Who the Hell Is Frank Drake

Back at Nyack I was still Marc Weinstein, or rather just Weinstein. The boarding schools I attended were modeled on the British system. You weren’t in a grade, you were in a form. And no one called you by your first name. So I was Weinstein and I hated it. When roll was called it was Alcott, Holmes, Martin… and then at the rear end of the list, Weinstein and Zimmerman. Two Jews tagging along behind the wasps.

I was even then seeking a different moniker. I recall filling pages of a notebook with the name Alex Woodruff. I practiced an appropriate handwriting for this persona, which I picture as an erudite English gentleman. Only later did I realize that being Irish would be much cooler.

So I had to live with Weinstein. It followed me, like toilet paper stuck to a shoe. I tried on other names — but one doesn’t get to choose one’s name in this world.

And this remained the case through the next few schools.

The Summer of ‘74 was my summer of love. Pot, acid, and girls — and quite a lot of all three. So when my father told me he had enrolled me in a new school, I was open to the idea. And it would be co-ed.

After a brief reprise of his feelings about my hair and attire, he drove off and I got to unpacking in my new dorm room.

At Blair you fit into one of three categories. You were a greaser, a jock, or you were a freak. A gaggle of fellow freaks were walking past my room. “Hey, new kid, want to go for a walk?” I knew what a walk meant and off we went.

They took me out of the dorm and up a long path leading to the woods. Quite a way in there was a small clearing with some milk crates, and from behind a tree one of them retrieved a pipe. This pipe was a large contraption. The stem was one of those short iron pipes used to keep people off the grass — the kind with chains strung between them.

The bowl was a coconut shell thickly lined with tin foil. The top of the shell was removable and had a small hole in its center. One person would kneel and shoulder the pipe bazooka-style. A second would light the bowl, place the cap over it, and blow through the hole to feed the airflow. The recipient would sit on the ground and pull hard on the end of the stem.

You might think it was weed we were smoking. But no, it was hash. Needless to say I got tremendously stoned.

It was pretty surreal. Had they all suddenly run off and left me there, who knows how long I’d have been lost out in those woods. But no one went anywhere. The tallest of my new friends came ambling over. “Hey, what’s your name, boy?” Tex had a thick southern accent. I’m thinking, where am I? Are we not well north of the Mason-Dixon?

My name? It was on the tip of my tongue, but I could not come up with it. One doesn’t get to pick one’s name. Thereafter I might have been known as “airhead” if I didn’t recover. So, stalling for time, I told him to guess.

Without missing a beat Tex, with a confident drawl, said “You look like an Ar-Thor to me.” I immediately feigned surprise and told him he had guessed right. He proudly introduced me around. Of course he meant Arthur. But my spelling has always been atrocious, and I spelled it the way I heard him say it.

And so I became Arthor with an O.

From then on, even to my siblings — though never to Joan or Alvin — I was Arthor, or just Art. Even my children called me Art. Not dad, not pop. I must have encouraged it. I loved that Scout and Jem called their father Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird. And to this day those closest to me still call me Art.

But the Weinstein part was not as easily solved.

Years later I was talking with my sister Abbe. She had kids by then and was interested in learning about her birth parents, if only for medical history reasons. But she was nervous about asking Alvin, whom she still called dad. I was not reticent, and when he next called the topic came up. He had called to invite me for both Passover and Thanksgiving. I said yes to Thanksgiving. To Passover, and for the first time, I said no. I told him I did not enjoy the whole “chosen people” thing given our history — and oh by the way, what could he tell me about my birth parents. He was taken aback. He sheepishly told me he didn’t think he had much to offer. I’ll see what I have.

About a week later he called again. He had sent all the papers in the mail. The package should arrive soon. This time he sounded annoyed. He didn’t like what I was doing. I told him I was just curious. Wouldn’t he be curious? He came back with “You’re being the way you were the day I met you.”

There was so much I could have said. You’re really going to blame a nine month old baby for your choices? You’re sticking with that old narrative, that I was damaged goods from the start? But all I said was “This conversation is over.” And hung up.

The package arrived and revealed quite a lot. My birth mother, Judith Drake. My underage father, James Ward. And most importantly my own name: Frank Drake.

I drove down to hang with my friend Joe that night. We dropped acid and read through the papers. And in the morning I looked in the bathroom mirror. Hello Frank, where you’ve been all this time.

The band I was playing with at the time thought Frank Drake was a great bluegrass name, and we started gigging under it. Slowly it stuck.

Alvin died about eight years later. I don’t recall speaking with him again after that phone call. There was never going to be the denouement I had long rehearsed in my mind. But by then it didn’t matter anymore. By then I was Frank Drake. And with him gone I had no compunction about changing it legally.

I kept Arthor as a middle name. So you can call me Frank, and if you’re wanting to be a close friend you can give Art a try.