by Judith R. Robinson (November 2025)
In the late 1950s, I was a lonely adolescent, full of intensity and heavily laden with secrets. I was small for my age, chubby, and very near-sighted, so I wore glasses.
The other side of our double house was rented by my parents to a group of four “junior executives.” These were young, recently graduated college men employed in corporate first jobs in Pittsburgh, the city of big steel, coal and aluminum companies.
It is a challenge to describe how the coming of Bill, Nelson, Brian and Dan impacted the lives of my family and me. They were the kind of people who existed only in drama or in fiction, especially to my sister, Shoshanna, and me. Young, handsome, and decked out in tailored gabardine and tweed, they may as well have been movie stars. Also worth mentioning: they were very pleasant, always smiling, always polite.
“Well-bred,” according to my mother. My mother, almost as much as Shoshanna and I, was charmed.
We rarely went anywhere in the summers back then. This wasn’t a complaint as we had no expectation of anything other than the fun of freedom from school. And we did have fun. Bikes and tar-baby stop and dodge ball and hide and seek and the ice-cream truck at dusk made for happiness.
Our interaction with the junior executives was limited to sitting on the porch and listening to them chat with our parents or once in a while showing them something we created, something we painted or made out of clay. Twice they shared a picnic with our family in our back yard.
Of the four of them Nelson Forker and Bill Clemons were our favorites. They were the two most present, the others traveled or just weren’t around quite as much. Nelson and Bill, one of them worked at Alcoa, the other at US Steel. They chatted, we were the rapt audience. They smiled, we swooned.
As ridiculous as it now sounds, Shoshanna and I decided that Bill was mine and Nelson was hers. In our endless imaginings we did it all—beautiful and blessed with Nelson and Bill, never for a moment bored and madly in love, we danced, traveled, engaged in hijinks with many other sophisticates and fancy people.
So the summer went by. We had dreamed and played until suddenly it was Labor Day. It had been wonderful but it was over. There was nothing to do but accept it and we did. Somehow, in the way of youngsters, we complained but did not mourn. Going back to school was less painful than saying goodbye to our junior executives who were also leaving. Where they were going, and why, we either didn’t know or I have since forgotten.
I recall standing on the porch watching all four of them, surrounded with shiny brown leather luggage, shaking hands with our mother. I think they smiled and waved at us and then were suddenly off in two yellow cabs.
I did stand and watch the cabs drive up our street and turn at the top of the hill and disappear. I remember feeling something move down my chest and into my stomach, something I had never quite felt before, something I could not give a name to. Shoshanna tugged at my arm. Her face was twisted up and I could see she was trying not to cry. I gave her a little shove and told her not to be such a jerk.
On the first weekend after school started, Mother took some cleaning supplies and trash bags next door. There would be new tenants coming and we went along to help clean up.
To my mother’s dismay, there was garbage in the guys’ bedrooms. Papers scattered everywhere, empty liquor and beer bottles, filled ashtrays, abandoned dirty clothes, including socks and even some underwear. And it smelled lousy.
But Shoshanna and I were more fascinated than repelled. We fell upon the papers, thrilled to find personal letters. I wish I remembered the details of some of the notes that were from girls, but I don’t. The reason is that I will never forget the letter to Bill Clemons from his mother. It has stayed with me my whole life and is the reason I am writing this memoir now.
The stationary was elegant, something I had never seen before, light blue with a dark blue border. Printed at the top of the page was the name
Polly Clemons
Dear Bill,
I can imagine how hard things have been, what with the new job and trying surroundings. Dad and I miss you and are glad you’ll be home soon, if only for a while. Nothing else is new, weather has been good for outings but unfortunately the Inn is full of Jews.
Love,
Mom
This is a true story. I am a Jewish woman and this account reflects my attempt at making sense of this first, shocking exposure to anti-semitism.
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Judith R. Robinson is an editor, teacher, fiction writer, poet and visual artist. A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, she is listed in the Directory of American Poets and Writers. She has published 100+ poems, five poetry collections, one fiction collection; one novel; edited or co-edited eleven poetry collections. Teacher: Osher at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. This
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3 Responses
That was a harsh reveal. Perhaps he left not as prejudiced as his mother, though it sounds as though he was the instigator of her comment.
If the Bill’s mom’s Inn hadn’t been “full of Jews” perhaps Bill’s mom’s Inn would have been forced to close and she would have been poverty stricken.
And Bill’s mom, being an idiot, would have said to her unfortunate son, “We lost the Inn because the Jews didn’t come.”
Anti-semites are nasty and dumb as rocks.
Take heart, Judy. Wither Israel, so go we all. Jewish values are the building blocks of Western civilization.