The Two Percent Man

A year ago I stood outside a cyclone fence that surrounded a school where I had worked for 19 years. I had taught in many of its classrooms, walked every one of its hallways, and overseen gifted and testing programs from its main office. The window to my old office was bare. All of the windows in the front of this 1920s structure were ripped out. It was being torn down. A spanking new, three level, geothermal-efficient structure had been erected next to it, and a wrecking machine had been tearing it apart. The destruction began from the rear of the building where a massive machine had been taking enormous bites out of its back. Bricks and plaster and blackboards had been dumped from the maw of the wrecking machine into dump trucks and hauled away. The only part of the building left was the stone front, with all of its windows gone. Nether Providence School, which became Strath Haven Middle School when I joined it in 1991, was now blinded.

I stood outside the protective demolition fence, with my fingers laced through its links, and stared up at the face of the 80 year old building. I shivered. It was spring and the weather was warm. And yet, I was chilled. The hairs on the back of my neck and my arms were standing straight up. There was no one else there with me. A short distance behind me was the main office of the new building, brimming with people and energy and life. But, what I was feeling was deep, dark sadness. It was not my own sadness; it was coming from the spaces where the windows had been. The life that had been clinging to the elder school was flowing out, and I could feel that ebbing loss as distinctly as I could feel the sun on my face.

It took some time for the goosebumps to leave my arms that day. Last week, I revisited the new school for the first time since I retired from the school district 10 months ago. There is now a blacktop parking lot where the old building sat. I felt nothing in the parking lot. The 80 year old building is dead.

I know that this sounds peculiar to you. A person can't feel things coming from a building. I can. And it isn't just buildings. After Kira, my rough coated collie, died, I felt her for five months by my back door. Kira used to stand by our back door when she wanted to go out into our fenced yard. She never scratched the door or whined. She simply stood there with her long nose touching the door until I felt her in some other part of the house. I used to yell, "I'm busy, Kira, you'll have to wait a minute till I get there." The family would then hear her bony elbows hit the kitchen floor when she would flop down in impatience.

In my first house, I saw a woman in the hallway when there was no one there, and twice felt a threatening presence in our bedroom. At one point, the presence hovered so close to my face that the muscles in my jaw froze up when I tried to call out. When I researched the house, I discovered that no one lived there longer than three years. I moved out, almost three years to the day, but I had nightmares for years about that house.

Not too many centuries ago, I might have been labeled a warlock and burned or stoned by the authorities. I never understood how or why I was able to feel and know the things that I could. And then  in the early 1980s, the counselors at Upper Darby High School, where I was teaching, thought it would be interesting for the 260 staff members to take the Myers Briggs Personality Test. After all the testing occurred, we would be grouped by our personality types, so that we could see who was like us and who experienced the world quite differently.

I was called to a counselor's office the day before the results were presented.

"Did I do something wrong?" I asked. I had never taken a test like this and figured I must have goofed up somehow.

"No," the counselor said. "I just wanted to give you a heads-up so that you're not surprised tomorrow when the groups are asked to come together."

 She paused and looked at me closely.

"Your personality results indicate INFJ. That stands for introverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging."

"OK, "I said. "Is that bad?"

"Not good or bad, " she said cautiously. "Just a bit.... different, is all."

"How different?"

"There are only two percent of the population who indicate this personality type," she said. "And here at the high school, there is only one other person. You will have a group of two tomorrow when the 260 staff are divided up."

I was not really surprised. I had always felt a sense of being apart from the general population. I was introverted all my life and managed to teach by clothing myself in the role of a teacher. Although I avoided loud crowds, I had strong empathy for individual people. My intuition was scary accurate, and I often knew when students and fellow staff members were sick before they realized it. I craved order and harmony around me, yet was always creating a rich inner world. Thinking and silence were (and are) my friends.

What I didn't know was that INFJs often have psychic sensitivity and that this can extend to people, things and events. Premonitions, foreknowledge, and uncanny communication skills are not uncommon. Real and fictional characters who have displayed an INFJ personality type are: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Martin Luther King, Jimmy Carter, Garry Trudeau, Nelson Mandela, Mahatema Gandhi, The Tin Man, Luke Skywalker, and Yoda.

It feels a tad lonely to only have two percent of all humans on the planet know the world as I do. I have learned, when I see and feel things, that it's best to keep them to myself. People will only smile or roll their eyes. And yet, it was Carl Jung who said, "Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."

