I told him that I was an instructor of English-a long way from being a professor.
“Your father’s a professor at Columbia?” he asked, and, when I nodded, he asked if I was, too. Al told me that contestants on “The $64,000 Question” could win that amount and on some shows they could win even more. And I’d certainly heard about the game shows, where people could win a lot of money. I didn’t have a television set in those days, but I knew that Al Freedman was in the TV business. He asked me what I thought of “Tic Tac Dough.” Freedman was about my age, suave and well dressed-certainly no bohemian, like most of my friends. I don’t remember the dinner clearly, except that at some point in the early fall of 1956 I was talking with a man named Albert Freedman, who knew a friend of mine. In addition, I was making a small fortune. I was also thought to be the ideal teacher, which is to say patient, thoughtful, trustworthy, caring. I was considered well spoken, well educated, handsome-the very image of a young man that parents would like their son to be. For fourteen weeks in the winter and spring of 1956-57, I came into millions of American homes, stood in a supposedly soundproof booth, and answered difficult questions.
