carry it in to go to school. I put my gun in my locker as you did back then. When it was my period to go to the rifle club, I would go to my locker, get my weapon and then walk through the halls and into the rifle range that was located in the school. I was a pretty good shot and I believe that I had won several competitions.
Interestingly, on my way home, I would take my rifle with me as I went into the luncheonette for a burger and stand it up next to me as I ate with some friends. I had become an expert with my rifle and safety was a high priority when you are an expert so the thought of shooting someone or someone being shot by your weapon was possible but not probable.
Game changing moment
My Dad never went on any of my camping trips but he did on occasion take me for a ride up to Bear Mountain for me to hike on the trails and climb the rocks. The only other time that we had spent time together is when we visited my sister Marcelle who was studying to be a teacher Trenton State College in New Jersey. It probably took around 2.5 hours to get there and we had a Diner that we looked forward to stopping at that had roast beef and mashed potatoes. Although we spent quite a bit of time in the car together there was minimal
Marcelle Epstein conversation so we listened to music most of the time. I remember the song“ The Lions Sleep
Tonight” possibly sung by the Kingston Trio. Also, I am not sure why my Mom did not accompany us but perhaps it was the fear of driving in a car due to an accident she had in the rumble seat of a hot rod so she said. She had lost partial hearing and she always wore a hearing aid and spoke very loudly.
Marcelle returned one time to our house in New Milford and wanted to show me some things that she had just learned at teaching college. She showed me a tray filled with wax and then she took out a dead frog that she pinned to the wax. I was intrigued. She took a scalpel and opened up the frog’ s belly and pinned back the wall to expose the organs. I was mesmerized. She then pointed to several of the organs and told me what they were and what they did. I had blown up frogs and fish before with firecrackers but I had never looked at the science of a frog. What Marcelle had done was better than anything and was clearly a game changing moment for me. We then boiled the frog until there was nothing left but bones and we pinned the bones together. What a project. I am not sure what year this was but I may have been in year 7 or 8. It wasn’ t soon after in biology class that we were repeating this experiment with a really cool teacher of mine that had a crew cut and drove a convertible Corvette stingray 1965 or earlier vintage. I was doing well in school and I really liked science and algebra as I think that both were ordered which I probably needed as I represented chaos!
Mr Little and the T’ s
I became quite lost in high school as it all seemed confusing and difficult. Although I was very good in sports, I never got organized to joined the baseball or football teams. I am not sure why but probably due to being overwhelmed with the entire school, with more than 2,000 students, and not having any mentor support mechanism. So I tried wrestling and I trained intensively with the team and I had turned out to be quite good amongst our own team members. I was feeling quite cocky for my first inter-school competition and I jumped onto the mat eager and ready to go only to see a big black guy with muscles much much bigger than mine ready to go. Three seconds after the whistle blew, he had thrown me over and pinned me and won. I quit the team and that was it for sports. I really could have used some guidance from someone regarding sports, school,
BARRY STEVEN EPSTEIN- PhotoAutobiography DRAFT 9 of 156