Anyway, back then I didn’t look much older than the students. I had graduated high school at sixteen, which means I in turn graduated college very young. Frankly, I decided to grow a goatee to look older than the junior high school kids in my class. I remember when I raised my foot to walk over the curb the first day, to step into that junior high school, and my foot froze up—I actually stopped midstride. The students were racing past me to get to class and I was standing there as stiff as a statue!
I had no idea I had a fear of teaching, but I did. If you think teaching is an easy job, try it someday. It is probably one of the toughest jobs on earth if you do it right. So, when I’m critical about the teaching profession and the teachers union, don’t get me wrong, I fully recognize it’s a tough drill. At the same time, there’s no excuse for boring students to death. If an uneducated man like Woodchuck Bill could teach me about life, then surely I should be able to do the same with my college degree—at least that was my view as a beginning teacher.
TWENTY-TWO
Woodchuck Bill
As a kid I loved the summer—what kid didn’t?—because in those days if you came from a modest-income home, you didn’t go to a camp to advance your mathematical knowledge, another to advance your sports knowledge, another to lose your tubby waist. You went and had fun for the whole summer. Without the ball and chain of school holding us back, we were liberated. We’d come alive. Those were such wonderful days: those eight hot weeks when the sun didn’t set until nine P.M. At the first change of the seasons, somewhere around mid-August, I remember feeling the impending return of slavery. The first hint of fall was announced by the thunderstorms, and I’d feel the shackles of school coming back. I knew I would soon be returning to my horrible, mean school, in corduroy pants, armed only with a meatloaf sandwich. I’d have to face the teachers and chalk dust and bullies in the bathroom. It was awful.
When September rolled around, I was doomed.
Let’s not make any mistake about it: Personally, I hated school. I detested the testing. What do you think?—that because I went all the way through the system and got two masters and a PhD that I somehow loved it? I never did! Learning is supposed to be a discipline, not “fun.”
We were kind of poor, so what we did during summer was, to get out of the hot inner city, the family rented a small cottage with all the other families from the neighborhood and relatives up in the cool Catskill Mountains. We stayed in what were known as bungalow colonies because you basically got one room—kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, all in one room—and your whole family was in there. Then the whole “colony” was filled with your friends and their parents, so it became a little village. Naturally, it was paradise because every other parent was your parent and you reverted back to another time in history: We’d play Indians out in the woods and carve trees and make canoes out of birch bark.
In one of these bungalow colonies, there was a guy who was a caretaker who lived in an old abandoned barn with his wife. That was Woodchuck Bill, to us kids—it was a Tom Sawyer experience. We loved Woodchuck Bill. Bill was unlike any teacher I ever had at school. Man, could he tell stories!
Now remember, he was not a bum. See, today they’re a bum; they’re homeless. He was what was known as a “hobo” in those days, and there were people who were hobos, who were sort of respectable in their own way. That was his job category: He’d put it on the IRS, like the “what do you do” job category. “Hobo.” I don’t know what he made—next to nothing. Probably just the barn in exchange for his work.
Woodchuck Bill would regale us kids with his stories. He was a big guy with a big stomach on him. I remember him saying, “All right, kids, come over here.” Today he’d probably get arrested just for even telling us a story. “All right, I want all of you to punch me in the stomach.” Now, right away that’s child abuse today. So, we’d all go up with our skinny little arms—we were nine, eight, seven—and we’d punch him in the stomach, and nothing would happen. So, naturally, we thought he was Superman. He must have been pretty strong, when you think about it.
Anyway, so we all hit him one after the other. We realized we were nothing compared to Woodchuck Bill. Then we’d sit at his feet and he’d tell us stories. He’d say, “Well, I’ve seen hurricanes and I’ve seen tornadoes.” We sat spellbound, like out of a book from the nineteenth century. What I liked most about Woodchuck Bill was that he lived in this barn with his lady friend with almost no possessions. They had a few pots and pans, which hung from hooks. We’d say, “What do you eat?” And he’d say, “We eat woodchucks.” Who knows if he was telling the truth—I don’t know if you can eat a woodchuck.
