Opinions on change, criticism and clarity

After a 36-year career in the federal government, Harry walked away in 1986 as an expert in his field, the media. But he never stopped writing about the media. I uncovered these 1991 essays in a collection on his computer. They may interest media folks and government communicators, as well as entertain his friends and family. I think he would have liked that.

Change

America will be a great place – if they ever finish it. Comedians used to say that every now and then, and it would invariably get a laugh. Sometimes, driving through almost any city in the country, and seeing all the construction going on in office buildings, apartment houses, shopping malls, new roads, etc., that line comes to mind again. It’s what is called an inverted truism. The truth is, of course, that America will never be finished. We will be building it, building upon it, and rebuilding it forever – and not only its physical structure, but its institutions, its values, its very culture, as well.

Our society is constantly evolving and the pace of change is rapidly increasing. In earlier generations, say fifty or sixty years ago, changes were coming much more slowly and people were able to adjust, to adapt to change, to get used to things for a while before they phased into something else. Not anymore. Changes in our lives and in our environment and society are coming so fast that we are having trouble coping with them. They frighten us. We wish, sometimes, that we could slow down the world for a while, till we catch our breath.

Sixty years ago, in the 1940s, an eighth-grade education was enough to qualify people for most jobs in our society. Fifty and forty years ago, in the 1950s and 1960s, a high-school education was enough. In fact, only about 15 percent of our youth graduated from high school in the immediate post-World War II period and less than 10 percent of them went on to college. But the evolving needs of science and technology have changed all that. Today, most jobs in our society require a college degree in order to earn a living wage with any hope of advancement to positions of responsibility and authority. In fact, a large proportion of the worthwhile jobs require advanced degrees. As a consequence, some 75 to 80 percent of our youth today graduate from high school and some 60 percent of them go on to college. That alone represents a great sea change in American society.

Criticisms

Military public affairs officers, whose business involves dealing with the media on a daily basis, are frequently critical for what reporters regard as the wrong reasons. For example, the media has come under attack for writing about the erosion of benefits for service men and women, such as cutting back on commissary and Base Exchange privileges, or making changes in the retirement system. Not only do articles like that make the recruiting job more difficult, but they are bad for the morale of those who are already in the service, and they discourage people from reenlisting when their tours are up. But surely, reporters respond, the military cannot seriously expect the media to refrain from reporting such developments, simply on the grounds that to do so would have a negative effect on recruitments or reenlistments. Such criticisms are grossly unfair, they charge, since the very nature of the reporter’s job is to purvey the news to the public.

* * *

It is a cliché among meteorologists that there is no such thing as bad weather; there are merely different kinds of weather. The same thing is true of news; there is no such thing as bad news, merely different kinds of news and, in journalism, all the news is fit to print. That’s the simple view, the simplistic view. The truth is that in journalism, as in any other business, someone makes decisions a hundred times a day or more as to what to do and what not to do, what to write and what not to write, what to include and what not to include, etc. And everything that reaches the public through the media is going to impinge on the public consciousness and influence the public behavior. 

Clarity

Here are two examples of how communications can miss the mark. The first is a directive put out by the White House – by one of those bright young presidential aides, no doubt – during World War II:  “Such preparations will be made, as will completely obscure all Federal buildings and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal Government during an air raid for any period of time from visibility by reason of internal or external illumination. Such obscuration may be obtained either by blackout construction or by termination of the illumination. This will, of course, require that in building areas in which production must continue during the blackout, construction must be provided that internal illumination may continue. Other area, whether or not occupied by personnel, may be obscured by terminating the illumination.”

When the President saw it he blew his stack, according to some eyewitnesses. Exasperated, he wrote the following correction in the margin: “Tell them that in buildings where they have to keep the work going, to put something across the window. In buildings where they can afford to let the work stop for a while, turn out the lights.” In other words, use plain English!

The second example is about the plumber who wrote to the National Bureau of Standards to tell them how useful hydrochloric acid was for cleaning out clogged drains. The Bureau wrote back: “The efficacy of hydrochloric acid is indisputable, but the corrosive residue is incompatible with metallic permanence.”

