My fourth grade class photo in Pomona...

My fourth grade class photo, Lincoln Elementary School, Pomona, California, the year 1952, and I was nine years of age here...I am pictured on the front row, second student from the right...The kid on the far left, on the front row, was a bitter enemy of mine...his name was "Casimer Wilson"...Some of the kids would gang up on me and call me names...In the third grade, the teacher, actually made up a name for me for all the other students to begin calling me it, the name she said should sound like the cross between a boy and a girl, so she made it "Ganesia", and so, just as she wanted it to be, all the other kids began calling me this name that she made up for me...What a terrible thing to do to a kid, and , especially, for it to be a teacher who instigated the whole thing...If I had parents that were supportive of me, at this time in my life, all I would have needed to do is tell my parents and they wouldhave gotten tis teacher fired for this action to humiliate a student...But, I knew it would do no good to tell my guardians, at the time, because they could not care less about me and my problems..So, I was forced to keep my torment inside me and it manifested itself in other ways..But I began thinking i must be some kind of a freak, or some mistake in life, or otherwise, all these kids would accept me, rather than treat me as someone to pick on and exclude from being their friend...I became withdrawn and developed an inferiority complex , and thought of myself as less than adequate...In my fifth grade class year at elementary school, I really began to lose it and my mental processes were becoming very complex and tangled and I became very frightened as to what was happeneing to me...I did not know what was happening to me...Up until this time, my thought processes seemed okay, but know i was confused and seemed to be preoccupied with trivial matter...i tried to make things right in mind, but the more I tried, the more scared I became, and more confused...I was very frightened and no one I could turn to..No one in my family understood my problem, or even cared for that matter...I am pretty certain now, however, that what was taking me over was "OCD", Obsessive, Compulsive, Disorder, which still affects me, somewhat, to this day..However, I have learned how to keep it somewhat under control, but with no help from anyone else but myself.....The kid in the second row in this photo, fifth person from the right, including the teacher, was also one of my tormenters....His name was "Bill Goodale"...Another kid who used to tease me a lot, but was a good friend of mine, anyway, a jewish kid, "Henry Lowy", who is pictured on the top row on the far right....

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