Newsday, Opinion, March 28, 2018
Getting Sandy Koufax’s Autograph Was Worth the Risk
By Andrew Malekoff
A painting of Sandy Koufax by Ron Stark from a photo of Koufax taken before the start the 1963 World Series, where he struck out 15 Yankees. Photo Credit: /
I am not the rabid baseball fan that I once was, but the start of a new season each year brings me back to 1963, when I was just 12. I was a Dodgers fan and much too young to have appreciated the devastating impact of the team’s 1958 move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles for so many fans.
My summertime ritual was to get up, ride my bike to buy a newspaper at the nearby candy store in my hometown of Maplewood, New Jersey. I headed right for the sports section and the box scores. If Sandy Koufax pitched the night before, my heart pounded in anticipation of the details.
Sometimes I clipped the articles for a scrapbook, spending hours with scissors, paper and Elmer’s glue.
One fall day in 1963, my father told me he had four tickets to a World Series game. The Yankees were playing the Dodgers. I did not get to see Sandy pitch, but I wasn’t disappointed. The Dodgers won 4-1, giving them a 2-0 Series advantage. Nevertheless, the excitement of being at the game and seeing my team triumphant was soon eclipsed.
As my mother, father, younger brother and I exited the ballpark in South Bronx, we passed an open garage that led back into Yankee Stadium. I peered in and spotted a bus. I stopped as my family walked on. As the metal garage door started its slow descent, I knew that this was the moment of truth.
When the garage door was about three feet from the concrete, I hit the ground, World Series program and pen in hand, and rolled inside along with a few other kids.
As a stadium door opened, the first one through was Don Drysdale, who would go on to pitch a shutout in game three. Next was Johnny Podres, who pitched that day, followed by the exciting Maury Wills, who broke all the base-stealing records in the early 1960s.
They signed the back of my program over a full-page ad for Sinclair Dino Supreme gasoline. The ad said, “Try a tankful today. Your satisfaction guaranteed — or your money back.”
I could feel my heart beat harder with each autograph. But where was Sandy?
I learned later that my parents had frantically searched for me, and that someone told them some kids had slipped under the garage door.
Finally, Sandy came through, but he boarded the bus before I could get to him. I was crestfallen.
Faced with another decision, I overcame my inhibition and climbed up the bus stairs. I asked a player sitting in front to pass my program back to Sandy. It came back with his signature. I was soon escorted out of the garage, to my parents’ great relief. I was floating on air. The glow lasted for days.
With each new season, I wonder back what that day and those precious moments and split-second decisions would have felt like if I hadn’t been in it for love, but for the money that a celebrity’s signature might bring. Later, my mom framed the front and back covers together. It hung in my bedroom for decades, well after I moved out. I took it with me to Long Beach after I got married in 1980. It’s out of the frame and I keep it in a night table drawer.
I am so grateful for that day, and for not knowing that an autograph could be worth anything more than a wonderful moment to be preserved for a lifetime.
Activists in Manhattan (Photo provided by Andrew Malekoff)
On March 24 I was proud to stand with the youth leaders of Stoneman Douglas High School and other youth activists across the U.S. As one of them said on a news broadcast, “Every voice matters.”
They demonstrated that by extending their reach to youth survivors beyond Parkland and broadened the frame to include gun violence in all domains.
Think for just a moment about the value-laden authenticity of these social justice youth warriors as compared to what masquerades as leadership in Washington D.C.
Think about Congress’s reliance on the likes of the NRA, Big Pharma and others for campaign financing and, even closer to home, the unending and sordid political corruption trials in municipalities across Long Island.
We have sunk so low in terms of greed, thirst for power and social dysfunction, that it will take our babies to save themselves.
And, some babies they are!
How long before their enemies try to delegitimize their efforts, even beyond characterizing them as inauthentic “crisis actors,” which only serves to reinforce their resolve?
How long before the tabloids attack them and attempt to rip them apart by manufacturing sordid headlines to discredit them?
How long before the NRA public relations corps attempts to marginalize them as ego-tripping puppets of the left and Hollywood elite, rather than the free-thinkers, born of trauma that they are?
How long? Not long. It’s already happening.
