Book excerpt: The heart of creation: Chapter 1

The first cells of my future beating heart were formed in the early first hours of 1950.

If all goes well, it will beat 2.5 Billion times before it expires.

My future adopted Uncle, Murray Kaufman, better known as “Murray the K”, met my mother in the mid 1940’s. Mother was an outstanding young pianist on Long Island.

She would take day trips by train, into New York City from Oceanside, for advanced lessons.

She met Murray just by chance in Manhattan, at a music studio talent show. He was interviewing acts for summer shows at the Catskill resorts, in upstate New York. He worked for many of them, supplying a variety of entertainment for the summer vacationers. For whatever reason, they just hit it off and became very close friends.

Murray is a very generous and outgoing man. It would make sense that his birthday was on Valentine’s Day. He has always had this huge zest for life. He was a radio promoter and a publicist for Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays.

In December of 1949, Murray obtained amazing VIP passes for my parents, for the famous Guy Lombardo New Year’s Extravaganza. It is a yearly event held at the Roosevelt Hotel Grill Room in downtown Manhattan.

This world renown event is attended by wealthy New Yorkers and dignitaries of all sorts. Their party package included a hotel room for two nights, all dinners and VIP front row tickets to the event.

Many well known figures attended, from politicians to professional athletes. The reality is that my parents partied hard, drank too much and in the waning hours of 1949, my mother forgot her diaphragm. So… with Guy Lombardo’s auld lang syne still echoing through the corridors of the City of New York, I was conceived.

My paternal grandparents immigrated to Connecticut from Wales near the turn of the century.

Their ancestors were Scottish, German and Welsh. My maternal grandmother was born around 1898 in the New York City area. Her ancestors originated from Oslo, Norway. When that part of the family arrived at Ellis Island, their name Johannsen, was abbreviated to Jensen forever.

She became one of the original suffragettes who, under immense duress, protested in the streets of New York City. That effort won women’s rights to do such things as voting, drinking and smoking. The last of which she took on with vigor and it cut her life short.

My maternal grandfather walked by a bar in Chicago five minutes before the St. Valentine’s massacre and quite literally, dodged a bullet.

My Mother was born in New Jersey in 1928 and my Dad in upstate New York in 1926, on a small family farm. They both attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. They met at this classic Ivy league school, while participating as singers in the world renowned Cornell Glee Club. Mom was a concert pianist, singer and harpist.

She was accomplished enough to perform at Carnegie Hall. Dad was a booming baritone and he studied Agricultural Engineering, which he fondly referred to as “milking bulls”. She studied Home Economics and food sciences.

One of her sorority sisters and her roommate was Joyce Brothers.

She was also my Dad’s lab partner in one course. As “Dr. Joyce Brothers”, She became famous in 1955 for winning the top prize on the American game show The $64,000 Question.

Her fame resulting from her show performance, propelled her to go on to host various advice columns and television shows. She established herself as a pioneer in the field of popular Psychology.

Mom recalls one snowy winter’s night in Ithaca in 1948. She was in a limo going to a formal dance at the grand hall. Her limo became stuck in the snow and was pushed out by Dad, whom she had been dating and another man.

She said she ducked down so he wouldn’t see her with her new party date. Somehow, someway, my Dad eventually won her over.

They were married in Mom’s hometown of Oceanside, New York. My Grandmother, Marion Jensen Sager, started the Oceanside Free Library in 1935, in a small brick house with donated books.

Upon graduation from Cornell, they moved far north upstate for my Dad’s livestock company’s management job at Empire Livestock. I was born in Batavia, New York. This area is known for some of the coldest winter temperatures in the United States.

Mom worked at the Batavia General Hospital, as a health and rehab dietician. This is where she chose to have me delivered. I was so determined not to enter this world, that I caused horrible labor for her.

During that experience, she shouted obscenities at Dad and everyone around her. She was so loud, they were heard three floors up. They said even the delivery doctor blushed at the language.

He tried every technique he could to get me out. It was a rough ride for all, especially for me. I was black and blue, beaten up and an extremely unsightly site.

As a result of the cursing and my beaten up appearance, Mom and Dad anointed me with the nickname “Sam”. This was derived from the age old saying, “ugly as Sam Hill.”

Mr. Hill, according to legend, was a Michigan surveyor in the 1800s. He allegedly used such foul language that his name became a euphemism for swear words.

