According to one account of the New York City schools during the 1950s: The teacher could not technically hit the child, but the old crones found ways of skirting the rules. The push-probe-pull method was popular, in which the teacher would not hit you, but would poke you with her gnarled, witch-like fingers and grab your face like a taffy pull until you screamed. ... The pull-and-choke was also a favorite. It was executed by pulling the compulsory necktie up like a noose, until the errant boy's face turned the school colors.

According to one account of the New York City schools during the 1950s: The teacher could not technically hit the child, but the old crones found ways of skirting the rules. The push-probe-pull method was popular, in which the teacher would not hit you, but would poke you with her gnarled, witch-like fingers and grab your face like a taffy pull until you screamed. ... The pull-and-choke was also a favorite. It was executed by pulling the compulsory necktie up like a noose, until the errant boy's face turned the school colors.

My son has been a class clown and it sort of ran in the family.

The `50s were terrifying with nuclear bomb stuff but boring in a social way and then the `60s were happening, and remember, there was no AIDS.

[T]he Super Bowl, the quintessential American creation. A dizzying mélange of brilliant entrepreneurship in an atmosphere of intense competition. It is the perfect show for the most intensely competitive culture in this solar system.

I was in the De Witt Clinton Hight School marching band. One of the worst bands ever formed. When we played the national anthem, people from every country stood - except Americans.

I learned more at The Second City than I did at Yale for all that high tuition.