He attended all his schools in Elmont, Gotham Avenue Elementary, K through 6, Kindergarten through Eighth Grade, at Elmont Memorial (which was a Junior Senior High School). He went from Grades 7,8,9,10,11,and 12 in the same building and he walked there every day for all those years. He graduated High School and went to Syracuse University from which he matriculated in 1967. His favorite subject in school was History his least favorite was music.
  He came to Brentwood in September of that year and retired 37 years later. His graduate work began at C W Post and was completed at Adelphi University He achieved a Master of Arts in Secondary Education and a Master of Arts in Liberal Arts. He never aspired to an Administrative Post but was honored having been chosen Teacher of the Year in 1972 and by a POW WOW special edition in which he was named Teacher of the Year by the Honor Society for his last year of teaching.
  His earliest memory was that of riding his bike on the farms where the high school in Elmont now stands. Growing up in those days had been so much fun. Elmont was the country, it was still the suburbs but much more rural than it is now. You knew everyone on the block, kids came outside and played punch-ball, stickball, baseball. When his own kids were growing up there were no other kids playing outside and you had to pick them up and drive them to friend’s houses for arranged play dates. It’s a different world.    Born right at the end of the war, July 17th was the date of the Potsdam Conference. It was when President Truman got word that the atomic bomb had been tested successfully. The code words were “Baby Born Satisfactorily”. He always refers to that fact by saying he was the baby.
  His mother’s maiden name was Finkelstein. Both her mother and father were born in the United States. His father was born in Russia. He know what his name was, and also that it was changed to Rochester.
   His mother had a great sense of humor but Steve recalled a time when he was playing baseball and his father had been pressed into service as an umpire. Steven was thrown and called out at base. He was actually safe but his father called him out because he didn’t want to appear that he was showing even the slightest favoritism. His mother was so angry at his father that she refused to go home in the same car with him and make dinner for him that night.
   His father was an accountant and CPA in business for himself and had a lot of small independent clients. No matter the time or place he was always there for Steve. He never missed attending a game.    He knew his father’s mother but as a youngster didn’t like her that much. She seemed dominating and self centered. His father was the oldest of his generation and had to support the family when his father left He believed his grandfather had been told to leave by his grandmother. Steve’s brother liked her but Steve didn’t probably because she showed her favoritism openly for one of them over the other.
   His mother’s mother lived with them after her husband died. He never knew either of his grandfathers. He had an aunt and an uncle on his mother’s side. They were very friendly with the aunt. They had two children, one was exactly Steve’s age and one Mike’s age. His uncle who was ten years younger than his mother lived in California. He became very close to Steve after Steve’s father died and that uncle became a substitute father and a close friend to Steve. He did many different things but ended up becoming a teacher.
  Steve had entered college with the intention of studying law. He loved history and took a Constitutional Law course but he hated it. He spoke to the teacher about it who said, “so, Maybe law is not for everyone” A friend who was majoring in Social Studies education suggested Steve speak to his advisor. He did and was advised that he could still take Social Studies courses and study law. He finished student teaching and decided to get a job teaching and work for his Masters Degree at night like others did.
  He spoke of several teachers that he remembered as a student and recounted how at the urging of Eileen he looked them up and thanked them for what they had done for him. Now that he had taught for 37 years he knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of such calls and learning you made a difference in someone’s life. He loved it when he heard from former students. He appeared to tear up during the interview when he spoke of being honored by students during his final year in the classroom in Brentwood.
   His first job was as an ice cream scooper at Great Eastern Mills in Elmont. It resembled a K Mart and he said you could always tell what flavor was the favorite of the day by the color of his hand at the end of his day. Baseball was his favorite game when he was younger but as he got older it changed to basketball.
   His favorite family holiday was Passover. In his Jewish family it came in the spring and there were always many relatives at the table to celebrate that traditional holiday. His father would bring up their ping pong table from the basement to accommodate the twenty or more people who would be expected to attend. His mother particularly loved it.
  Steve will never forget the day he arrived in Brentwood after driving three hundred miles from Syracuse University to be interviewed for a position and then refused by Principal, Fred Weaver because he hadn’t registered with the Educational Placement Bureau. Steve was fortunate and so were we that Vince Presno and Milt Siler were available and agreed to interview him. They did and he was immediately hired that day.
   Coincidently, I was the very first person in the district Steve met after his interview. Several days later he came to the school and had met with Milt Siler who introduced us. He met Joe Forte right after me and before meeting Ray Cuneen who he immediately recognized as a teacher he knew from attending high school in Elmont. As a new hire he described what it was like to work in Brentwood; “It was just the greatest experience. It was unbelievable. In those early years everyone was single and lived in a house with four guys, four girls or six guys and shared housing expenses. There were parties all the time. That was the social part but the school was great. I had a lot of friends – being a teacher you had a lot of friends who were teachers in other schools.
  Brentwood has a lot of different reputations. The community now has a reputation that’s not so good but anyone you ever speak to in Brentwood says –oh, you teach in Brentwood? Everyone seems to love it there and it’s true. I loved it. I wouldn’t trade my thirty seven years for anything. Everybody likes it. There’s more camaraderie.” His experience taught him that the teachers in Ross Building were much closer to one another than the teachers in Sonderling. His rational for thinking that was ‘in the Ross there was only one room where everyone could go for safety, or to be together; the teacher’s lounge where you ate. In the Sonderling building you had two teacher’s lounges where you could eat, a Social Studies room upstairs, a Science Room upstairs, a Math Room upstairs, so nobody was together. In the Ross Building everyone was together. Everyone went to the same place and hung out together, commiserated together. They were very, very close. I made some great friends for over thirty years that I still have.” Otherwise, there was only a closet or a book room if you wanted a place for privacy. There wasn’t any other place.”