Stuyvesant High School and the McCourts

Years and years ago my wife was reading Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. The book was on a desk in an upstairs bedroom and was spotted by one of the young lads from P.C. Richards who came to install a through-the-wall air conditioner.

This lad couldn't resist telling my wife that Frank was his creative writing teacher at Stuyvesant many years ago. And he couldn't resist telling the story of the time Frank came to class with a very visible shiner, courtesy of his current girlfriend's ex-boyfriend who took exception to losing his main squeeze to Frank.

I too went to Stuyvesant, but was gone by the time Frank set up shop there. I graduated in 1966. One of the English teachers I had for regular English was Henry P. Wozniak, The Woz, who also taught a creative writing elective, one I never took.

I'm only making mention of this because a Stuyvesant alumna, Laurie Gwen Shapiro, has written an endearing piece about one of Frank's younger brothers, Malachy, who now in his 90s and in less than great health, is hoping for one more St. Patrick's Day. 

It looks like he's going to get it, because he was recently kicked out of hospice care for not dying within the prescribed guidelines. Anyone who knows anything about the Irish will tell you that their time on earth is just to get to know enough people who will fill a funeral home at their wake. Even if they didn't like them. They don't care. As long as there's a good wake.

By the dates used in Ms. Shapiro's piece it's not hard for me to calculate that I graduated the year she was born. I tweeted her this tidbit (@lauriestories) and told her of Mr. Wozniak and that he came out of the closet one year, many years after I graduated, riding a Harley, wearing leather head-to-toe, with a pierced ear, greeting students in front of the old school building on East 15th Street.

To my surprise, Laurie quickly retweeted that she had The Woz for regular English. I didn't know he was still there in 1981, but so he was.

All of this of course proves my contention about us living on a Möbius strip: The P.C. Richards air conditioner installer had Frank for Creative Writing at Stuyvesant; Laurie had Frank for Creative Writing as well; I went to Stuyvesant, but graduated before Frank set up shop there as the Creative Writing teacher; the Creative writing teacher at the time I went there was Henry Wozniak, a teacher that Laurie tells me in her Tweet she had for regular English, as I did; Henry Wozniak, to little surprise to anyone who spent a day with The Woz, came out of the closest after leaving the school and greeted students one year in front of the 15th Street building (the old building), arriving on his Harley, dressed in leather from head-to-toe and sporting a pierced ear.

Here's hoping Malachy makes it past this coming Friday.

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