{"id":33891,"date":"2026-01-14T08:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T13:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=33891"},"modified":"2026-01-15T17:53:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T22:53:34","slug":"where-did-you-go-to-high-school-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/14\/where-did-you-go-to-high-school-2\/","title":{"rendered":"WHERE DID YOU GO
TO HIGH SCHOOL?"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\nMike, an old friend from high school, found me on the internet and pummeled me with questions about\u00a0 Cleveland real estate. He lived in Minneapolis. He ended by mentioning a few high school buddies\u2019 names. He said, \u201cI haven\u2019t thought about high school in decades!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Was he bragging — as in I\u2019ve moved on?<\/em> I think about high school fairly often. Maybe because I live five miles from Charles F. Brush High. I also think about elementary school and preschool. And I didn\u2019t even go to preschool! News: \u201cNostalgia has been shown to counteract loneliness, boredom and anxiety,\u201d John Tierney, New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I go to class reunions even when they\u2019re not mine — like Cleveland Heights High\u2019s 50th. I was playing a klezmer gig at a massive, multi-room party center and went into an adjacent room for the reunion, just for the atmospherics: Go Heights Tigers.<\/p>\n

I wish teachers were invited to reunions. In the 1990s, my 12th-grade English teacher walked his dog by my house almost daily in Cleveland Heights. One day I got up the nerve to say hello. And he didn\u2019t remember me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had so many students,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll bet you remember Ann Wightman!\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

Yes, he remembered Ann, the salutatorian. Ann got all As and one B. I think she purposefully got the B to let a boy be valedictorian. That\u2019s how it worked back then (1968). Some smart girls didn\u2019t want to stick out academically.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been back to Brush High in a while. It\u2019s off my flowchart. If I entered Brush, I would probably feel very young or very old. I think \u201cvery old\u201d would win. Not worth it.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

A guy named Mel called. He was considering my band for his daughter\u2019s wedding. Right off he asked where I had gone to high school. That\u2019s the go-to question here in Cleveland. Mel himself had graduated from Cleveland Heights. I answered and then segued into the main topic: \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what you want musically. What about your daughter? She\u2019s calling the shots for the wedding band.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you play sports at Brush?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTennis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know Joel Schackne?\u201d Mel asked. (Schackne had been a champion tennis player at Cleveland Heights High.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew of<\/em> him. He\u2019s older than me. Whose idea is klezmer music for the wedding, yours or your daughter\u2019s?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSchackne is in Florida. He\u2019s still playing tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does your daughter think?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat AZA were you in?\u201d (AZA is a national fraternal organization for Jewish boys.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t in AZA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho do you see?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA guy named Mickey — a goy,\u201d I said. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t know him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of my high school friends left Cleveland decades ago. The guys remaining are, for the most part, entrepreneurs and family-business owners. A few made serious money here. The intellectuals hit the road.<\/p>\n

Do I have any kind of post\u2013high school life?<\/p>\n

Maybe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Mike, an old friend from high school, found me on the internet and pummeled me with questions about\u00a0 Cleveland real estate. He lived in Minneapolis. He ended by mentioning a few high school buddies\u2019 names. He said, \u201cI haven\u2019t thought about high school in decades!\u201d Was he bragging — as in I\u2019ve moved on? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33891"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33962,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33891\/revisions\/33962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}