By Ben Joravsky
“It was so much different back then,” says Tuchman. “Parents weren’t around us all the time. A lot of them, like my parents, were immigrants. My dad was a baker. He baked bagels from morning until night. He was a hardworking man trying to provide for his family. He didn’t have time to go to our games. The only adult at Max Straus was Manny Weincord, the sports director. You’d go to the gym and there was Manny. He ran all the activities–football, basketball, softball. God, it was a blast.”
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Tuchman says the kids back then joined social clubs. “Each club had a name and an identity. I was an Anaconda. There was a bond–I still treasure my Anaconda jacket. You played together as a team, and then when the game was over you practiced or talked or just hung around. So much of the play was spontaneous, controlled by the kids. It was our own little universe. It seems like another world from what it’s like today.”
Years later, Miller’s and Tuchman’s children played in sports leagues in the Glenview area. Both men marveled at the vast playing fields and glitzy gyms, a stark contrast to the facilities at the old social centers. They also came to realize that something was missing. “I don’t want to sound like an old-timer going on and on about the good old days,” says Tuchman, “but I have to say, there was something special about the past. I think it’s the club spirit. You don’t have the club culture in the suburbs. There is no spontaneous play–it’s so much more organized.”
“Trading’s a tough business,” says Tuchman. “You get up at two, get there at three, run in and get your spot on the trading floor, and stay buying and selling orders until the market closes. I loved the contact–it was like a game or a sport. But for me, the emotional part was very draining. There was no reward other than money. You ask yourself, what have I accomplished in my life? It’s a pretty important question to answer.”
Part of the reason is self-segregation–kids learn from parents who make no effort to break down their own walls of social segregation. Go to an integrated Little League game and you’ll most likely see the families divided into their own little clumps–blacks here, whites there, and Hispanics somewhere else.