The plumber replied that he was happy that the Bureau agreed with him. So the Bureau tried again, writing: “We cannot assume responsibility for the production of toxic and noxious residue with hydrochloric acid, and suggest that you use an alternative procedure.” And again the plumber expressed pleasure that he and the Bureau saw eye to eye.

Finally, a sharp young secretary at the Bureau sent a message that got through: “Don’t use hydrochloric acid,” she wrote, “it eats hell out of the pipes.” 

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

What school kids don't learn about Congress

Harry in 1996

On Dec. 14, 1995, at age 74, Harry wrote the following piece and filed it on his computer. It could be from an email he wrote to someone he knew, or maybe a letter to the editor of a publication. Obviously agitated, he was speaking his mind – in writing.


Young elementary school students who are taught that the Congress exists to enact legislation that benefits the public are being taught lies. The men and women elected to the House of Representatives have little or no interest in passing laws for “the good of the people” or for the “good of the general public.” If anything they do redounds to the “good of the general public” it is purely accidental or coincidental. The truth is, Representatives, when first elected, are interested in only one thing – serving the needs or meeting the demands of their constituents, no matter how narrowly based their constituency may be or how selfish their motivations.

After serving for the first year of their two-year terms, the primary goal for most of them is to do whatever they think they have to do to be reelected. Often this means carrying out the bidding of their financial backers, even if it means enacting laws that do genuine harm to the general public. So, nine times out of ten, when you hear some Representatives sounding off about something that will “get the government off our backs” or that will benefit the people, don’t believe it. They are lying through their teeth.

Case in point:  Every day you hear some Congress persons talking about cutting the budget, stopping the wasteful government spending, and putting an end to the notion that people should depend upon government handouts all their lives. But who are they talking about? Are they talking about the cattle industries, who want the government to provide them with free grazing lands? I think not. Are they talking about the mining industries, who want the government to give them free rights to mine the precious minerals on federal lands? No, I think not. Are they talking about the timber industries, who want freedom to harvest the wealth of our forests? Certainly not. Are they talking about the dairy industries, the tobacco industries, the peanut industries, the sugar industries, and a host of others, all of whom depend upon government subsidies in one form or another to reap their swollen profits? Of course not. So who and what are they talking about when they say they want to cut wasteful government spending?

* * *

Campus conversation

On a lighter note, I came across the following writing from nearly a year later, September 1996. It captures a dining-hall conversation at the University of Maryland, where Harry audited courses – and made friends – post-retirement, from 1987 to 2002. He titled this “An overheard assignment”.  

Two dark-haired girls, one with brown eyes and one with green eyes, sit close together at a large round table in the South Campus Dining Hall munching on chicken fingers. A single observer sits halfway around the table, ostensibly reading a newspaper while eating a sandwich.

Brown Eyes speaks:  “You’ll never believe what happened to me last night?” (All sentences, no matter how firmly declarative, end on an interrogatory note.)

Green Eyes:  “What? What?”

BE:  “Well ... first you have to promise me that you’ll never breathe a word of this to anyone – especially not to Laurie?”

GE:  “Laurie? Your roommate?”

BE:  “That’s right. Laurie, my roommate!”

GE:  “You know I never will, don’t you? C’mon, tell me, what happened?”

BE:  “Welllll ... y’know when we were at the beer hall last week and Laurie’s boyfriend, he goes to Gerogetown, y’know, he’s goin’ t’law school? Wellll ... anyway, I thought they were almost engaged or something, y’know? Anyway, she introduced him to us, y’know, and I thought he was kinda cute, y’know?”

GE:  “Yeah, me too. So ... what happened?”

BE:  “Wellll ... he called last night and I thought he wanted to talk to Laurie, but she was at the library, y’know? But, guess what? He wanted to talk to me, not to her.”

GE:  “No kidding? What did he want?”

BE:  “Welll ... he asked me to go to a party with him next Saturday night. Can you believe it?”

GE:  “Wow! Soooo ... what did you say?”

BE:  “Wellll ... honestly, I didn't know what to say, y’know? I mean, what could I say to Laurie, y’know? And then, before I could answer him, y’know, he says to me that after all, he’s not married to Laurie, y’know, they’re just good friends, that’s all.”

GE:  “Ohhh sure. The way he had his hands all over her, I thought they were gonna do it right there, y’know? Y’just can’t trust those guys who go t’law school, y’know? Sooo ... what’d y’tell him?”