Copyright (c) 2011 by James Hugh Comey

St. James Place

From my earliest memories to my mid twenties, I was granted entry to a fantastical world. It was a magical place of unexpected smells and sounds and tastes. It was a city of majesty and poverty that never slept. People from all over the world, speaking dozens of tongues, flocked to its streets and hotels. It ran along the Atlantic Ocean on a sandbar island with three piers that jutted out into frothy, green waters. A boardwalk ran along its white beach for seven miles, where stores sold salt water taffy in little, silver boxes shaped like suitcases and mile long hot dogs from Coney Island. Men, down on their luck, pushed the wealthy in tall, wicker, rolling chairs along two smooth sections of the boardwalk, singing out, "Watch d' chair! Watch d' chair!" Undershirted men toting heavy white cases with worn, leather, shoulder straps tramped along the beach during the day, shouting, " I've got yer Eskimo Pies. I've got yer Fudgie Wudgies. Ice cream. Come and get yer ice cream!" Boys with blue change aprons and newspapers under their arms, called out, "Read all about Frank Sinatra. Read all about Frank Sinatra," regardless of the day's news. Burly life guards sat in tall white, wooden chairs or stood by long white row boats trimmed in red and black, scanning the thousands of bathers who jammed the surf. The ocean never stopped moving, and the tide of tourists who washed into Atlantic City, New Jersey, during those 20+ years never stopped, as well.

I was not a tourist. That was an important distinction to me. My grandfather, Pop Comey, emigrated to Atlantic City from West Philadelphia before I was born. He lived on St. James Place, between New York and S. Tennessee Avenues, in a cooperative apartment house. It was just a stone's throw from the ramp to the boardwalk. He and my grandmother owned their narrow, first floor apartment, with a porch that was only four steps up from the never-ending stream of people who passed from Pacific Avenue to the Boardwalk. Just down on the right was Feeley's, an Irish bar that enjoyed melancholy singing in the wee hours of the morning that my two brothers and I could hear when its door opened and closed. Down the other end of the street, and just up Pacific Avenue, was St. Nicholas Tolentine Church, where my grandfather was an usher. The church was built in 1855. The island became Atlantic City in 1854. There was history deeply embedded in the sand in Atlantic City, and I considered myself part of it.

Every night, throughout the summers, my two brothers and I explored every foot of the boardwalk. We knew the cheapest place to get a soda (the last store heading to Captain Starn's at the inlet - five cents and 40 varieties). We stalked the demonstration vendors where pitchmen hawked spring loaded choppers that every woman needed for her kitchen. They always had food items left over and gave them away. (Ed McMahon of Johnny Carson fame was the regular at the corner of St. James boardwalk.) We knew when the peanuts had just been roasted at Planters Peanuts, just across from Steel Pier, and when the Belgian Waffles were on sale at Woolworth's, at the corner of New York Avenue. We knew the best water games to play on Million Dollar Pier and who were the honest carnies. (Charles Burchinsky - later known as Charles Bronson - worked these same games in the 1950s.) And we haunted the Italian Village in the rear of Million Dollar Pier.

It was always a carnival in the Italian Village, a roof covered section at the rear of the pier that stood thirty feet above the ocean. Glassblowers spun liquid glass into fragile, tiny animals. Men with thick arms and hairy chests pounded their fists on white dough to make pizza pie. Huge sausages and cheeses with strong smells hung near posters of Rome and Milano. Small cafes served hoagies, pepper and egg sandwiches, Nepolitan ice cream, and shaved water ices with real chunks of lemon and orange. Espresso simmered in tall chrome percolators. Mario Lanza's voice echoed nonstop in Italian and English.

We couldn't afford to buy anything in the Italian Village. We often started the night with 25 cents each. My older brother would blow his money in the first half hour in the arcade on Garden Pier. He enjoyed pinball and was especially good in shooting a bear that would roar when you hit it with a shot of light and then change direction. My younger brother would eat his way quickly through his money. Me? I had two passions. Comic books (especially Classic Comic books) and the incredible parade of people every night. Conventions were popular and changed every week. One week it was men wearing fezzes decorated with black tassels and silver, crescent swords. The next week it was the Knights of Columbus with sashes and plumes. Masons and Elks and Kawainis clubs from every state in the union proudly strutted their finery among the mass of adults and children.

We usually walked up to Convention Hall where Miss America was crowned each September, and then all the way back to the cheapest soda place, and then, on weary legs, back to St. James Place. When I returned home, I usually had a new comic, a dime left over, and a tapestry of voices and faces in my head from the strangers I had been following for blocks, before they turned off into a store or a street. Often I could not understand a word they had been saying as I strolled only a foot or so behind them. I suspected what part of Canada or Europe or Asia they were from, but I could never know. I guessed their occupations and socio-economic ranges but I could never be sure. But I was always pretty certain if they were happy or not. If they were interested in the people that were by their side. If they loved their children and their partner. Years later, I would study Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) that taught me how humans mirror behavior and establish rapport and adjust their voice and tone with those they enjoy. It made me remember three little guys who were blessed to have a boardwalk and a street named St. James Place where they could discover a fantastical world each and every night.

