman Dr. Beverly Dunston helped me secure a presidential internship at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington DC. I arranged to take my last six credits needed for graduation at George Washington University and said goodbye to Rutgers.
Right before leaving for DC, my girlfriend (now wife) and I drove to New York City to see a play and have dinner. We parked in Port Authority and after the play, we entered the elevator at Port Authority. As the elevator door was about to close, we hear, “hold that door.” And who walks in………………. You guessed it, Dr. Rose, and his lovely wife. Dr. Rose, the chairperson of the Rutgers City and Regional Planning Program and the architect of the Mt. Laurel decision and a revered icon in the world of New Jersey law and land use policy stared at his shoes for what must of seemed to him like an interminable length of time while I stared at him hoping to make eye contact but he never bit. We got off first and as I was leaving the elevator, I turned and said, “I guess I wasn’t graduate school material after all,” I must admit. My shot at redemption while immature was incredibly satisfying.
I hope people who read this story, especially young people learn from my experiences that you decide your worth, nobody else gets to do that and that there will be times in your life where you are going to have to fight for yourself because nobody else will. The thing is, Vince Lombardi was right. When you want something, never, ever give up.