Hanging around Woodchuck Bill is the perfect example of the education I got outside of school that was just as important to me, if not more so, than what I’d get in a stuffy classroom. As “odd” as Bill was, he had such insight into living and enjoying life and being an independent thinker. He possessed a pioneer spirit that made us think we could tackle the world with our bare hands. Woodchuck Bill is long gone now. I only wish kids today could experience the education I got from a man with his kind of streak of independence! Unfortunately, students are rarely introduced to men and women of courage, honor, inspiration, or other traditional principles. Instead, thanks to the Left-leaning teachers’ associations, the schoolhouse has become a hothouse of radical ideology. Instead of stimulating students’ minds, they’re taught to stimulate other parts of their bodies, from kindergarten to graduation.
TWENTY-THREE
Fat Pat & Tippy the Dog
When I was a boy, my parents moved us from our Bronx apartment to live in a small row house in Queens, New York. At that time, we got a dog named Tippy. Tippy the dog was a ferocious part-Chow who, when I was eleven, ripped my foot open. I’m not talking a scratch here—he treated my foot like a lamb shank! I actually had to be hospitalized and get stitched up! I still loved Tippy the dog, even though the doctor told us to take him to the pound to be gassed.
Tippy was a male, which might explain his crazy temperament. The truth is I happen to prefer owning a male dog. Why? I don’t know how to do this in a delicate manner—you know, every once in a while a female dog has a thing happen to her and it’s a mess. And, no, I don’t believe in having your dog “fixed.” I didn’t buy a pet just to spend all my time and money at a vet!
Now, aside from taking a bite out of me, the worst thing that Tippy ever did when he was little was to mess the house. Dog owners know that’s what happens until they’re trained—you get used to that. However, when a dog grows up and knows how to do its business outside, another problem surfaces. Once or twice a year, Tippy would go into heat. I remember how he’d jump on my father’s friends’ legs. Whoever came into our house, Tippy would try to mate.
This was a real problem because people were always coming to our house. They all knew my mom loved to cook, so day and night they’d drop in on us. True, it was a different day and age: People could just stop by for conversation. It wasn’t like today, where you make an appointment a month in advance.
For us, just about every night someone would knock on the door. My mother would serve cake and coffee and they’d sit in the living room and talk for hours.
But when Tippy the dog was in heat, watch out.
One guy in particular drove Tippy insane. I don’t know why Tippy focused on Fat Pat, but he did. Fat Pat must be dead thirty years now. This guy was like a character out of The Sopranos. You know, he had a size 25 neck. Rumor had it he was a bookie—Fat Pat always seemed to have something shady going on the side, if you know what I mean.
Still, we kids loved him. He was just a lovable, giant sort of guy, always laughing, always good for a joke. Don’t ask me why, but Tippy especially loved him, too. When Tippy went into heat, if Fat Pat was sitting in the living room, the dog would jump on Fat Pat’s leg and grab it with his huge paws. The two of them would go crazy in the living room! Tippy would start rockin’ and
rollin’ on Pat’s leg; Pat would laugh and laugh, rolling his head back on the soft couch.
Picture a fat guy rolling back, laughing as the dog’s humping his foot: The women are screaming. I’m busting up. My mother gets a broom and starts hitting the dog. She chases Tippy with that broom like a samurai warrior. She’d yell, “Get out of here! What are you, an animal?” We’d lock Tippy up in the basement. He’d be barking and making noises like he was King Kong down there. Everyone else would go back to the coffee and cake.
There’s a lesson here: Unlike humans, my dog went into heat twice a year or whatever. But human males, especially those in college, think they’re in heat every night. They’ve been brainwashed since kindergarten into thinking they’re supposed to be in heat 24/7, and then they wonder why they’re impotent half the time!