I was too young to take offense at this and it stuck. In late 1950, when I was two months old, they moved to Middletown , New York and bought a VA fixer home for $10,500. Their mortgage payment was and is $85 per month.

Many weeks were spent cleaning up debris and trash from the yard and they made it their own. I was just a blob in a crib with an older sibling.

Some of my very first memories, as I awoke from infantile amnesia, was music playing, singing or the tinkling sounds from Mom’s grand piano. She always had a record playing on the old turntable or some New York City radio station playing.

One of her main stations was WMCA in Manhattan, which was Murray’s new night DJ spot.

Music was starting to evolve from the big band era to the roots of rock and roll. Elvis, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard were up and coming.

During the 1950s, the generation gap became increasingly marked, as young people actively carved out their own identities opposing their parents views. The defining sound of this emergent youth culture was rock and roll.

This is a style of music drawn upon the popular styles of the previous few decades and at the same time, sounded completely fresh and new.The 1950s witnessed an explosion in this new style of music, characterized by backbeat rhythms.

As the decade progressed, electric guitars steadily took over from piano and sax as lead instruments.

Cleveland, Ohio DJ Alan Freed is credited with popularizing the term “rock and roll” on mainstream radio in the 50s. Over time, however, the term also took on a secondary meaning, being used as a euphemism for sex.

But regardless of where it all began, by the end of the1950s, rock and roll was all the rage amongst young people. Superstars evolved including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Gene Vincent and even Johnny Cash.

As it continued to evolve, “rock music” in its broadest sense, continued to dominate the charts. The world had just experienced the first use of nuclear weapons. Yet another war had just ended uselessly killing another 25,000 of our men in Korea.

Dad himself served in the Air Force for a few years.

Sibling relationships are, mildly put, interesting and challenging. My sister is three years older than me. Older siblings, as many do, think the younger child is the “favorite’.

Our Mom was very impressed with my sister when she was four. She was always willing to take a broom and sweep in the kitchen or help with some mopping.

One day, while performing her new “duties”, Mom left the room for a minute or so. When she returned, she learned the real purposeof all of that helpfulness.

My sweet sister was taking the end of the mop handle and shoving it through the slats of my crib.This done in an effort to rid her life of this annoying lump of a brother! I, of course, have no memory of any of this part.

I do have the remnants of later skirmishes like a broken nose and a few scars. She would visit me in my bedroom at night after one of these sibling battles and check my breathing for signs of life.

In general, I was not innocent in the instigation of such battles. I have early memories of watching thunder and lightning storms from my crib, watching winter snow fall on our rooftop and autumn leaves passby the windows.

I have early memories of horribly bad fever dreams during my battles with the mumps, measles, the flu and Chickenpox. One of my first vivid memories is of seeing Santa Claus walk into my grandmother’s house and sit down in the living room.

That’s when the good things started to happen! When I was four, we visited my great grandmother in her third story walk up in the Bronx.

At that time, the Bronx consisted of aging buildings and a variety of immigrants from the first large wave of people that came through Ellis Island. That year she moved out to live with Nana in Oceanside.

My real awareness started at about 4 1/2 when I was put in nursery school. My Mom’s story is that I got up, dressed and went to school with bells on, that first morning.

The next day when she came in to wake me for day two; “Wake up Sam, it’s time to get ready for school.”

I tiredly looked up at her and pleaded, “I already went.”

I was definitely a slow starter. In kindergarten, we were forced to make a life’s decision, one that should not be put on a young child. On day one, the teacher went around the room having everyone call out their names.

When she got to me she asked me; “Which name do you want to be called, Sam or Cliff?”

I sat there thinking years ahead about what the life changing things would be affected by this decision.

“Sam, call me Sam.” As I was not really ready or up to speed, right on through first grade my family thought I was challenged or had some sort of learning disability.

They made a valiant attempt at getting me through this called “flash cards.”

From dawn till dusk for two years, I was constantly confronted by 4 x 6 cards with numbers, letters, pictures , you name it. Finally in second grade Mom found the secret formula.

In the beginning of the year, the teacher advised us that there would be grading half with letter grades. The other half would be with the letters “O’, for outstanding and “U” for unsatisfactory in selected categories.

Mom knew this program had created an incentive for me.

For every “O” I achieved, she promised to buy me a burger at the local malt shop.

That proved to be the key to success. At the end of the year, I came running home with my report card in my hand, sporting ten “Os”. By third grade, everyone’s fear of my lack and limitations had evaporated, and I had assimilated into the ‘Fabulous Fifties”.