BE:  “Wellll ... honestly ... I didn’t know what t’do, y’know? I just wasn’t thinking. So I said yes. But I just can’t tell Laurie, y’know. Promise me you won’t say anything to her?”

At that moment, a tall, willowy blond girl approached the table with a tray of chicken fingers and sat down next to Brown Eyes.

BE:  “Hi, Angie, how y’doin?”

Angie:  “Same old, same old, y’know? What’s new with you?”

BE:  “Angie, you’re not gonna believe what happened to me last night?”

Angie:  “What happened? You won the lottery?”

BE:  “Oh, honestly, I’m serious.”

Angie:  “Okay, so tell me, what happened?”

BE:  “Wellll ... first, you have to promise me never to breathe a word about this to anyone, especially not to Laurie?”

At this point, the observer folded his newspaper, picked up his tray, and departed.

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

When college kids visit home

Harry the advice writer in 2009

In November 2009, Harry (then 88) emailed a teenage cousin about a common situation: when college kids come home for a break. If there’s a lesson to share for the greater good of parent-child communication – and I believe there is – then he would have been fine with posting this. I hope his advice ended up helping the recipient of this email – and might help others, too.



It’s a funny thing, but it’s also a natural thing. When you’re at school, away from home, you get a little homesick and you can’t wait to get home for a visit. But when you’re home, after just a day or two, you just can’t wait to get back to school. There are several reasons for this, but, I’ll just give you a few. First, when you get home, you look upon it as a chance to see your family, yes, but that’s really a minor consideration. The major consideration for you is that it’s a chance to see your friends, to get together with them and go out and have fun without the pressure of school work to weigh you down. 

Your parents, on the other hand, look upon your visit as a chance to get together with you, to talk to you, to find out how you’re doing in school, to make sure that you’re eating well and taking care of yourself. They miss you far more than you miss them, but they don’t know how to tell you that. So … when you go out and spend more time with your friends than you do with your family, they resent it. After all, they’re the ones who are working hard to send you to school, and, in their view, you don’t seem to fully appreciate all they are doing for you. So ... you have to understand, there’s some tension there, and sometimes the self-control snaps and harsh words get said, especially by mothers and daughters. In some cases, mothers are under special pressure and strain because they are concerned with the health of their own parents.

What is happening, you see, is that the strings that tie a child to home and parents are beginning to fray, and the parents are sensing that their children are beginning to drift away, and it scares them, though they haven’t yet put this thought into words or actually confronted it squarely. So they fight it by demanding more control over the child. At the same time, the child, subconsciously, is savoring the taste of freedom from parental control while away at school and wants to extend that same freedom to the home environment and chafes at the lack of it, feeling that the parents just won’t let go.

Now, here’s the secret that children and parents just can’t see. If I point it out to you, I’m counting on you being mature enough to recognize this. Here’s what’s happening, too. There is a subtle shift in relationships slowly developing here in which the child is transitioning into an adult and the parents are only dimly aware of it and reluctant to accept it, though deep down they know it’s inevitable. Parents will always treat their children as children, even when they are married with children of their own. Children don’t remember, but parents do, how they held the kids in their arms and sang to them and diapered them and bathed them and comforted them when they got sick, and taught them to read and to ride a bike and to swim and to skate and to use the silverware and to eat and drink – in short, raise them from squealing infants to the person they are today.

So that kid will always be their baby. And this is the time when that baby – you – have to be understanding and, indeed, have to be more adult than your parents, in convincing them that you are in fact a grown up, responsible adult. 

How do you do that? By sitting down with them and talking to them and convincing them that you are taking care of yourself and are aware of the pitfalls and dangers confronting young people, and you are not going to do anything foolish; you just want to spend a little time with your friends, but you love your parents and really do appreciate all they have done and are continuing to do for you. 

You have four years of school ahead of you, and your visits home will get increasingly difficult each year unless you have that talk with your folks and convince them that you really are growing up into adulthood. If you follow the pattern, you see, after you graduate and get a job and go to work and start earning money, you will most likely move into your own apartment, maybe with one or two roommates at first, but eventually by yourself. The thing is, you are already in the beginning stages of no longer living at home with your parents, and believe me, parents don’t like that idea at all. So they fight it, unconsciously maybe, but they fight it by trying very hard to exert the same controls they’ve always imposed all your life.  