But, going back to Fat Pat. He worked in a seedy hotel as a “night clerk” but he was really a pimp. Now, you immediately think he’s a bad guy, right? Listen to this before you jump to conclusions. He and his wife could not have children. One day Pat brought home a little girl from his “hotel.” A little girl who was the product of one night’s lust with one of the girls from the hotel. He and his wife raised that little girl as though she was their own! But wait, it gets better.
Years later Fat Pat brought home another child, this time an infant boy, from Hotel Lust. His wife’s sister raised that child as if he was her own! Years later, after Pat died, that adopted girl took care of her “mother” right up until her last day. Do you think today’s soul-deprived world would see a pimp bringing home a love-child to raise until the end of his days? Whether the two children were from anonymous “johns” or were, in fact, Pat’s with one of the working girls, remains an unknown fact to this day.
TWENTY-FOUR
Tippy the Dog Would Let People In, Not Out: How Our Immigration Policy Should Be
Now, about Tippy the half-Chow dog: He would always let people in our little house in Queens, but he would never let them out. You could come in, he wouldn’t bark at all. He smiled, his half-purple tongue hung out, but if you tried to leave, he’d attack you. He went crazy! You had to constrain him with an iron chain and then put him in the basement. You’d hear brooms and mops falling down the basement steps. He was like a nutcase dog. So, I had a dog that let people in the house but would never let them out.
I think that’s what we should do with the immigrants in America. “No Middle Eastern immigrants can leave America without a thorough examination by the FBI.” You come in, and we don’t say a word. You’re not getting out, though. That’s all. You want to leave? Go to the FBI—we’ll let you out in a few years. You can’t go out! What are you leaving for all of a sudden? What, the SSI didn’t go down? There’s religious tolerance here—What are you leaving for, sir? Ah, you’re going back to Pakistan to visit your mother? Tell you what: We’re going to investigate you until the year 2020. We want to ask you a few questions . . .
TWENTY-FIVE
Savage’s Childhood Diet: Prescription for a Heart Attack
It was five o’clock, like clockwork, after a hard day in high school, when my mother—God bless her—would put a tray out for me. Oh, was I spoiled. I’m making up for it, though. Now I’m working my butt off. But the tray, the steak, the French fries—I’m talking French fries, steak French fries. Here’s the diet I had, the healthful diet: Breakfast was ham and eggs with a jelly doughnut. Lunch was something light, like a meatloaf sandwich with French fries. Dinner was something light, either steak or pot roast with some heavy potato dish, topped off with the health-enhancing cherry-vanilla ice cream and a piece of pie—and maybe a glass of milk to go with it. And this went on for years!
If I were to design an experiment to kill a pig in a laboratory, I’d give him that diet, that cardio-toxic diet, for three months. The pig would roll over and drop dead of an occlusion! I don’t know how I’m still kicking! So, diet has something to do with, nothing to do with, or little to do with heart attacks. Now, admittedly, it does—because my father, may he rest in peace, died of a heart attack young, and my grandfather did as well. (Well, what about great-grandfather back in the old country? I was hanging on to the hope that he lived to 103. Oh, I recently learned he, too, died young, at thirty. Thank you. Three generations dead young. I’m the oldest living Savage in the history of the family! See, every day is like a miracle. And I also know because I spent three decades studying diet and health.)
That’s why I went into nutrition; that’s why I searched for the secret to longevity for years in the jungles of the South Seas. I’m one of the original ethnobotanists in the field. What I discovered is this: Not much is known.
What is known, though, is very important, such as which vitamins you take and in what proportions; which foods you eat and in what proportions; and which herbs to take when. What is known is very interesting and can be lifesaving. I’m a fanatic about mega-nutrition. I’m a fanatic about large doses of vitamins C, B-6, niacin, and E, and have been for thirty years. Also, I eat onions and garlic, tomatoes and red grapes every day.
