I'd graduated from Hampshire College four weeks before your birth. Then I worked as a teaching assistant in a bilingual middle school at 120th St. and 1st Ave, My room rent in a 6th floor walkup 3BR apt on 5th St. and 2nd Ave was $91.67/month. On the east side Harlem began at 90th St. We were told to always get on the subway before 5 pm.

If you'd told me that 42 years later there would be a Republican Russian asset in the White House supporting a Russian war against an independent Ukraine with a Jewish president and the American left was supporting the FBI and the CIA against a neo-confederate fascist insurrection at the Capitol to overturn an election, I'd have asked "what are you smoking and can I have some?".

My Ukrainian-Jewish grandparents would have just said, "that's completely meshuggah and your head is a mishigas."