My guess is that you have already figured all this out for yourself, though you just haven’t put it into words like I’m doing now.

Copyright 2016
Elaine Blackman

Dad's advice on reading and speeding it up (and why JFK called him on it)

Oddly, the only photo I found of Harry reading a book was to his grand-kids in late 1984. It’s a good one, though, to honor his memory on Father’s Day.

 
Harry Zubkoff was a voracious reader and book collector; he pored through several books a week for pleasure during most of his life. (Where he found time to work, be a family man, and pursue other hobbies remains a mystery.) He filled bookcases and shelves throughout the house, and kept a hefty stack on his bedside table. It wasn’t easy getting him to part with his books each time he moved to a more suitable home.

Harry emailed the essay below to a young correspondent in 2010, at age 88. As in other essays on this blog, he imparts advice through a personal tale. By the way, I shortened this one; I never had the pleasure of editing Harry’s writings until I started this blog. You see, it was always the other way around – I’d go to him for editing tips and creative quips (and thoughts on office politics).


No matter what profession you choose for your life’s career, one of the most important skills you can acquire is reading. Reflect on this for a moment. We learn to read beginning in kindergarten and develop that skill through the early grades of elementary school. Certainly, by the time we’re 8 or 10 years old, normally we have mastered the skill of reading. Right? Wrong!

The trouble is, most people never progress much beyond the basic reading skill they’ve mastered by the time they’ve reached 6^th grade. The average reading speed of a high school student today is 350 to 400 words a minute, with a comprehension quotient of 85 to 90 percent.

I am as ordinary as they come. I have had to wear glasses to read since I was in high school. Near-sighted, but distance and depth perception is okay. I qualify for a commercial pilot’s license, where the vision requirements are stringent, but I need glasses to read a map flight chart. My starting reading speed was about 500 words a minute, slightly better than average, but not extraordinary. 

Take a course or do it yourself
Then I took a speed-reading course offered after hours at the Pentagon. One hour once a week for eight weeks. They measure your speed and test you for comprehension. At the end of the course I was reading 2,000 words a minute with 90 percent comprehension. I took the course two more times, six months apart. By the end of the third time, I was reading 4,000 words a minute. Over the next few years I regressed somewhat and finally settled down to about 3,000 words a minute – still respectable but not outstanding.

You have to force yourself to keep pushing it if you want to go above 3,000. BTW, these speeds are for light reading, like novels or magazine stories. For heavier stuff, like newspaper reports or study materials it goes down even further. No matter how much it slows down, however, it is still faster than the average speed of less than 500.

You don’t have to take the course to increase your speed. Some things you can do yourself, or force yourself to do. I should also mention that I was so enthusiastic about the course and recommended it so highly that they made it available to anyone in the Pentagon during working hours and supervisors could give their employees time off (with pay). I made everyone in my office take the course, some of them twice.

What they do in the course is, with a special camera, take a picture of your eyes as you’re reading. What they found was that everybody has the same bad habit. When you read a line, your eyes go back and scan the same line again. Why that happens, nobody knows. But in effect, you are reading that line twice. As soon as you become conscious of that fact, you can start forcing yourself to stop it. By stopping your eye from going back and scanning the line again, you can save a fraction of a second per line. Force yourself to go on to the next line and the next, etc., without going back to scan twice.

When you have mastered that, you will already have increased your speed considerably. The next step is to try to read a whole line at a time. Stop trying to read each word. You know, as we read we unconsciously mouth each word in our minds. Stop yourself from looking at each word. Stop thinking each word in our minds. Try to take the whole line into your head at once and then go on to the next line. In effect, take a picture of the whole line in your mind and then the next line and so forth till you get through the whole page. After doing this till you can do it without thinking, the next step is to try to take a whole paragraph at once. Now this may sound impossible, but believe me, it can be done.

Just master each step along the way and you’d be surprised at what your mind can do. 

A presidential anecdote
In the early 1960s, after Secretary of Defense McNamara had designated the Air Force as his Executive Agent to do what we had been doing for the Air Force – to do it for the whole Dept. of Defense and all its agencies, we started getting requests from other government agencies to provide copies of our publications for them. The White House was one of those agencies; specifically, the Office of the Press Secretary and the National Security Advisor asked us to send them material pertinent to their interests.