TWENTY-SIX
Dead Man’s Pants
Growing up in the Bronx as I did—“the man-child in the Promised Land”—I didn’t have many of the luxuries most kids with their hats on backwards take for granted today. My father was an immigrant. He worked his fingers to the bone. We simply didn’t have the money to afford more than the basics, so, as you might expect, I cherished and took care of the things I had.
As a kid I’d line up my shoes under my bed at night: neat, like in the military. I made sure they were polished, too. I’m sure some shrink today would say I suffered from ADD or other compulsive behavior disorders and should have been put on a regimen of Ritalin.
I wonder what they’d say about the fact that through most of my youth I wore secondhand pants from dead men. Many of the pants I wore as a preteen came off of stiffs and were cut down to fit me.
Don’t get me wrong: My father was a good man. He ran a small antiques store with mostly nineteenth-century stuff. On the side, at least in the beginning, he sold used goods as well. A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do to make ends meet, right? Occasionally, he would go to an auction after a man died and buy the entire estate: the clocks, the dishes, the mirrors—whatever the man had—the pants, the shirts, the whole deal. You get the picture.
Back at the store, as he sorted the stuff for resale, he’d take a closer look at the suit. Once he got a Hart, Schaffner & Marx suit from a dead man. Now, what’s he going to do, toss it in the garbage like they do today? In those days, it wasn’t in him to throw out a good worsted fabric. Instead, he brought home the pants to me.
I remember my father called me to the bedroom and showed them to me like the head tailor at Saks department store. He said, “Now, Michael, get a good look at the fabric.” I wanted to vomit! I got a migraine because I knew what was coming.
“Take a look at the quality of this fabric.” He’s working me like a salesman; he’s unrolling the pants on the bed. I can see it to this day! He unrolls them like he’s selling me a bolt of handwoven cloth. He says, “You can’t get fabric like this just anywhere.”
I wanted to say, “Of course not, Dad. They only sell stuff like that for men who died.”
You know, it was like special clothing for the undertaker.
Even if I had said something, that wouldn’t have changed one thing. He’d go downtown and the pants would come back, “fit” for me, you know—shortened, without the legs taken in properly. They ended up baggy, like an Abbott & Costello pair of pants. Even if they had fit me properly, there was something repugnant about the whole idea.
Like I said, I knew how to make do with whatever was at hand. There’s an old saying, “The man with no shoes complains until he meets the man with no feet.” Years later, the fact that I didn’t have much more than a place to sleep in my first little apartment after college was OK with me—at lea
st I wasn’t wearing dead man’s pants.
Little did I know that one day those awful pants would serve as a metaphor for the shift in my political orientation. You might find it interesting that I wasn’t always an independent conservative. I was raised in a Democrat, blue-collar home. My dad was a Democrat, my mom was a Democrat—most of my relatives still vote Democrat.
To an immigrant family whose parents came of age during the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was “the Great White Savior.” Aside from being the only U.S. president reelected to office three times, he gained lasting political mileage with the relief that his New Deal offered. As you might expect then, my father used to tell me, “Michael, all I know is, the Democrats are for the little guy and the Republicans are for big business.” In a way, his attempt to sell me on the political leanings of the Democratic party was no different than his sales job with the dead man’s pants: He was selling me a failed ideology that should have been buried long ago.
So as a young man, not seeing things as clearly as I do now, I voted as my dad did, since I didn’t understand politics. As I grew older that view would change completely. The turning point in my thinking can be traced back to my first job out of college as a social worker in the Upper West Side of New York. All of my so-called “clients” were minorities. Now, I was a good liberal at the time, having had my brain washed at one of the city universities of New York by a whole slew of European immigrants who, instead of kissing the ground when they got here, urinated on the sacred soil and the flag and immediately sought to instill communist philosophy in the minds of the young.
I didn’t know that at the time. I was just a wide-eyed liberal kid with an eye on changing the world. There I was, fresh out of Queens College. Having minored in sociology, I figured I’d take a job as a social worker to save the “oppressed minority.” I was always an idealist—I still am, as a matter of fact.
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