I said, “We play more Mickey Katz songs than anybody in the world! You’ve heard us, right?”<\/p>\n
No, he hadn’t.<\/p>\n
I said,<\/strong><\/span> “Have you been under a rock for twenty-one years?”<\/p>\n Mel was from Cleveland.\u00a0 Where had he been hiding?\u00a0 Mel said he didn’t get around much.\u00a0 He used<\/em> to get around.\u00a0 He said, “Where did you go to high school?”<\/p>\n “Brush,” I said.<\/p>\n Mel graduated from nearby Cleveland Heights High — a rival — but, nevertheless, he was OK with Brush High.\u00a0 He had played softball with Brush boys in a JCC league.\u00a0 Mel was six years old than me; I didn’t know any of his Brush buddies.<\/p>\n Mel’s daughter —<\/strong><\/span> the bride — was 31 and living in Brooklyn — Yiddishe Cup’s target demographic. \u00a0I said, “Has your daughter checked out Yiddishe Cup’s Web site? It doesn’t matter if you <\/em>like Mickey Katz.\u00a0 She’s calling the shots. ”<\/p>\n “Do you know Joel Schackne?” Mel said.\u00a0 (Schackne had been a champion tennis player at Heights High.)<\/p>\n “I know of<\/em> him.\u00a0 Whose idea is the Jewish music?”<\/p>\n “Schackne is in Florida.\u00a0 He’s still playing tennis.”<\/p>\n “What does your <\/strong><\/span>daughter think about Jewish music?”<\/p>\n “What AZA were you in?”\u00a0 (AZA: a B’nai B’rith boys’ club.)<\/p>\n “I was in a JCC club.”<\/p>\n The Great Schackne<\/p><\/div>\n A week later, I met Bob, a cleaning supply man, and also a Heights High grad.\u00a0 I met him at an AIPAC meeting.\u00a0\u00a0 Bob was not OK with Brush. \u00a0He said, “Brush was a bunch of greasers and Italians!”<\/p>\n The AIPAC speaker, a Brush grad by the way, had left Cleveland years ago to attain multiple Ivy League degrees and become a weapons analyst with the government, maybe the CIA.\u00a0 He was an old friend of mine.\u00a0 I wanted to talk Iranian nuclear capabilities with him.\u00a0 The inside story.\u00a0 He didn’t.<\/p>\n I said, “Nobody is here.” Most of our gang had left.\u00a0 The Jewish guys still in town were, for the most part, entrepreneurs and family-business owners.\u00a0 A couple local guys had even made serious money.\u00a0 One, who built cell phone towers, was a playboy with femme fatales poolside.<\/p>\n Howard, a Brush<\/strong><\/span> grad in New York, called. \u00a0\u00a0He was coming through Cleveland.\u00a0 His parents were moving to assisted living.\u00a0 He said we should get together.<\/p>\n Did I have a post–high school life?<\/p>\n I think so.\u00a0 I’m not stuck on high school.\u00a0 But the subject does come up.\u00a0 I live in my hometown.\u00a0 What can I say?<\/p>\n Go Arcs.![\"joel-shakne\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/joel-shakne-300x272.jpg\" "\\"joel-shakne\\"")
![\"brush-greaser1\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/brush-greaser1-178x300.jpg\" "\\"brush-greaser1\\"")
Ron, a Brush<\/strong><\/span> graduate living in Connecticut, phoned to say he was in Cleveland at a nursing home, visiting his dying mother.\u00a0 Ron asked if anybody was still in town.\u00a0 (\u201cAnybody” meant “Our Crowd.”)<\/p>\n
\n—-
\n1. Mel didn’t hire Yiddishe Cup for his daughter’s wedding.
\n2. The Arcs is the nickname of Charles F. Brush High School.\u00a0 Brush, a Cleveland inventor, developed the arc light, which illuminated streets prior to the incandescent bulb.<\/small><\/p>\n