By the summer of 1963, I was sending the Press Secretary several dozen articles a day of special interest to the President, and he, the Press Secretary, Pierre Salinger, used to call me once or twice a week to ask for things. So a call from him was not unusual. One day, when I had sent him a really heavy bundle of articles to read, he called and the conversation went like this.

“Harry,” he said, “somebody here wants to talk with you.”

“Okay,” I said, “put him on.”

Next voice I heard: “Harry? This is Jack Kennedy.” As though I didn’t recognize that distinctive voice.

“Yes, Mr. President,” I had enough presence of mind to say.

“These articles you send me,” he said. “Do you read them all yourself?”

“Yes, sir,” I managed.

“Well, I just wondered,” he said. “I read about 4,000 words a minute myself and I have a hard time keeping up with it, along with all the other things I have to read. How fast do you read?”

“Oh,” I said, “I read close to 4,000 a minute, too, Mr. President. Do you want me to cut back on these things?”

“No, no,” he said. “I just want to be sure that you suffer as much as I do. Keep it coming, and thanks.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” I said, but, in truth, I’m not sure if he hadn’t already hung up.

I also recall that at a press conference some reporter asked him how he thought the press was treating him and he replied with that famous smile, “I’m reading more and enjoying it less.” 

This looks like the the early 1960s (notice the skinny tie). 
Could it be the day Harry spoke to JFK about – of all things – speed reading?

The value of learning and journaling, according to this self-educated man

In his elderly years, Harry mentioned in an email to someone close to him that their regular correspondence "gives me an excuse to write about my life, at least bits and pieces of it." He also said that he would save some of those emails in a file, like a journal. The excerpts below are from those saved emails. For me and other family members, they offer formerly unknown bits and pieces of my father's life.

I've always had a thirst for knowledge, so I read a lot and even studied subjects that interested me. So, in some ways I became what is usually called a self-educated man. That may be satisfactory to some extent, but it's not the same as the education you get in a formal way – in school. For one thing, in school you're forced to study some subjects that hold no interest for you. That in itself, disciplines you, forces your mind to work in ways that you don't like. Just doing that is valuable exercise for your brain.

The greatest value of a college education is the discipline it instills. And, the truth is, that while you may learn a little bit about the basics of a few things, you don't really start getting an education until you're out of school and working at your chosen profession. I missed that for myself. Now, I have to work very hard at trying to learn something that does not interest me.

It's easy for me to learn about things that I'm interested in. There's no end of information on the internet on almost every subject you can name. The trick is to distinguish between good information and bad or phony information. There's plenty of untrue or false info on the internet, too. So you cannot rely solely on what you find there – you also have to look elsewhere if you're doing research.

A little enterprise
Anyway, for a few years, in order to make some extra money, I started a little enterprise called "Articles on Demand." Believe it or not, there is a demand for people who can write articles on any subject. So, I was asked to write articles on some very weird things – for example, a 750-word piece on the number of fresh-water lakes in the world, where they are, how much water they contain, how they were formed, etc. Did you know that Canada has more fresh-water lakes than all the rest of the world combined?

That one went over so well that I was asked to do another on fresh-water rivers in the world. Did you know that the Amazon River in South America has more fresh water flowing in it than all the rivers in the rest of the world combined? Well, to do the research for those two pieces required more than just browsing the internet and, since I had no interest in it, I found it hard to concentrate on it, but I forced myself and ultimately found it interesting. It's the compiling of figures and statistics that I found hard to put together, but the final results after a lot of hard work, I found fascinating. 

At home in 2011, Harry pointed out to dear friends his name in Years of Upheaval, by Henry Kissinger. Could this be the book that Harry discovered his name in while auditing a university course after he retired? Harry refers to those college days in the paragraphs below. The tribute in Kissinger's book: "I owe a belated thanks also to Harry Zubkoff, whose news clipping and analysis service based in the Department of the Air Force has been of enormous value to US government personnel for years and has been an invaluable research aid for my staff in the preparation of White House Years and this volume." 

