I graduated from high school in January, 1943, two months after my 17th birthday. There was no question about my going on to college as my mother reminded me, “education is for boys.” She had visions of my fulfilling her dreams, “Be a secretary.” Forget it! I could type but made so many errors that my score on any test was “2 words a minute” at a time when 50 words was barely acceptable. I was a disaster at math and never mastered any word but “the” in stenography.
Fortunately, I had a memorable English teacher who told me my talent was in the area of “writing” and I should immediately apply to a newspaper for a reporting job. Which I did, but despite the staff shortages of World War II, there was no job for a total novice in the Editorial Department. I agreed to start in the Circulation Department in February, 1943 of the now defunct Paterson Evening News. It was a blast but by September, it was obvious that fun and frolic was not going to make a career. I quit, but the Business Manager talked to the City Editor and it was decided to “give me a chance”.
Certainly there was no evidence of my ability, but too many reporters were being drafted and I was looking better and better. I accepted a salary of $15 a week and within a few months was handling the military news and a variety of other general reporting assignments. I loved it and stayed for ten years until my first child was born and cooking had become an important part of my life.
As was the custom, I lived at home until the day of my marriage. Food was still impossible but I was old enough, if not rich enough, to eat out whenever possible. There was an improvement though. When I was about 16, my father had a meeting with us, without Lena of course, and suggested that we should join him in teaching my mother to prepare steak and chicken properly. The idea was that both would involve broiling; the steak was to be rare and the chicken not dried out. It took six months and after that we followed a schedule of alternate days of steak and chicken, done to perfection.
It was no longer an issue. I had an exciting job, new friends who were not Dutch, and then, at the noble age of 24, marriage. It was the beginning of life for me, a goodbye to overcooked , watery, tasteless, colorless and awful food. I was in charge now!