Occupation: Dreamer

             It’s 3:30 on Saturday morning in January. I’m creeping down the stairs to warm up the car. In the basement, I’m dressing in my mind and stuffing a bag; pants, socks, shirt, headwear, footwear, tape, stick. At the last moment, I coax my sleeping son out of bed and quietly half carry him, still partly asleep, out of the house. I put it in reverse and, under cover of darkness, slip out of the neighborhood. I’m not a spy or a kidnapper… I’m a hockey dad, and we have a 45-minute drive to our 5:30 a.m. ice time.              Everyone reading this knows what I am talking about. When I walk into the rink, it’s just one meeting of eyes and we each acknowledge the sacrifices we make of sleep and weekends and holidays for our players.             I coached mites, midgets, and peewees until I turned my players and families over to t...

In 1977 I looked at myself in the mirror, and I saw a scrawny, insecure, and confused teenager who could list, as a singular accomplishment, 4 months of dishwashing at the Holiday Inn.  Yet my ego told me I possessed superior talents and skills that simply went unrecognized.  In fact, I had a severe, and probably incurable, case of “anal-cranium.” I am grateful that Henry (Mr. Milton, to me) often reminded me of this because without breaking through my ego I would never learn anything as a student either at that school or, as it turns out, for the rest of my life.   At Hyde School, Mr. Milton occupied the office of the Dean of Students. If you are unfamiliar with prep school hierarchy, the Principal may be the head of the school, but the Dean of Students is God, dispensing punishment and favor.  Towards the end of my time at Hyde (I found out later – no badges), I became one of “Henry’s boys” - minions privileged to carry out any instructions he dispensed. ...

For me, like a lot of bright people born wired a little differently, traditional education presented a challenge that impacted my entire life; missed opportunities, disappointment, under-achievement which cast the die for a hard life. Still today, my school challenges lie at the base of a self-loathing that, left unchecked, leads me to self-destructive behavior. I see this pattern repeated among a younger generation and it makes me wonder why there isn't a solution. Can my experience and the experiences of people like me, provide a hack of the system to allow us to succeed? Today, in the US, we have a great system that provides free education through 12th Grade. Lucky enough to have a variety of educational experiences, both free and paid by my parents. I went to public schools both in the US and abroad, as well as private-day-schools and boarding schools. I managed to fail, in most of these, quite dramatically, culminating in living in boarding house in Augusta, ME, washing dishes...

            I met Nate Braunstein in 1981. My connection to him was remote; the father of one of my good friends’ lifelong girlfriend. Sometimes you meet someone, and you feel you have a connection. In this case I admired him as a wheeler dealer garment business factory owner. He had a friendly charisma, and I felt graced that I was able to get along with this successful tycoon. I realized during the run-up to the wedding of my friends - his daughter and soon to be son-in-law - that one of his gifts was making people around him feel good about themselves. After college I struggled personally. My life was like jungle warfare, and I was losing. Nate represented for me a kind of mutual admiration club. I didn’t have a lot of people I respected saying nice things about me. This man somehow saw me for who I was, that I had a good heart, and made me feel as if I could trust him. Mostly, though, he gave me something to aspire to; the dignity of being a top sa...