Schech's Place: Introduction to Bill Schechter

My mother was a secretary turned poet. My father was a cutter and pattern
maker in the garment industry. He became a sculptor. My brother was a
"news dissector." Met and married a journalist who became a labor organizer.
Had two wonderful sons, still in school, who became...well, they are still
becoming.

Worked as a high school history teacher at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High
School, in Sudbury, Mass., for 35 years. A public school, and a
progressive one. Met many great people. There I got involved in a few
projects and issues (from anti-apartheid to anti-standardized testing.)
Mostly, I was "pro" about things, especially my students. There I was also
allowed to lose myself in the history that had been my life-long passion.
Did some family history. Read Whitman and his Leaves. Crossed Staten
Island Ferry. Taught about the 50's & 60's. Took students down Deep South.
Read Kerouac with students. Read "Howl" to students.Listened to Dylan.
Listened some more. Later developed an interest in Thoreau...a neighbor
just down the road. Helped to build a cabin he might recognize.

Along the way I wrote some poems...

And that's about it-so far.

Stuff
	1) Excerpt from the song "Cool Change" from the movie, Bronx Tale.
	2) The Yankees: Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Joe DiMaggio, Casey Stengel. My heroes still. I won a few stickball games making believe I was them.
	3) The great DeWitt Clinton High School on Mosholu Parkway, in the Bronx. It was then all-boys, huge, and fabled. Frankie Lyman was just one of our many illustrious alumni. Strangely, I would later teach DeWitt Clinton VI.
	4) In 1995, I returned with my family to the "rail." I spent many years sitting on the metal rails that used to run through this stone fence, and have a permanent dent in my rear to prove it.
	5. This is the first antiwar demonstration at Cornell in the spring of 1965. That's me, 9th person in the rear row. Maybe a magnifying glass will help. (Probably not).
	6. My mother, Ruth Lisa Schechter, poet. Her papers can be found in the Special Collections Archive, Boston University, and at: http://ruthlisaschechter.tripod.com
	7. My father, Jerry Schechter. Also affectionately known as "the Sarge." He sculpts and can fix just about anything. Dislikes throwing anything out. That's his noble dog, Truly, with him.
	8. Danny Schechter, the "News Dissector." Still writing, agitating, and fighting for human rights, a veteran of of many movements for social justice. Check him out at mediachannel.org and at newsdissector.org/dissectorville/
	9. Sandy Shea, my companion, my partner, my wife, a labor organizer who works hard to help make the world a better place, Here she is shown fighting successfully to save her union at Boston Medical Center.
	10. Here are my two favorite guys, my sons Ethan and Jamie Schechter. They are the best.
	11. Where I work: Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. (In June, 2004 the building is slated to be demolished.)
	12. For more Lincoln-Sudbury murals, see the mural archive
	13. Where would I be without my anti-MCAS button? I never leave home without it.
	14. Walt Whitman.
	15. Check out the web presentation about this trip here
	16. Jack Kerouac.
	17. A most influential poem. I like getting lost in it. We all have a Howl or two inside of us- or should.
	18. Bob Dylan, my favorite Tambourine Man.
	19. Henry David Thoreau. He lived a cabin just five miles down the road from the school.
	20. At Lincoln-Sudbury, we decided to build a cabin of our own.

Website by Altolus Digital

Stuff