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Chapter Eight
Andries Hudde, We Salute Thee
SEPTEMBER 1956 – JUNE 1958
Wherein our author makes a choice that will affect him for a decade, at least, and takes his second major step on the path to becoming an educated member of society.
Unlike P.S. 193, which has a name now but didn’t have one when I was there (I hope that you don’t have to look to Chapter Six to refresh your memory on this important point), J.H.S. 240 had a name
bestowed on it before I arrived. It was Andries Hudde Junior High School, known to its students as, simply, Hudde (pronounced “Huh- dee,” with the emphasis on the “Huh”). If you look up Hudde today, you will learn that the junior high was named after a Dutchman who owned the land that the school was built on, 2500 Nostrand Avenue (which was between Avenues K and L, about seven short blocks from my home on East 23rd Street). If you had asked any Hudde student instead, he or she would have immediately informed you that Andries Hudde was a Dutchman who could own that land because he was a successful slave trader, a rumrunner, and a poltroon (an utter coward). It was with this knowledge in hand that I thus looked forward to the next step in my formal secular education with a great deal of pride and humility.
As I prepared to leave the comforting environment that was P.S. 193, I was looking forward with some trepidation to junior high school,
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