Their detractors cannot differentiate between the teens being resourceful in their partnering with adults and being dependent on them.
They don’t need our leadership. They’ve already eclipsed it. But, they will need soldiers of every generation to support them.
And, let us not forget that they have suffered post-traumatic injury and are grieving.
They’ve vowed not to let this go. We cannot lead or co-opt their revolution.
What we can do is follow and support or get out of the way.
Andrew Malekoff
Executive director of the nonprofit children’s mental health agency North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights www.northshorechildguidance.org
In the wake of the Parkland, Fla., shootings, state senators Elaine Phillips, Republican of Floral Park, and Todd Kaminsky, Democrat of Rockville Centre, have renewed their call for an investigation into the lack of adequate insurance coverage for mental health patients. In a letter to Department of Financial Services Superintendent Maria Vullo, the senators called on DFS to investigate the availability of mental health coverage generally, while renewing an earlier call that Vullo direct her department to examine the issue of network adequacy.
Network adequacy means that health insurance carriers will make a sufficient number of doctors available in each specialty. The two senators’ January call for an investigation into network adequacy came on the heels of a report put out by North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center that was sharply critical of the lack of mental health care in most insurance plans, including those available through the New York State of Health.
Almost half of the respondents in the North Shore report indicated that it was harder for them to find appropriate treatment options for mental health or substance abuse problems than for other medical complaints. The report was compiled as part of North Shore’s Project Access, the overall aim of which is to improve access to mental health and addictions care. Its financial support comes from the Unitarian Universalist Fund of the Long Island Community Foundation. The Community Foundation supports a number of social service initiatives.
“Simply put,” Kaminsky wrote, “those with the courage to reach out for mental health treatment are given a hard time by their insurance companies, and there are too few mental health providers. In the wake of last month’s horrific mass shooting, it is imperative that we that we ensure that those who need treatment obtain the services they require.”
“Timely and affordable mental health and addiction care should be accessible to anyone in need,” Phillips wrote in agreement. “As we saw with the tragedy in Parkland, Fla., adequate mental health treatment needs to be easily attainable.”
Respondents to the questionnaire reported a range of negative experiences, from unresponsive or unsympathetic doctors, to an insufficient number of doctors, to long waiting lists to see doctors or therapists. “I work for a school district,” wrote one respondent. (All respondents were promised anonymity.) “We work with families on a daily basis, where they cannot find a provider that will accept their insurance, or they cannot afford the copay. Personally, a family member within my household needed therapy, and we had difficulty finding a provider. And when we did, scheduling was a nightmare, because so many patients were trying to see him. I believe it was because he was one of the few willing to accept multiple insurance [plans].”
Kaminsky and Phillips have requested a review of the procedures by which state agencies assess network adequacy.
“We are living in a time where both mental health and substance abuse disorders are on the rise,” the senators wrote. “In addition, more and more young people are reporting symptoms of depression and anxiety … We are wondering if the criteria currently used may need to be re-evaluated and a re-examination done, as the law provides.”
Nancy Lane among the dynamic women chosen for the annual women’s roll of honor
Roslyn Heights, NY, March 28, 2018— In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Town of North Hempstead named North Shore Guidance Child & Family Guidance Center’s Board President Nancy Lane to its 25th Annual May W. Newburger Women’s Roll of Honor.
Nancy Lane, President of the Guidance Center’s Board of Directors, in front of the May W. Newburger Honor Roll
“Nancy Lane has been an invaluable asset to North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center for more than 30 years,” says Andrew Malekoff, Executive Director. “She first became involved in one of our parent initiatives in 1985, and was drawn to the Guidance Center’s mission of providing mental health care and substance abuse treatment for all in need in Nassau County, regardless of their ability to pay.In 1986, Nancy joined the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors, and from 1988 through 1992 served as the President of the Board of Directors. Today, she once again is our Board President. Her devotion to our mission and deep knowledge of what we do and of the community we serve make her a dynamic, effective and passionate leader.”
