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my field say should be the joys of childhood or what not. I don't remember it being dominated by sadness, either. I remember it being dominated by the desire on the part of my mother to have me become equipped to deal with -- the word is probably too strong for it, but intellectual problems.

I don't know why, looking back on it; and I also must say, again looking back on that period, that I am glad she did. Because she got all of these problems that are supposed to be associated with learning, or dealing with basic academic tools, she got them out of the way in a period of my life when it was relatively easy to get them out of the way. So by the time I came to America, she put up my age. I wasn't six, I wasn't really officially supposed to be in the first grade. But she had to go to work. She separated from my father, and she had to go to work, and I had to go to school. I don't remember what was happening to my sister. She was younger than I.

But I remember very vividly that in the first grade, I could read. And was somewhat impatient with the learning to read process which dominated the class. And I guess one of the things that affected my future life, too, was that I went to P.S. 5, and there were only about three or four black children in the class. The rest were Irish.

Now, where was P.S. 5?

140th St. and Edgecomb Avenue. And that was a predominantly white area, at that time. It must have been 1920. I was born in 1914, and I wasn't yet (July of 1914) -- I wasn't yet six, and this was the fall. I apparently was five the previous July, and in school