From mingling to keeping a journal
The year after I retired, I started taking courses at the U. of Maryland – subjects that interested me or that I thought I knew something about and just wanted to see what was being taught in school. Each semester I took one or two courses, and I did that for the next 15 years, from 1987 to 2003.

Now I found myself mingling with students from 18 to 25, because I was taking some undergraduate courses and some graduate school courses. And once again, I found myself treated by my fellow students like an ancient ancestor – or a wise old man who knew everything (that’s what grandchildren think) and someone they could come to for advice and counseling.

[Harry was referring to an earlier reflection, included in the previous post: “The art of listening and consoling”]

And again, I found myself being consulted about all kinds of problems as though I had all the answers. And again, I found that I was most helpful to these young people just by listening to them and asking some pertinent questions – which forced them, in a way, to clarify their own thinking.

And I learned something else – that if you want someone to think clearly about whatever problem he/she has, get him to write it down. Put it on paper. Nothing concentrates your mind on a specific problem or issue as writing it down on paper. That’s why I would urge everyone – including you – to keep a journal and put your thoughts and reactions to events and situations you encounter in that journal, not necessarily daily, but certainly regularly.

By a journal, I mean a loose-leaf notebook, so you can move pages around, rather than a bound book where the pages are fixed in place. I don’t mean a diary, which is simply a daily record of your activities, but a journal, in which you record your thoughts and feelings about people and events. And try to use words and adjectives that convey precisely what you are thinking.

For example, if someone upset you by a thoughtless remark, try to describe your reaction. Were you resentful? Furious? Enraged? Embarrassed? Astounded? Disappointed? Confounded? Disgusted? In other words, it’s not enough to be upset. Try to pinpoint exactly how you feel. You will find, when you do that, that you understand yourself better and you actually are either more or less upset than you thought you were. And maybe even more understanding of the person who upset you in the first place. What exactly did you dislike about the remark? See what I mean?


Harry's little black notebook 
Well, guess what else we found in the smartly cluttered office Harry left behind? Right – a loose-leaf notebook filled with brief, handwritten entries. However, rather than a journal containing his personal thoughts and feelings, it appears he jotted fictional musings that he could go back and grab for his story-writing hobby. Or, had he grabbed these musings from the stories he'd finished? Could the blurbs be factual, not fictional? Or, maybe, based on fact? You decide. See some samples from his notebook below this photo.
 

Harry's little black notebook is undated, though he may have 
kept it while he was attending U of MD classes after he retired 
(1987 - 2003). Future generations of our family should enjoy the
 look and feel of an ancient handwritten journal.

• Why do I fly? I thought. For space? Might as well ask why I breathe. I guess, I thought to myself, sounding pompous in my own mind, it’s because I like the feeling of being part of a huge and powerful machine that’s been tuned to perfection but that takes its direction from me. The feeling of independence and linkage, operating in unison.

• She had large (gray) eyes, a straight narrow nose, a nicely rounded chin, and a determined mouth with lips that looked eminently kissable.

• The flickering fire threw pictures on the wall, shadows chasing each other around the room.

• You probably don’t realize it yourself, but you have a look – well, when you look at someone like that, I think you scare them. They suddenly realize that you are … could be … dangerous?

• I had grown adept at instilling confidence in people – usually a few kind words would do it. And after all, what does that cost?

• He looked harmless; a short bald-headed, mild-mannered man, but behind that bland exterior was a mind as agile and sharp as any I’d ever known.

• Once on the trail of something or someone, there was no turning back. Impossible to quit with the job undone, the chase not concluded.

• The expression on her face mirrored her uncertainty, her doubts, her nervousness. Still half child, part woman, she did not yet know how to deal with men like me – too old to be a boy-friend beau, too young to be a father figure or uncle!

• He saw the funny side of everything, and his lips twitched, continuously, as though he were about to break into laughter.

• Everything we did was a sort of river, just rolling along like the song says, through time and through generations, with new people just like us coming along while the old ones floated slowly away, transients on the water’s surface, passing from view and from memory. No matter how well known, how celebrated and honored, in a short period of time as history goes, we’re all forgotten, nobody caring that we lived and accomplished and died and scarcely made any difference at all to the current crop of newcomers. Not good for the ego, is it?