Left to right: Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Judi Bosworth, Guidance Center Board Nancy Lane, Town Clerk Wayne H. Wink Jr. and Town Councilwoman Dina M. De Giorgio
Nancy her husband Dr. Lew Lane have lived in Port Washington, Manhasset and Sands point for 37 years. They have two children: Manhasset residents Alexandra Lane and her husband Randy Cohn, who have a son, Josh; and Drew Lane and his wife Kristen Stokes, who live in Manhattan and have a daughter, Audrey. Nancy volunteered at her children’s school, Buckley Country Day School, for 13 years while her children attended the school. Before becoming a mother, Nancy volunteered at the Port Washington Library. As you can see, Nancy has been a true hero to the town of North Hempstead for nearly four decades.
Guidance Center Board Vice President Jo-Ellen Hazan (left), Board President Nancy Lane (center) and Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Judi Bosworth (right).
Many of the Guidance Center’s previous board and committee members have received this honor over the years, including Susan Isaacs, Lilo Leeds, Joan Saltzman, Amy, Hagedorn, Sondra Pardes, Irene E. Hylton, Jane Schwartz, Heather Schwartz and current board vice president Jo-Ellen Hazan.
About Us:
As the preeminent not-for-profit children’s mental health agency on Long Island, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is dedicated to restoring and strengthening the emotional well-being of children (from birth – age 24) and their families. Our highly trained staff of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, vocational rehabilitation counselors and other mental health professionals lead the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, research and advocacy. The Guidance Center helps children and families address issues such as depression and anxiety; developmental delays; bullying; teen pregnancy; sexual abuse; teen drug and alcohol abuse; and family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma and divorce. For more than 60 years, the Guidance Center has been a place of hope and healing, providing innovative and compassionate treatment to all who enter our doors, regardless of their ability to pay. For more information about the Guidance Center, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org or call (516) 626-1971.
The traditional picture of therapy is of a social worker, psychologist or other mental health professional sitting in a chair and taking notes on a pad as the client speaks about his or her challenges. Talk therapy is, indeed, an important tool, but therapy comes in many forms.
One method we use at North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center to encourage our clients to express themselves and help them understand their feelings is through the use of art.At our Marks Family Right From the Start 0-3+ Center (RFTS), art in its many forms is often used with our youngest clients.
“Children sometimes find it scary to express themselves early on in therapy,” explains Dr. Sue Cohen, Director of Early Childhood and Psychological Services at RFTS. “This is especially the case for children with limited vocabularies for various reasons. Children are more comfortable drawing a picture than responding to questions. Through drawing or other art mediums, a child can visually express and record his or her experiences, feelings and imagination.”
In addition to providing a creative way to deal with tough issues that young children might face, art can help reduce stress. “At Right From the Start,” says Dr. Cohen, “we use many forms of creative expression, from traditional painting, markers and crayons to storytelling with thumbprints and expressive positive statements written in chalk on the sidewalk. The walls of the play therapy offices are filled with the artwork of young children who are proud to see their productions displayed week after week.”
Using art is also a great way to get teens to open up. When two of our teen groups were given the opportunity to express themselves through art, they took to the challenge whole-heartedly.
Guidance Center social worker Amanda Martin-Squillace, along with social worker Brooke Hambrecht, chose art as the means to allow two of their teen groups to express themselves in a joint project using the techniques inspired by modern master Jackson Pollack. “I chose Pollack because his style shows that in seeming creative chaos, something beautiful can happen,” says Martin-Squillace. “It’s like in the therapeutic process, where you can have catharsis, just like with art.”
The two groups were given cups of varied colored paints (all donated by Ace Hardware in Rockville Centre), and the social workers demonstrated Pollack’s technique of tossing and dripping paint onto large canvasses. “The kids were hesitant at first,” says Martin-Squillace, “but when they saw Brooke and I throw the paint on the 6-foot by 9-foot canvas, they let loose and really got into it.”
The result—a large mural called “Life’s Layers” —was truly amazing. “It’s a magnificent piece, and the teens were really excited and proud of it,” says Martin-Squillace. “They felt very accomplished when they saw what they had created.”
This project is a great example of how using the arts can have great benefits for those working through mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety. “Therapy isn’t just about talking,” says Martin-Squillace. “It’s also using creative outlets to express and process emotions. We always talk about coping mechanisms with the kids, and a lot of them use technology like television, gaming and social media. This experience gave them a snapshot of other ways to use creative outlets to help self-soothe.”
