Thursday, April 20, 2006

Sosinsky And Sons: A Secret Mission



Going back to the treasure trove of old record cards, alphabet S-T. Among the find were the Sosinsky family. I grew up with the Sosinsky brothers in Knickerbocker Village. I was closest to Joel, who was two years younger. As mid teenagers we got into playing golf and we would travel along with a kid named Lee all over the city by train, bus and ferry to play the city courses (usually starting out at 5:00AM).
Joel's father owned a shirt store on Orchard Street, which his brother Ron later took over. About 7 years ago I reunited with Ron and has mother Natalie (one of the most attractive of my Knickerbocker friend's mothers and a community activist as well) to do a local history project with a group of PS20 5th graders. They had the kids visit the store and showed them old documents (100 years old) that they found in an antique safe. Ron did a good job in providing drama. Later Natalie came to the school to be interviewed. When I found Joel's father's card I called him and passed it along during a late evening rendezvous. He was touched. Joel, a very mild mannered kid, who underwent a series of difficult youthful surgeries, now is a lawyer for the Teamsters. Go know! Hey, I finally might have some union "juice," because the UFT sure blows. Here's part of my podcast with Joel. I recounted to Joel my recent reuniting with Mart Babits (who BTW is more than just a social worker, but a very skilled therapist)
When you double click on the image and you get to it on the Flickr site, you can enlarge it again to get a better view. Meyer, Joel's dad, passed away many years ago. He was a pretty smart guy. At PS20 he was in the RA (Rapid Advance) classes, which was the then equivalent of the SP

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