After meeting Al Sharpton for tea in Harlem yesterday, Vermont senator and insurgent Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders visited his former stomping grounds in Midwood, Brooklyn. With a CBS camera crew in tow, Sanders reminisced, like any native of Old Brooklyn worth his salt, about wiling away hours throwing a Spaldeen at a wall with no parental supervision.
Sanders grew up in a rent-controlled apartment building on East 26th Street near Kings Highway in the 1940s and '50s, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland. Talking to CBS's Scott Pelley, he recalled his mother yearning for a single-family home like the ones down the block.
"Not having enough money was a cause of constant tension," he said. "And when you are five or six years of age and your parents are yelling at each other, it's, you know—you think back on it now, you know—it's traumatic and it's hard."
Sanders attended PS 197 and James Madison High School, the latter of which is also the alma mater of Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sen. Charles Schumer, and Chris Rock. Speaking to NY1, a classmate recalled Sanders as reserved. Yet, Sanders wrote for the school paper, became class president and, while running for school president, whereas "other candidates talked about the prom, Sanders wanted to raise money for Korean War orphans."
Also, in a bit of backstory sure to set devout Berners' hearts aflutter, Sanders ran cross country and, according to his friend, "had great endurance."
Sanders's mother passed away when he was 19 and a freshman at nearby Brooklyn College. Sanders told CBS the loss affected him "Significantly. Significantly."
Sheepshead Bites reports that Sanders grabbed lunch at Memo Shish Kebab at Kings Highway and East 19th Street. This makes sense, given that Sanders eats mostly meat and vegetables—his stepdaughter Carina Driscoll told People, "He was Paleo before Paleo was a thing."
Kebab joint cashier Marianne Salatandre told Sheepshead Bites that Sanders "was a very sweet, charming man. He was beyond a gentleman."
