Newspaperman: Inside the News Business at The Wall Street Journal

CHAPTER 2The Innocent Years

MY FIRST RECOLLECTION of attending elementary school at Public School 144 in Forest Hills, about six blocks south of our Harrow Street house, is of my pretty first-grade teacher giving me a kiss on the forehead. I had been promoted from grade 1A to 2A, skipping 1B, the second term of the school’s first year. I subsequently was similarly skipped through the second half of the second, third, and fourth grades.

This was considered a recognition of good classroom performance, and my parents were pleased. In later years I realized it was not a good idea to have a pupil skip grades and wind up always younger and more immature than his classmates. This was how it was, however, as I proceeded from PS 144 to PS 171, also known ...