Note: St. James Place is located between Pennsylvania Railroad and Community Chest in Monopoly, the Parker Brothers' board game based on Atlantic City properties and utilities.

Copyright (c) 2011 by James Hugh Comey

Becoming Invisible

In the winter of 1960 I had to make a major decision. I would be completing 8th grade in June and starting high school. The decision? Where to go. I had three choices. Monsignor Bonner High School was the option for continuing my Catholic education. It was several miles and a Red Arrow trolley ride away. There was no tuition cost then. Springfield High School was the public school. It had (and still has) a good reputation, and was a yellow school bus away. School taxes covered the tuition. The third choice was to attend a private high school. None were close to me. All charged steep tuition, book costs, and activity fees. Plus, public transportation to reach them wasn't cheap and took over a hour each way.

It should have been an easy choice. Bonner and Springfield were close, with free tuition, and a quick trip both ways. Devon Prep, Malvern Prep, Archmere Academy, and St. Joseph's Preparatory High School (known as the Prep) would put a financial strain on my parents, especially since my older brother was already a sophmore there. However, there was an historical connection to the Prep. Father Dennis Comey, a Jesuit priest and cousin, founded the Institute of Industrial Relations in 1943 at the Prep. Workers from every trade in the tri-state area came to the institute to discover and use rational and ethical practices in their businesses. In 1950, President Eisenhower asked Father Dennis to serve as the arbitrator of all disputes on the Philadelphia waterfront. He had unlimited authority and often stood between hard muscled dock workers and management on the freezing docks. There were zero strikes during his tenure. His name frequently appeared in the local and national papers, as well as the Catholic Standard and Times, where he wrote a column. People often asked me, when I first met them, if I was related to the famous Father Comey.

So, with this celebrity relative who had graduated from the Prep in 1914 (and earned his doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome) and a brother already there, I applied to and was accepted at the Prep. However, the morning after my 8th grade graduation, my father told me to put on old clothes and go with him. We drove to an Esso gas station several miles away. My father introduced me to the owner. They both congratulated me on officially becoming a gas jockey. I would work days and some nights for a dollar an hour throughout the summer. I would work weekends during the winter. I would turn my paychecks over to my mother who would use them to assist with the Prep costs.

I knew nothing about pumping gas (no self serve then), or changing oil and filters, or flushing antifreeze and studding tires. I quickly learned. The work was nasty in August from the scorching engines, and freezing in January when your hand stuck to the icy gas pumps. I saw my friends often go to dances and parties when I was working. But, it was my choice and I felt proud knowing that I was following in Father Dennis's footsteps.

As time passed, however, I began to realize that I was becoming invisible. It was very subtle at first. When I approached a car that pulled up to the gas pumps in my Esso shirt, with my rag in my back pocket, I always said, "Good morning/afternoon/evening. May I help you." The driver of the car, regardless of age or sex, generally did not look at me. She/he would tell me how much gas they wanted and frequently asked me to check their oil and radiator levels. While the gas was being pumped, I would wash their front window. The driver and the people in the car rarely looked at me, even though my face was just on the other side of the windshield. After all was done, and I had them sign a charge slip or gave them change from their purchase, they usually said thanks, but they rarely looked at me.

I was confused. Here I was, a hard working kid, earning his tuition to pay for a first class education, but people wouldn't make eye contact with me. My hair was groomed and my tone was helpful. I quickly performed all of the tasks that they requested, and then cheerfully asked them to come back again. I finally asked the owner of the station why I was becoming invisible.

"People are not ignoring you to be nasty or unkind, " he told me. "You're a grease monkey when you walk up to them, not a private school kid working his tail off. They see oil stains on your shirt and smell gas on your clothes. They assume that you'll be changing tires and dumping quarts of oil into their crankcase for the rest of your life. There's a pecking order, Jim, and when you walk out there onto the gas island, you are at the very bottom of it."

I worked at the gas station for 8 years to help pay my way through the Prep and college. Along the way, I also worked as a parking attendant at the Army and Navy Games, a paint store salesman for MAB in Chester and Brookhaven, and later, when I started teaching, as a major appliance salesman at Korvette's in Springfield. At each of these jobs, there were varying degrees of invisibility. Assumptions were made about what I did, not who I was.

Ralph Ellison wrote: "I am an invisible man...I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me." It is no accident that, over the last 41 years, in all phases of my educational employment, I have become friends with the secretaries, maintanance workers, bus drivers, technicians, cafeteria servers, electricians, teaching assistants, greeters, and photocopiers, as well as the professional educators. Each has had a story to tell, a dream to be chased, and a laugh to be heard. None has deserved to become invisible.

Copyright (c) 2011 by James Hugh Comey