I haven't read Harry's unpublished stories, still piled in old cardboard boxes. When I do, I'll keep an eye out for the musings from his little black notebook. He may have shared stories with friends or relatives; did he share any with you?

A drive through 1930s Buffalo

If you’re over 80 and from Buffalo, you might especially appreciate Harry’s musings about life in his hometown in Upstate New York. If you're old enough to drive and from anywhere, you might appreciate his quip about making out in the back seat. And, if you knew Harry at all, you may be surprised by a regret he reveals toward the end. Harry shared these memories in an email to a young confidante, in 2010.


When I was 16, I did what all 16-year-old kids do. I got a learner’s permit to learn how to drive. But, I also got a learner’s permit to learn how to fly. This was in 1937, the middle of the Depression, when money was scarce and I was a junior in high school. I never took a driving lesson because I already knew how to drive – just from watching others. My brother, seven years older than I, took me one day to take the test, which I passed the first time, and I had a license but not car.

Harry (standing on right) poses with buddies in 
1930s Buffalo.

Several friends had cars, so, whenever we went out on double dates, I would drive their cars. The way it worked was we would chip in a quarter apiece for gas – believe it or not, 50 cents would buy six or eight gallons of gas, and I’d drive on a Saturday night usually, to a great diner in Batavia or to Niagara Falls for a late snack.

My date and I would sit in front and talk while my friend, whose car it was, would sit in the back seat and make out with his date. I didn’t mind because I enjoyed driving and talking. I had three such friends who had cars and they always wanted to double date with me because they knew I would drive and they could enjoy their back seats.

When I was 17, I graduated from Fosdick-Masten Park High School. I had already been working part-time, so then I went to work full time. My older brother joined the Army. My oldest sister had married and gone to Palestine to build a home for the Jewish people. My other sister, four years older than I, was married and pregnant, no longer living at home. My parents, both terminally ill, unable to work, depended on me to support them. Which I did, of course.

Every Sunday afternoon, if the weather was good, I took a flying lesson from an old World War I pilot who had a small airfield on Sheridan Drive. At that time, Sheridan Drive from Delaware Ave., all the way to Main Street was uninhabited – empty wilderness. Somewhere way past Niagara Falls Blvd. was this little airfield where I flew. I paid two bucks a lesson – for an hour of dual instruction, and then one dollar an hour for solo flights until I got my private pilot’s license in 1938. It took well over a year for the entire thing.

In those days, I had a motorcycle that I bought for 10 bucks, and that’s how I got around. I paid for it a dollar a week for 10 weeks. I was earning 12 bucks a week and, by the end of 1938, about $15 a week, which was pretty good money in those days. People were supporting families on that kind of money. In 1939, I went to work for a war plant, the Bell Aircraft Co., for $20 a week, which averaged around $30 a week with overtime pay. The war in Europe started in September 1939, and though we weren’t in it yet, everyone expected we would get into it sooner or later.

People ask me where I went to school. I never felt as though I was missing anything. My friends all went on to college after high school. I had to stay home and work and take care of my parents. Looking back on it, I don’t think I ever felt sorry for myself and I don’t think that, at the time, it bothered me that I didn’t go to college. In later years it did, but by then, it was too late. But, we’ll come to that later.

I would say, right now, you and all the kids in similar circumstances, just don’t realize how lucky you are to get the chance to get an education – and more than that, to go to a college away from home, to mingle with others whom you would never otherwise encounter, and to form friendships and associations that will broaden your outlook and give you perspectives you could never obtain any other way.

Harry never went to college for credit, but he did take college classes and volunteer on campus after he retired. Stay tuned for his memories about those days. 

The Zubkoff legacy – it's all in a (nick)name

Harry (right), again with his hand on his hip (a sign of confidence?), working at a summer camp in Buffalo. At age 17, he was already smitten with future wife Jeanette, who worked there, too. It looks like she labeled this photo; Harry was "Zubie,"of course. I was "Zubby" in high school, too. In fact, I would bet anything that all Zubkoffs are nicknamed Zubby in their teens. If you are (or were) a Zubkoff, let us know if your nickname is Zubby (or Zubie), too! By the way, Harry believed that all Zubkoffs are somehow related. Do you agree? Please send this blog to every Zubkoff (or former Zubkoff) you know.